On September 13th 2014 I will land in Sydney Australia, marking the beginning of my journey to bring my experiences in knowledge translation (KT) and implementation science (IS) Down Under! First stop is the 2nd Biennial Australian Implementation Conference where I have been invited to keynote. The program for the conference looks fabulous – filled with both research and practice lessons in implementation from Australia and beyond – and I’m really looking forward to participating! I will be running a pre-conference workshop on Tuesday September 16th called Building impact with knowledge translation and implementation: A practical approach to bridging the know-do gap – more information and registration details here: http://www.ausimplementationconference.net.au/workshops2014.php.
I’m looking forward to exploring Sydney and to meeting formally and informally with colleagues who will be congregating in this terrific city for the conference. I know my host, Dr. Robyn Mildon, will have me busy and having fun! Lined up already is a meeting with Angela Dee, Project Manager for the Wobbly Hub & Double Spokes Project and good colleague of my buddy Dr. Katherine Boydell who is doing some fascinating and innovative research in Arts-Based KT. I’m also planning to connect with Dr. Sue West, Associate Director for the Centre for Community Child Health at The Royal Children’s Hospital and Co-Research Group Leader for Policy, Equity and Translation with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. I’m free to meet with KT and IS folks on the Monday and Friday of that week (Sept 11-15), so get in touch if you’d like to meet! (melanie.barwick@sickkids.ca).
And so, the Raison d’être for this blog is to take you on this journey with me! I will meet interesting people and learn about KT and implementation in the Australian context, and I’d like to document this adventure in a way that will facilitate participation from my Canadian and Global implementation network. This forum will allow me to share my learnings, my perceptions, and to connect my network (all of you who are following) with groups in Australia that may be of interest. And so, I invite you to comment throughout on all my forthcoming posts. To the extent that my schedule will allow, I would also be happy to make connections with folks here with whom you may already be connected and that could spur an interesting alliance or collaboration (my schedule to be posted shortly).
I will arrive in Perth, Western Australia on September 20th to undertake a Healthway Health Promotion Visiting Scholarship, awarded to Dr. Tamika Heiden of KT Australia and Prof Lisa Wood at the University of Western Australia. This award will have me touring Perth, Broome, and Albany to give workshops, academic and public talks, and informal conversations with a range of people across public health, health, and mental health sectors. This is an important time for KT and IS in Australia, as they are on the cusp of really developing KT in practice settings and are still (I believe) coming to an understanding of KT and how it can be relevant for them in their practice, and how they can build KT into their organizational frameworks. I will have an opportunity to meet with high level government and university people, and will be able to share our University of Toronto model for Academic Promotion which acknowledges scholarly work in KT and community engaged work – something I know will be rather foreign to Australian universities.
I hope you will join me on this adventure Down Under!
melaniebarwick 