Each year, VHA Home HealthCare (VHA) invests in the future of home care research by supporting graduate student researchers and through clinician-focused programs that offer therapists, nurses and personal support workers the opportunity to develop their research skills.

As our current fellows stride ahead with their new research projects, here is an overview of the Fellowship Class of 2022-2023.

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Graduate Research Award Recipients

The Graduate Research Award sponsors promising young scientists to diversify research capacity and expertise in the home and community sector. Each year, VHA co-funds up to three graduate students whose work is aligned with the strategic vision of VHA Research: Better Care, Safer Teams and A More Connected System. Our 2022 Graduate Fellows are:

Tyler Redublo, MHSc Candidate Translational Research Program | University of Toronto

Tyler is a second-year Master’s student in the Translational Research Program at the University of Toronto. His Master’s research is focused on identifying the barriers and facilitators to social connectedness of young caregivers (aged 18-24 years) of people living with dementia. Additionally, by applying co-design processes, he aims to meaningfully engage young caregivers in the development of interventions to support their needs. Acknowledging and incorporating caregivers into the research process can inform the development of person centered, impactful resources for this population. Moreover, access to these resources can improve the quality of life for young caregivers, as well as the provision of care to dementia communities.

VHA Research Area of Focus: Better Care
Find Ty on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/tyler-redublo-6757931b7

Danielle Knipping, RN
MSc Nursing Candidate | Western University

Danielle Knipping is an MScN candidate at Western University’s Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing. Her research interests include investigating and improving the delivery of home- and community-based services to better meet the needs of diverse clientele. Her research focuses on understanding how home- and community-based healthcare professionals develop therapeutic relationships with diverse clients to identify areas of strength and ways to improve the safety and experiences of diverse clients using these services. She aims to empower healthcare providers to utilized evidence-informed tools and frameworks to support their work with diverse clients to improve the uptake of home- and community-based services and support improved health outcomes in these clients.

VHA Research Area of Focus: Better Care

Anna C. Reed BSW, MSW, RSW
PhD Candidate IHPME | University of Toronto

Anna Reed is a social worker and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Anna’s work and research interests include aging care, staffing policies in home and long-term care, as well as emergency medicine. Anna’s doctoral research explores the experiences of personal support workers who hold multiple jobs. Specifically, her research focuses on why personal support workers engage in this practice and what impact it has on their lives inside and outside of work. Anna hopes this research will   contribute to improved staffing policies in the home and community care sectors.

VHA Research Area of Focus: Safer Teams
Find Anna on Twitter: @AnnaCR_Studies

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Champions of Change Interprofessional Fellowship

Designed and run by the Research & Innovation and the Quality, Best Practice & Education teams at VHA, the Champions of Change program provides current point-of-care nursing and personal support workers an opportunity to work together to design and implement a quality improvement project related to VHA’s strategic priorities. This year’s initiative will focus on improving the experiences of clients and families in preparing for the discharge phase of service.  In our recent client experience survey, some of our clients said that they did not feel ready for services to end. The Champions of Change team will work with nursing and personal support clients and VHA providers to understand how we can better prepare and support clients who are being discharged, design an intervention, and evaluate its impact on clients’ discharge experiences.

Our 2022 Champions of Change fellows are:

Behrouz Bagheri, PSW

Behrouz is an Internationally Trained Medical Doctor and orthopedic surgeon who has practiced in various healthcare fields, and he has completed several educational courses in Canadian colleges.

Sumathi Parama Thayanithi, RN

Sumathi has been a Child & Family visiting nurse with VHA for the past five years. I graduated from Nursing in 1994 and worked for about 15 years in the hospital in various units.

“I am excited to participate in the Champions of Change Interprofessional Fellowship Program! I believe this opportunity will be a steppingstone for me to familiarize myself with developing, implementing, and evaluating a quality improvement project. I am eager to learn, contribute my ideas and work with the research and innovation team at VHA.” 

Vilma-Imeda Dunuan, PSW

Vilma has been working with VHA for 8 years as a PSW and as a PSW Preceptor. She chose this path as she believes that helping others heartily is her calling which has been inspired by her grandmother and mom.

 “I believe that every day is a challenge but a learning process especially when we have new clients as every client is unique. I trust that joining the Champion of Change Interprofessional Fellowship Program will help me open and connect to new ideas, identifying and understanding better the continuity of the needs or care of our clients and share with my colleagues the innovative best approach of quality of care the program introduces.”

Learn more about VHA’s Research & Innovation by visiting https://www.vha.ca/research.