The Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI) is dedicated to promoting good science that informs policies, programs and practices in ways that are responsive to people’s experiences. Good science necessitates taking good care — of ourselves and each other. Anti-oppressive approaches to engagement and collaboration enable both.
Anti-oppressive praxis was established within Social Work in acknowledgement of how people in “helping professions” have power over and determine their clients’ outcomes. Anti-oppressive research commits to recognizing and mitigating oppression, not only in society, but in research relationships — including collaborators and participants.
In alignment with the WHRI’s 2025-2028 Strategic Plan “Building community, advancing excellence” anti-oppressive practices can guide meaningful integrations of values and commitments to reconciliation. We also look to the 6 Coast Salish Teachings gifted to PHSA by Knowledge Keeper Siem Te Ta-in, Dr. Shane Pointe. In particular for this context, Whax hooks in shqwalowin “Open your hearts and minds” — as when we are open we are able to do our best.
Aligned Practices
The following practices support respectful and responsive relationships with collaborators and participants.
Trauma and Resiliency-informed Practice (TRiP)
Approaches that embed compassion (for self and others) into culture, acknowledging the high prevalence of trauma and accounting for the structures that perpetuate traumatized/traumatizing responses.
How to TRiP?
Guided by 6 principles, TRiP is inherently anti-oppressive, person-centered, and justice-oriented:
- Trauma awareness.
- Safety and trustworthiness.
- Opportunities for choice, collaboration, and connection.
- Strengths-based skills building and empowerment.
- Recognition of intersection of race, culture, beliefs, history, ability, class, age, sex, and gender with trauma.
- Meaningful involvement of people with living experiences.
Together, TRiP offer opportunities to form care-full [sic] connections with each other in service of co-creating knowledge that is more accurate and responsive to experiences.
Training
As of May 2026, the WHRI is offering TRiP Training for Researchers & Evaluators. This two-part offering is designed to strengthen understanding and build confidence in recognizing and responding to the impacts of individual and collective experiences with trauma within research and evaluation contexts. With greater compassion for ourselves and each other, our work becomes more careful and caring.
Facilitated by WHRI Qualitative Research Analyst, Julia Santana Parrilla, and PHSA Medical Assistance in Dying Lead, BC Pomeroy, this training was adapted from the version developed for healthcare professionals (Marika Sandrelli, Fraser Health Authority).
BC has been facilitating TRiP Training since 2017 and enabled their integration into the principles and practices that guided the work of Beyond the Binary (BTB). Julia and BC worked closely together as knowledge broker and community lead (respectively) on BTB.
To learn about future offerings of TRiP training, watch our eBlast and social media announcements, or reach out to Julia directly at julia.santanaparilla@cw.bc.ca.
Partnership-Oriented Research (POR)
Previously referred to as “patient-oriented research”, POR guides person-centered approaches to partnerships with people with lived / living experience (PWLE) with the phenomenon of interest. The language has been revisited to account for power dynamics in research teams and in healthcare settings. The term “patient partner” maintains a power differential that does not acknowledge the significant contributions of PWLE, and runs the risk of tokenism and/or unacknowledged burdens of representation.
In POR, people with lived/ living experience (PWLE) of a condition, context, and/or circumstances can work collaboratively with researchers to ensure research questions, activities and outcomes are meaningful, appropriate, and responsive. Research conducted collaboratively with PWLE has been demonstrated to improve health outcomes and systems. Accordingly, funding agencies like CIHR, Michael Smith Health Research BC, and others, are increasingly requiring patient partner engagement in research projects and programs.
Plain and Inclusive Language
As articulated in the Beyond the Binary Guide, language matters! The words we use (or don’t use!) can include or exclude people from understanding what is being communicated and how it may be relevant to them.
Plain language is an accessibility standard in Canada, integral to accessibility and inclusion. Beyond the words we use, how we present them (structure, design, composition) shapes how readily information is found, understood and used.
Using plain language improves engagement and collaborations, acknowledging that communication is relational and that the language we use can nurture respect and trust in research relationships.
Indigenous Cultural Humility and Safety
The systems and structures that anti-oppressive practices acknowledge, and address are colonial in nature. In this way, they align with the decolonization of research praxis. Cultural humility and safety enable respectful and responsive relationships that account for power imbalances and bring in Indigenous ways of being, knowing and learning into engagements and collaborations.
To appropriately address ongoing inequities, within Canada’s colonial context, Indigenous cultural humility and safety are essential. The Indigenous Equity Lab, led by Dr. Brittany Bingham, centre “Indigenous voices and traditional knowledge” in health equity research.
Resources
TRiP
Encyclopedia of Trauma: An Interdisciplinary Guide | Sage Reference
Self-Compassion Institute | Dr. Kristin Neff
Partnership-Oriented Research
Patient Engagement | CIHR Institute for Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis (IMHA)
Appendices | Patient Partner Onboarding for Research
Research Patient Partner Onboarding Sorting Tool | BCCHR and WHRI
REACH BC Webinar | Women’s Health Research Institute (YouTube)
Plain + Inclusive Language
Gender Inclusive Language* | TransCare BC
Gender Inclusive Language in Clinical Settings** | TransCare BC
*Also available in French, Arabic, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese
**Also available in French
Gender and Pronouns | Options for Sexual Health
A Progressive’s Style Guide | Sum Of Us
Sex and Gender Checklist | University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine
Designing Surveys and Questionnaires | Rainbow Health Ontario
Qualitative Interviewing with LGBTQ Communities | Rainbow Health Ontario
Trans* Inclusion Takes Different Forms | Canadian AIDS Society
Plain Language Guide | MSHR BC Support Unit
Indigenous Cultural Humility and Safety
Indigenous-Specific Anti-Racism (ISAR) Self-Directed Learning | BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services The First Nations Principles of Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession (OCAP) | First Nations Information Governance Centre
Contact
Julia Santana Parilla julia.santanaparilla@cw.bc.ca
BC Pomeroy bc.pomeroy@phsa.ca
Children’s & Women’s Patient Experience
C&W Patient Experience Office
Email: patientexperience@cw.bc.ca
BC SUPPORT Unit
The BC SUPPORT (SUpport for People and Patient-Oriented Research and Trials) Unit is part of a national program to help health care research be more relevant and meaningful to patients, so that they get the best possible health care.
Visit their website or email You can also email at bcsupportunit@healthresearchbc.ca.