CIMVHR Forum 2024
Every year, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR) hosts an annual international forum that brings together hundreds of researchers, policy makers, service providers, peer support organizations and intermediary organizations to present the latest research focused on military and Veteran health and mental health.
The Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families will be participating at CIMVHR Forum 2024 with the goal of continuing to strengthen our networks and exploring potential collaborations both nationally and internationally. At the same time, we aim to share information and raise awareness about our research in the Veteran and Family mental health and well-being space. A key focus for us at the CIMVHR Forum 2024 will be to continue advocating for the practice of bringing the lived experiences of Veterans and their Families forward in conversations about issues that affect them.
This year, Atlas will again be working to ensure that lived experience is represented at CIMVHR Forum 2024 by offering a limited number of travel grants to Veterans and Veteran Family members in our network.
If you are attending CIMVHR Forum 2024, we invite you to visit our booth and attend our symposiums, podium and poster presentations to learn more about how, together, we are bridging the gap between research and practice to create positive change for Veterans and Families across Canada.
To access the full schedule of events, including locations, visit the CIMVHR Forum website.
Poster presentations
- Presenter: Victoria Carmichael, MSc, Senior Knowledge Mobilization Specialist, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: This poster will summarize specific tools and strategies that have been and will be used to share an evidence-informed youth mental health education hub (MindKit.ca) with key organizations and individuals across Canada. This presentation could be useful to inform knowledge dissemination activities by researchers, individuals or organizations.
Podium presentations
- Presenter: Jonathan Lieberman, BSc, PhD student, Neuroscience, McMaster University, under the supervision of Andrew Nicholson, PhD
- Summary: This presentation will examine how biological sex influences brain connectivity in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Females and males with PTSD showed distinct patterns in brain connectivity, suggesting that biological sex plays a significant role in how PTSD affects the brain. This research highlights biological sex as a critical consideration for understanding and treating PTSD.
- Presenter: Robin Dziekan, Network and Partnerships Lead, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: Two initiatives were launched with the aim of informing Atlas on the current state of public policy work related to Veteran and Family mental health and well-being, including a series of consultations with 14 peer organization and an environmental scan of the public policy landscape.
Symposiums
- Presenter: Andrew Nicholson, PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, and Clinical Research Director, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: Researchers investigated the use of neurofeedback (NFB) as a method by which to directly and non-invasively regulate altered brain activity in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), finding that NFB resulted in normalized brain activity, as well as significantly improved PTSD symptoms.
- Presenter: Gray Gaudett, Research Assistant, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: This study looked at how social support relates to depression in aging Canadians. The sample consisted of 48,663 aging Canadians who participated in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. Results show that social support relates to depression differently in Veterans (compared to non-Veterans) and in younger (compared to older) Veterans.
- Moderator: MaryAnn Notarianni, Deputy CEO and Executive Vice President of Knowledge Mobilization, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: This symposium aims to help participants be able to identify opportunities to engage Veterans and Family members in the work they do as well as the best practices related to engaging with them.Full list of presentations included within this symposium:
- Working with women Veterans to generate evidence to support women Veterans
- Presenter: Kate Hill MacEachern, PhD, Senior Research Associate, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: Using an ongoing community-engaged research project for Canadian women Veterans as an example, this presentation will discuss how engaging a working group of community members in the research process can lead to research that is more meaningful and more useful to those who rely on evidence to make decisions.
- Engaging Veterans with lived experiences of PTSD and their Families in co-development capacities
- Presenter: Ashlee Mulligan, Director, Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: This presentation, anchored in the Atlas Institute Veteran and Family engagement framework, will provide a foundational definition of Veteran and Family engagement within the mental health sector in Canada, along with related engagement principles and success strategies that can be implemented by researchers and intermediary organizations.
- Lived expertise engagement within a co-Principal Investigator research model: Parts 1 and 2
- Presenters: Laryssa Lamrock, National Strategic Advisor, Families, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families (part 1) and Brian McKenna, CD, National Strategic Advisor, Veterans, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families (part 2)
- Summary: Two studies have piloted a novel approach to research through integrating lived expertise as co-Principal Investigators. One delves into the experiences faced by military Families and the other explores the personal experience of resilience within specialized military service. Lived expertise enriches research design, execution and interpretation, fostering empathy and cultural sensitivity.
- Principles and strategies for co-creating knowledge products on potentially sensitive topics in virtual environments with Veterans and Family members
- Presenter: Victoria Carmichael, MSc, Senior Knowledge Mobilization Specialist, Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families
- Summary: This presentation summarizes the processes, principles and strategies used to effectively engage community members on potentially sensitive topics in virtual environments. The presentation will highlight two examples of virtual co-creation resource development projects (suicide and military sexual trauma), which were informed by participatory design, trauma-informed and strengths-based approaches.
- Working with women Veterans to generate evidence to support women Veterans
