Health Research Symposium 2024

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Evidence, collaboration, and resources for healthier children and families.

New Brunswick Social Pediatrics

New Brunswick Social Pediatrics (NBSP) is a network of clinicians, researchers, community service providers, volunteers, and families working to improve the quality of life, health, and long-term outcomes of children and their families. This interdisciplinary team combines clinical, academic, and community-level expertise to optimize services, conduct research, and impact health outcomes.

NBSP is comprised of a Clinical Team that provides holistic care to children with behavioural, social, and academic needs It includes a Community Team that supports parents facing major barriers related to poverty, substance use, and trauma, a Research Team that oversees research initiatives, policy analysis, and data infrastructure, and finally, an Operations Team that handles administration, marketing, financials, and general oversight. Collaboratively, these teams support our 5 Pillars: Tailored Services for Children and Families, Community Programming, Research and Policy Analysis, Mentorship, and Advocacy.

The Research Team works with clinical and academic leads to design and implement relevant research projects, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The team also manages a large data platform that supports NBSP work, as well as the Communities Acting on Research Evidence (CARE) Database. CARE is a resource for community organizations to collect, store and analyse client data. Policy analysis has provided a new lens and additional tools for making meaningful change in child health.

Serve parents and children

NBSP serves diverse populations of children and parents directly through our various programs and services, and indirectly through our partnering agencies.

Track patient outcomes to understand trends

NBSP has established research registries to track and monitor patient/client outcomes, to understand community trends and changing needs, and to facilitate data linkage to administrative datasets at NB-IRDT for more in depth analysis.

Global positive impact

NBSP has been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally for creating positive change and impacting demonstrable outcomes for children and families.

Improving Community Health Outcomes

NBSP is an interdisciplinary team that combines clinical, academic, and community-level expertise to optimize services, conduct research, and impact health outcomes.

Mother posing with infant

Community Programming

Creative Expressions is an eight-week program that supports the social and emotional wellness of children and youth. Children learn how to better understand their emotions and express their feelings through art, while building healthy coping strategies, and creating connections with peers.

Cooking Up Justice combines cooking classes with education on gender-based violence (GBV) for teens. Each week, youth learn a new recipe, discuss important issues, and are sent home with the ingredients to prepare the meal at home. The intention of the program is to disrupt cycles of GBV within our community by building understanding about gender roles, healthy relationships, and consent. This is done while preparing and sharing a meal together.

Strengthening Families is an adapted program designed for families with infants and young children that supports attachment, parenting approaches and social emotional wellbeing for new parents.

Tailored Services

The Pediatrics on Princess (POP) Centre treats children with social-emotional, behavioural, and academic referrals, who also encounter barriers related to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), poverty, toxic stress, trauma. The team assesses and mitigates barriers in five categories: health and medical needs; family and home environment; personal development; school and learning; and socio-cultural enrichment.

The Parent-Child Assistance Program (PCAP) is a unique program that provides personalized support to women/birthing people who use substances during pregnancy and experience major barriers by pairing them with an Advocate for three years. Advocates work with clients to identify, set, and achieve their goals. Together, Advocates and clients navigate complex systems, connect with community resources, and build the client’s personal assets and autonomy to ensure a healthy environment for their families.

Mentorship

The NBSP team also provides mentorship to students from many disciplines through internships, placements, summer employment, and academic research projects. Students may conduct an independent research project, be hired for specific projects, or complete academic placements. Working with NBSP allows them to gain experience and build their skillsets, while being exposed to the social determinants of health, an important addition to their training. The students bring amazing energy, and we learn so much from them too!

Advocacy

As conditions become more challenging, and moving the needle on outcomes more difficult, we have been forced to look beyond our own services to understand the global factors impacting children and families. This includes discrediting misinformation, listening to the needs of those we serve, and amplifying their voice through several initiatives:

Working with government to inform policy that protects the rights of children.
Advocating for services and supports to help keep families together.
Researching best practices, policy implications, and outcomes to inform policy recommendations in the best interest of children and families.