Students present solutions to local health care system navigation
December 8, 2021
King’s will once again be represented at this year’s CityStudio London Hubbub, a celebratory digital showcase and networking event featuring the students and projects making London more liveable, sustainable and joyful. The Fall 2021 CityStudio London Hubbub will take place on December 9, 2021.
Nineteen Students from Dr. Erika Katzman’s DS3321: Applied Health Professions, in partnership with the City of London's Community Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (CDIS), undertook an exploration of health and social care systems in London, centring the Black feminist concept of Intersectionality to identify ways that systemic oppressions and membership in various social groups or communities shape peoples’ experiences.
“Navigating Health and Social Care in London, ON” saw King’s Disability Studies students working to address an identified priority: to better understand and develop strategies to accommodate the varied lived experiences of Londoners who live with disability, in particular underrepresented groups, including disabled women, Black, Indigenous, people of colour, people who are gender non-conforming, people who are LGBTQIA2S+.
This is the second CityStudio project Disability Studies students have worked on with the CDIS, in partnership with Kinga Koltun (Supervisor, Policy & Strategic Issues, Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Division) and community volunteer, Ashfaq Husain.
The project focused on “system navigation” with students simulating experiences of individuals and families trying to find information about and get access to health and social care services. Students used narrative cases from the recently published anthology, Disability Visibility (Alice Wong, 2020) and critical literature from disability studies and critical rehabilitation studies. They applied their learning about systems navigation and disability theories grounded in lived experience to identify barriers and propose solutions to navigating health and social supports in London.
King’s students presented their findings to the CDIS, who will use this information to make recommendations to improve accessibility in municipal services. The solutions students proposed included an app or website that would help to connect Londoners to services, or a systems navigation hub within the city that could offer customized supports while creating employment for people with lived experience.
Projects like these which have been shown at CityStudio enables King’s students to test theories, skills, and creativity, and apply the entrepreneurial spirit they've acquired in the classroom to real world scenarios.
“This important work can lead to real change, benefitting the entire community by making it a more accessible and inclusive place for all. Our ability and willingness to serve our community is so important and it’s an activity consistent with King’s mission as a Catholic University. This sort of experiential learning is so important to King’s as a place for students to be and become, to explore who they are and develop the direction for who they wish to become throughout their careers and their lives,” says Dr. David Malloy, King’s President, who will provide a video greeting to the event.
This will be the fifth CityStudio Hubbub. CityStudio London is an initiative that connects post-secondary intuitions with City of London staff to co-create applied projects and work towards a better city for all. CityStudio London was launched in 2019 as a collaboration between the City of London, King’s University College, Brescia University College, Huron University College, Western University, Fanshawe College, and the Pillar Nonprofit Network. King’s has been involved every year since the initiative’s inception with CityStudio courses in a variety of disciplines, including Social Justice and Peace Studies/Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, and Disability Studies. Students who take these courses are matched with city staff, learn about current issues in the city, and apply their knowledge and skills to research and implement creative solutions for civic issues.