Table 1 Research projects involving organizational partnership

Readiness Support Project

2013-present

The Readiness Support Project grew from a program of research conducted in partnership with KidsAbility, a Children’s Treatment Centre in Ontario Canada. This program aims to improve attendance and engagement in children’s rehabilitation services by co-developing, implementing and evaluating changes in service delivery that reduce barriers to service use and improve equity in service delivery

The organizational partners included a parent, who facilitated communication and involvement with other parents as needed (e.g., document review), multiple clinicians, and an organizational manager who fulfilled the role of knowledge broker

Patient-Reported Outcomes for Strengthening Partnership on Early Intervention Care Teams (PROSPECT) Project

2016-present

Patient-Reported Outcomes for Strengthening Partnership in Early intervention Care Teams (PROSPECT) is the latest phase of work for an organizational research partnership that has focused on improving family-centered and participation-focused service design and research for quality improvement of early intervention services. PROSPECT has examined the effectiveness and implementation of the Participation and Environment Measure (PEM) electronic assessment, when paired with a program-specific decision support tool, for strengthening service design and quality program improvement targeting children 0–3 years with developmental needs and their families. An extension of PROSPECT is examining the effectiveness and implementation of the PEM electronic assessment together with its companion goal setting application, for a similar purpose

This study involves partnership with one community organization

Partnering for Change

2008-present

Partnering for Change (P4C) is the name of both an innovative, evidence-informed model that guides the delivery of tiered rehabilitation services in schools and the program of research focused on its implementation and evaluation. Created by researchers at CanChild, P4C was developed and tested using a participatory action research process involving key stakeholders from government, health care decision-makers, occupational therapists, service provider organizations, schools, and families. The goals of P4C include early identification of children with special needs; building capacity of educators and families to understand and manage children’s needs; preventing secondary consequences associated with children’s unmet needs; and improving children’s ability to participate successfully at school

Over the lifespan of the program of research, the P4C team has partnered with 13 different health care organizations who provide occupational therapy services in schools, 39 occupational therapists, 13 school districts, 60 schools as well as the three government ministries that fund the services and the research. Each organization identifies designated representatives who collaborate with the research team via working groups and steering committees