Quotable Quotes

Testimonies from around the world

  Historically, silos of information have been created in the field of health service delivery to children, youth and families with special needs, widening the gap between health providers and the communities they serve, available research data and the acquisition of new knowledge.

CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research has established a highly effective mechanism for knowledge translation, by recognizing and implementing accessible, practical and innovative communication strategies to meet the needs of interdisciplinary health professionals, as well as families of children and youth with special needs.

CanChild is recognized by the Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres (CAPHC) as a model and leader in Knowledge Translation. CanChild's more recently established "Intranet", will serve as the "corner stone" for meeting the needs of families, clinicians, researchers and decision-makers as a national "community of practice".

Elaine Orrbine
CEO, Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres
Ottawa, Canada

  Child Health Research in children with disabilities has made tremendous strides in the past 20 years. None of it would have been possible without the seminal efforts of the productive research and educational enterprise that is CanChild. I do not exaggerate. Their work in the development of measurement tools appropriate for use in children with disabilities and special needs has led the world. The tools themselves (e.g. GMFM, GMFCS, CAPE among others) have become indispensable to investigators throughout the world, myself included. However, in many ways it is the dissemination of these tools and the concurrent education of investigators that have made CanChild unique and has led to its worldwide impact on Child Health Research. CanChild as an entity, and its individual investigators, have been remarkably generous and effective in sharing their experience with others (through their manuscripts, books, presentations, and remarkable website).

As further research around the globe leads to enhanced health for children with disabilities and their families, I am certain that the work of CanChild and its translation into practice will be in the "thick of it." Their innovative and ever expanding body of work continues to encourage, motivate, and equip all of us in Child Health Research.

Richard D. Stevenson, M.D.,
Director of Clinical Research, Department of Pediatrics
University of Virginia School of Medicine, USA

  CanChild has had a significant impact on our care for children, our research on childhood disability and on our education of pediatricians, pediatric physiotherapists and medical students. CanChild researchers have developed highly valuable instruments measuring not only motor function and its classification, but also instruments measuring parent's opinion about our care, by that tailoring our interventions and parental support. They have been and still are the shining example of how to perform research that is meaningful to children and their parents and how to bring results of those efforts to the attention of researchers and caretakers.  I have come across CanChild's work through seminars and conference papers in Canada, the US, as well as in the Netherlands, through an enormous amount of published papers in highly respected international Journals and the fact sheets of CanChild's website.

CanChild was our professional role model when we started NetChild, an academic research institute on Childhood Disability in the Netherlands.

Paul J.M. Helders, MSc, PhD, PCS
Professor and Chair of Pediatric Physiotherapy
Utrecht University, The Netherlands

 
  In the past decade it has been impossible to work in the field of childhood disability and be unaware of the outstanding work of the CanChild group of researchers. CanChild's knowledge, expertise and conceptual thinking have been ably communicated through frequently cited journal publications, training manuals and other materials posted on their website. These formal methods have been strategically supplemented through their willingness to present at a range of related conferences, informal networking and attentive use of email.  My own experience has also been enriched by spending time as a visiting student at CanChild where I was made to feel very welcome and my learning was tremendously well supported at an individual level.

Chris Morris, MSc DPhil
Research Fellow, Department of Public Health & Wolfson College, University of Oxford and Principal Orthotist, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford, UK

  I had the privilege of visiting CanChild a few years ago. During this visit I learned of the wide range of research topics and the numerous measures developed there. What impressed me most was one of the main focuses of CanChild, namely working within the community and their outreach to the community. Since then, I've made a point of notifying my students, as well as clinicians, of the rich and helpful educational material and measures that were developed at CanChild and that can be found on CanChild's website. Moreover, the idea of an academic setting serving the community has since become one of my major goals. Thank you to the dedicated staff of CanChild for their wonderful hospitality and continuing support of our research. 

Naomi Weintraub, PhD. OTR
Deputy Chair, School of Occupational Therapy
Hadassah and the Hebrew University, Israel

  The CanChild team of investigators and collaborators serve as international role models for the effective transfer of new knowledge to key stakeholders. They use highly innovative methodologies to disseminate evidence both to front-line clinicians and to consumers of health services. Furthermore, they have undertaken several research projects to test the best strategies to ensure effective uptake and use of new knowledge by health professionals and families.

Annette Majnemer, PhD, OT(C), Professor
School of Physical & Occupational Therapy
McGill University, Canada

  CanChild has for many years produced multidisciplinary research, really making a difference for clinical work as well as research. For us, maybe the most important work has been on the client centred, task oriented approach to rehabilitation, with a starting point from the children's/families own goals, quality of life and participation. CanChild studies we often refer to relate to aspects of assessments, e.g. the overview of assessments in All about outcomes and the tests GMFM and MPOC which are frequently used in Sweden, as well as the GMFCS. To this can be added important studies evaluating treatment approaches like NDT and the thoroughly theoretically and practically based CO-OP model of treatment.  The interest in Sweden for trying the new tools PEGS and CAPE is great. No other single research unit we know of has produced research with such a broad perspective with direct clinical implication to pediatric rehabilitation as well as innovative concepts and products, all easily found through the informative web-site.

Lena Krumlinde-Sundholm, PhD OT,
Neuropediatric Research Unit, Karolinska Institutet, and Children's Habilitation Services,Stockholm, Sweden.

  The information on the CanChild website is excellent and constitutes an invaluable resource for my students and the many families we work with at the university clinic.

Livia C. Magalhaes, PhD, OTR
Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy
Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

  CanChild is the premier international research group that directs their efforts on research and dissemination for children with disabilities, their families and rehabilitation providers.  I can think of no other collaborative group that has had more impact on changing assessment and clinical practice than CanChild. They have set the worldwide standard for outreach and dissemination in the area of childhood wellness and disability.

Stephen M. Haley, PhD, PT
Associate Director, Health & Disability Research Institute
Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences
Boston University, USA

  The Perceived Efficacy and Goal Setting system has changed the type of therapy I deliver and made me listen to what children want from occupational therapy. I frequently use the CanChild website as the best resource to keep me up to date on research in the field of children's disability. A big thank you to all who work there.

Carolyn Dunford, Clinical Specialist/Research Occupational Therapist,
Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust and Cardiff University of Wales College of Medicine,
Wales, UK

  I am writing in the name of the specialists, working at Children Department at the Institute for Rehabilitation. After so much work and cooperation (with CanChild) I can hardly put that in few words how much we appreciate this. I can say that in last several years members of CanChild helped us a tremendously in adaptation of new approaches in the field of evaluation of abilities and disabilities of children with cerebral palsy. It is very important for our work and for our children. Our planning of the rehabilitation programmes is more precise and evaluation of children's disabilities more objective. The CanChild members are always there to help and I know they will be there in the future.

Katja Groleger Sršen, MD, MSc
Inštitut RS za rehabilitacijo,
Slovenia

  In my clinical work and research with children who have learning or motor coordination problems, I regularly refer teachers, parents and therapists to the CanChild website for readable, useful materials on children's development and learning. Cheryl Missiuna's booklet on Developmental Coordination Disorder and many of the "Keeping Current" publications are used often at the Alberta Children's Hospital and in the community of Calgary.

While recently developing a presentation on developing the skills of the clinician researcher, I referenced the CanChild website several times for materials on evidence based practice, critical review and relevant clinical research questions. The ease in which clinicians  "surf" that website and obtain effective publications is notable.

Brenda N Wilson, MS, OT(C)
Clinical Research Coordinator, Decision Support Research Team,Calgary Health Region
University of Calgary, Canada
 

  The most common website book-marked under "Favorites" at my organization - Handikapp & Habilitering, Stockholm, Sweden - is CanChild Center for Childhood Disability Research! The research focus of the CanChild team is (and has been for many years) of great interest to many professionals working with rehabilitation in Sweden, since it touches on issues very relevant to clinical practice. In 2004 a team of ten professionals from Stockholm visited CanChild. The knowledge seed we picked up is now continuously disseminated.

Eva Brogren Carlberg, PhD, PT, PCS
Research Coordinator
Handikapp & Habilitering, Stockholm, Sweden.

  I have had the opportunity both to visit CanChild and consult with paediatric researchers and to use materials available through the website developed by CanChild research teams. Evaluation tools such as the MPOC - 56 and MPOC - 20 and PEGS have been critical to our ongoing research in Australia.

As with all materials available from CanChild these tools are thoroughly researched, well documented and empirically based. They deal with contemporary practice issues. There is no doubt that internationally people look to CanChild for leadership and innovation for both research and practice.

Sylvia Rodger, BOT, MEd, PhD, Acc OT
Head of School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
The University of Queensland, Australia