Lambton College is hoping to build on the success of its Civic Lab, with the launch of its new Centre for Community Health & Social Impact (CCHSI).
The CCHSI will have an expanded focus on community based projects in a number of fields.
That includes social services, health, economic resiliency, food security, art and culture, tourism and heritage, public health and safety, mental health and wellness, environmental sustainability, and more.
The Civic Lab was launched in 2021, in collaboration with the City of Sarnia and County of Lambton.
College Vice President of Research and Innovation Dr. Mehdi Sheikhzadeh said since then, it's completed six projects and currently has 19 more in the works.
"Some of them are actually larger-scale initiatives, and it became a bigger vision than what we were thinking at the beginning." said Sheikhzadeh. "We did a project with a local clinic about the use of cannabis for a specific application, and then moved on to working with the city on some long term care homes projects. There was a massive initiative in terms of standardizing the onboarding of the workers that are employed by the long term care homes, that's still continuing. We have 25 students that were engaged in the past three years doing projects. When we say 'engaged', the students are getting paid while they're working. So, we need to generate and attract revenues and grants to be able to hire them."
These are in collaboration with 27 community partners, including government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, Indigenous groups, and for-profit entities.
Dr. Sheikhzadeh said the scope of work has expanded greatly, and a rebrand was necessary to reflect that.
"We are not using the term 'centre' lightly when see the matureness in the area," said Sheikhzadeh. "Three years in the pilot phase have proven that this is very useful for the community. We are happy that we're seeing the evolution of the Civic Lab to become the centre for community health and social projects."
Dr. Sheikhzadeh said the centre will make use of a variety of college resources.
"However, if you've been in our NOVA Chemicals Health and Research Centre, there are lots of spaces for co-working and also individual spaces that can be used for projects," he said. "Also, there are a lot of facilities that we are providing for data collections and a secure space for protecting some of the information they collect through surveys and interviews. It's not equipment-related, it's more space-related."
Currently, the centre works with over 20 community partnerships, including First Nations communities, not-for-profits, local allied health services, local social services, environmental organizations, long-term care groups, athletic associations, postsecondary education institutions, police and fire services, and legal services.
