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Faculty of Social Sciences

A call for national strategy on brain injury

October 27, 2023

national delegation house of commons
Photo:  National delegation visit to the House of Commons on support of Bill C-277 calling for a National Strategy on Brain Injury Management. Visit hosted by MP Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan–Malahat–Langford) on Tuesday Oct. 24th after Question Period in Parliament. (centre) Dr. Mauricio A. Garcia-Barrera (UVIC faculty and research lead of the BC Consensus on Brain Injury).

Researchers, brain-injury survivors and supporters call for national strategy on brain injury  

The founder of The CGB Centre for Traumatic Life Losses (Janelle Breese Biagioni), along with Brain Injury Canada, researchers, brain injury survivors and families who have lost loved ones to brain injury, met with politicians Oct. 24 – 26 in Ottawa to call upon the federal government to develop a national strategy on brain injury.

Researchers with BC Consensus on Brain Injury, led by Dr. Mauricio Garcia-Barrera, associate dean of research, faculty of social sciences, University of Victoria, joined Janelle and others on Parliament Hill to discuss their three-year research project funded by the BC Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions and Vancouver Foundation.

“Our community-engaged research is gathering data and knowledge to better support people with brain injuries and concurrent mental health and substance use challenges,” says Dr. Garcia-Barrera. “Our graduate student research lead on this project, Cole Kennedy, is compiling brain injury research in a unique, more accessible way, building a map of all available evidence on treatments”.

Kennedy, a PhD student, says that “understanding what evidence is out there is the first step to translating research into practice, improving care at a broader level”.

Brain injury survivors and their families play a key role in the group’s research, and they will be an important part of the discussion in Ottawa. “Researchers, survivors and their families, and policy makers need to work together to create meaningful change for the better, and that is what we are stiving to achieve in Ottawa”.

A key piece of the solution is contained in Bill C-277, a private members bill introduced by Cowichan-Malahat-Langford NDP MP Alistair MacGregor that would support and improve brain injury awareness, prevention, and treatment and promote research, improved data collection and knowledge sharing. The immediate goal is to seek all party-support for Bill C-277.

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