Dr. Elaine Wiersma and the NWDWG Receive the Community Engaged Research Award

Dr. Elaine Wiersma and NWDWG member, Bill Heibein.

CERAH’s own Dr. Elaine Wiersma, Dr. Nisha Sutherland, Carlina Marchese, and the North West Dementia Working Group (NWDWG) received the Community Engaged Research Award from Lakehead University during the C2U Expo held June 5th-8th, 2023.

Their research explores building capacity to enable people living with dementia to have meaningful participation in their community.

For this project, they used an asset-based community development approach to identify opportunities to strengthen community initiatives and make them inclusive of people living with dementia. This project was building on work that has been ongoing since the inception of the North West Dementia Working Group in 2014.

The objectives of the project were to integrate and grow community initiatives that are inclusive and meaningful for people living with dementia, to evaluate the processes of building community initiatives, and to increase awareness of the impact of the stigma associated with dementia.