In this episode, we’re joined by Gary Thandi and Dr. Nitasha Puri. Gary is a social worker with over twenty years of experience in social services and counselling, and he is the Executive Director of Moving Forward Family Services, a non-profit counselling organization. Dr. Puri is a family physician with training in addiction medicine. She works with Fraser Health, and she is also a Clinical Associate Professor in UBC’s Department of Family Practice.

Their conversation centers on their decade-long partnership and the Rahi Care Program (RCP), a community co-created initiative supporting Punjabi and South Asian communities impacted by substance use. You’ll hear how they bring social work, primary care, and community organizations into the same room to reduce barriers; how the program is designed with community members; and how they find a way to make support happen in real life for individuals and families.

This episode features Mandy Young, parent of a medically and behaviourally complex child and a long-time partner with the University of British Columbia’s Patient and Community Partnership for Education (PCPE). Mandy has volunteered for over a decade in the Interprofessional Health Mentors Program, both as a Health Mentor for health care students and as a Community Engagement Coordinator. Joining her is Lelainia Lloyd, a rare disease and disability advocate with 13 years of experience as a Health Mentor. Also with us is Pooja Kadakia, now a first-year internal medicine resident in Winnipeg, who joined the program as a student mentee three years ago. Together, they reflect on how the Health Mentors Program fosters interprofessional learning, reshapes students’ professional perspectives, and improves the way that healthcare providers can interact in the system with their patients and with their colleagues.

In this episode, the 2025 Inspiring Social Worker of the Year Award Winner, Brandon Wong, joins the podcast. Brandon Wong, a mental health social worker within the Vancouver Coastal Health authority, practicing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He reflects on his journey from a health sciences background in Australia to frontline social work in complex mental health and substance use settings. He shares what drew him to social work practice, why social workers are essential within interdisciplinary mental health teams, and his experience and insights of engaging in evidence-informed practice and knowledge exchange within healthcare. He further reflects on what it meant to be named inspiring Social Worker of the Year and co-authoring an award-winning article in the Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity and Social Work. Brandon’s insights help foster a greater understanding of how social work research can be used to inform best practice, both currently and in the future.

Dr. Barbara Lee, Host, welcomes us back to The Knowledge Exchange: A Partnership-in-Action Podcast for a second season! This upcoming season will expand beyond our UBC community to bring you inspiring stories from across the province. We have an exciting line-up of partnerships who will share their projects and shine a light on how communities and researchers are co-creating knowledge to advance equity, improve services, and drive meaningful change. Stay tuned!

Dr. Barbara Lee, Host, celebrates and concludes the first season of The Knowledge Exchange: A Partnership-in-Action Podcast. Over 12 episodes, this season has discussed inspiring community-engaged research, knowledge mobilization, and collaborative partnerships in the University of British Columbia’s School of Social Work.

Dr. Lee also announces Season 2 of the podcast which will highlight community-engaged research beyond UBC and across the province of British Columbia. 👀

Thank you for your support and see you in September 2025!

In this episode, Nicole Corrado, Sandra Nakata, Tina Wilson and Meg Gibson discuss their community-led research project that explores autistic people's perspectives and experiences of elopement, which is when autistic individuals depart suddenly from supervised settings and relationships without permission or notice.

Rooted in lived experience and informed by a participatory action research approach, the project explores the potential that partnership offers in transforming current practices of policing autistic people's behaviours and encouraging belonging through understanding. Together, the team shares how the project emerged from community needs, reflects on the harms of epistemic injustice, and explores how rethinking social norms can better support autistic individuals' safety and autonomy.

The conversation invites listeners into insights into the experiences of elopement and shares hopes for the future of their community research partnership.

Dr. Donna Baines, Professor at the University of British Columbia School of Social Work, and Dr. Bindi Bennett, Professorial Research Fellow at Federation University discuss yarning, the Indigenous practice of preserving the oral cultures of storytelling. Reflecting on their international grant, Emancipatory Dialogue, with academics and non-academics across Canada, Australia and Taiwan, Dr. Baines and Dr. Bennett talk about yarning with Indigenous-led organizations in the project and the facilitation of a decolonizing dialogue between Western anti-oppressive and Indigenous approaches. Their conversation together produces learning about conducting research that respects cultural values and teachings, and emphasize the co-creation and co-ownership.

This episode features Dr. Christiana Bratiotis, Dr. Sheila Woody, and Jana Sasaki. Dr. Christiana Brotiotis is Associate Professor in the UBC School of Social Work. Her research focuses on hoarding treatment and intervention, particularly in the contexts of affordable and community-based housing. Dr. Sheila Woody is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Centre for Collaborative Research on Hoarding. Her research interests are on hoarding disorder, with an emphasis on understanding its behaviours in order to improve treatments and interventions. Jana Sasaki is the Director of Operations for Vancouver Region at Lookout Housing and Health Society, Jana has significantly contributed to Lookout’s harm reduction approach to decluttering in housing through the creation of Assisting Reduction in Cluttering and Hoarding (also known as ARCH) team. Coming together, Jana and Drs. Bratiotis and Woody discuss their multidisciplinary collaboration and the development of the Home Environment Assessment Tool for Hoarding (HEATH). Their conversation highlights the importance of knowledge exchanges which advances the practice and scholarship on hoarding and decluttering.

This episode features Dr. Grace Mwangi, a health psychologist and addiction specialist at the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) in Nairobi, where she serves as Deputy Registrar of Student Affairs, supporting the college’s mission to train healthcare professionals in Kenya. Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, an Assistant Professor at the UBC School of Social Work and a Michael Smith Health Research BC Scholar, joins Grace to reflect on their five-year partnership between UBC and KMTC. Dr. Mohamed’s research focuses on global mental health, addiction, and psychosocial support, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Grace and Mohamed discuss their global mental health course, which includes an interdisciplinary learning exchange with students from various health fields. They also discuss global South-North exchanges based on their collaboration, highlighting how transnational cooperation is advancing mental health education and practice.

Antoine Coulombe, Assistant Professor of Teaching at the UBC School of Social Work, and Lama Mugabo, community planner and Founding Director of Building Bridges with Rwanda, discuss their collaborative work in education focused on community organizing and participatory learning. Their efforts aim to help students build reciprocal and respectful relationships with communities, with students gradually expressing their understanding of these relationships through their own actions. The conversation highlights how "storytelling" has become a powerful tool for transformation in the Hogan's Alley neighborhood and how this approach is being integrated into education. They also introduce an ongoing national project focused on amplifying the voices of African youth and young African newcomers, contributing to meaningful social change through a "meandering process."