Dr. Margherita Cameranesi, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Science
TOPIC: Building Resilient Futures: Advancing Community-Engaged Mental Health Research in Equity Denied Populations
Led by Dr. Margherita Cameranesi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Saint Mary’s University, the Finding Your Resilience Lab (FYRe Lab) advances an action-oriented, equity-centered program of research examining how mental health, well-being, and resilience are shaped, and can be strengthened, within the ecological systems that surround equity-deserving populations, including young newcomers, Indigenous youth, and persons with disabilities. Grounded in a public health orientation and guided by strength-based, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive principles, the FYRe Lab focuses on two connected aims: (1) to identify the multilevel risks and protective factors and processes that influence mental health trajectories across development; and (2) to translate this evidence into prevention- and intervention-focused strategies that are feasible, acceptable, and equitable in community settings.
In this presentation, Dr. Margherita Cameranesi will introduce the FYRe Lab’s overarching framework and explain how a multisystem lens, including individual, family, community, and service systems, guides the lab’s research questions, methods, and knowledge mobilization priorities. She will then highlight several completed and ongoing research projects that exemplify the lab’s approach to partnering with community organizations and people with lived experiences to co-produce evidence that is both rigorous and usable.
Across these projects, Dr. Cameranesi will describe how the FYRe Lab investigates (1) the mechanisms through which structural inequities and system-level barriers shape access to mental health supports; (2) the factors and processes that promote resilience in contexts of elevated adversity; and (3) the design features that make programs and tools implementable in community settings. She will also outline the lab’s methodological toolkit – spanning evidence syntheses (e.g., systematic, scoping, and umbrella reviews), participatory and qualitative approaches (including arts-based methodologies), co-design and stakeholder engagement processes, and analytic strategies well-suited to applied research contexts where complex systems are the norm.
Finally, Dr. Cameranesi will discuss the FYRe Lab’s approach to knowledge mobilization and impact, including how research products are developed with end-users in mind (e.g., partner-facing resources, training materials, and practice guidance) alongside peer-reviewed scholarship. The presentation will conclude with the lab’s next steps, emphasizing opportunities for collaboration across Saint Mary's University and with community partners to scale and sustain equity-centred innovations that have the potential to strengthen the mental health, well-being, and resilience of Nova Scotians.