Witness: The Canadian Journal of Critical Nursing Discourse

Dear Witness community,

it is with mixed emotions that we announce that long-time associate editor, Dr. Elizabeth McGibbon is stepping down from her key editorial board role for Witness: The Canadian Journal of Critical Nursing Discourse. We extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to Elizabeth who for several years, has served as an associate editor and sturdy support to the editor of Witness and to the wider editorial collective.

Through countless opportunities, Elizabeth provided sage advice and direction related to all aspects of our journal and her wide angle lens on critical discourse, growing sound scholarship, supporting authors, enacting the aims and scopes of this journal, and co-creating many of the special issues, WITNESS is all the stronger because of Elizabeth.

In her note to the Editorial Advisory Collective, she said she was grateful for the experience. It is all of us - readers, authors, board members, champions and others - who are truly grateful for all she has done for Witness and for all she has done for the nursing profession.

Thank you ever so much, Elizabeth.

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Continuing Education | Glendon Indigenous Cultural Competency and Trauma-Informed Training COURSE DESCRIPTIONThe course will build on existing skills while increasing awareness of Indigenous healing and wellness strategies, truth and reconciliation, and cultural resurgence. Participants will engage in a journey of experiential le...

Following a wide call for expressions of interest for the role of Editor, Witness is pleased to welcome Dr. Candace Burton to the role in 2026.

Dr. Candace W. Burton, PhD, RN (US), AFN-BC, FAAN is Director of the York University School of Nursing. Dr. Burton previously served as the Associate Dean for Advanced Education and Director of Doctoral Education at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. She holds undergraduate degrees in Studies in Women and Gender and in Nursing from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in Nursing Research from the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on stress and trauma, particularly in the context of health disparities. She practices as a consulting forensic nurse, and her research has been funded in the U.S. by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation among others.

Dr. Burton is a trained qualitative and mixed methodologist, and has published on the social determinants of health, structural violence, the trauma of violence and abuse, and nursing education on vulnerable populations. She is certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center in Advanced Forensic Nursing, and holds a post-graduate certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from Cornell University. Dr. Burton is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, and her innovative work has received both national and international attention from diverse audiences of advocates, researchers, and community-based care providers. She teaches at all levels of nursing education on topics including care of vulnerable populations, the social determinants of health, and qualitative and mixed research methodologies.

Dr. Burton will work with Dr. van Daalen-Smith during the development of Volume 8(1).

Please join me in welcoming Candace to this warm and dedicated Canadian community.

Cheryl van Daalen-Smith

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Worth considering friends

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BrkA4GVuB/?mibextid=wwXIfr

📢 Now Enrolling – NEW Winter 2026 Course in the GBV Certificate Program

Strengthen your capacity to support service users navigating both intimate partner violence and substance use through practical, trauma- and violence-informed approaches.

📚 Supporting and Empowering Service Users with Lived Experience of Intimate Partner Violence and Substance Use
📆 Starts: February 11, 2026
👩‍🏫 Instructors: Dr. Lorraine Greaves and Dr. Nancy Poole

This course explores the complexities of working at the intersection of intimate partner violence and substance use. Participants will explore why responses rooted in trauma- and violence-informed, gender-transformative care, informed by s*x-, gender-, and equity-based analyses, are essential, and will practice strategies that uphold safety, empowerment, and self-determination.

🔗 Register now: https://wcs.uwo.ca/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=38722213

https://writers-camp.org/2025/12/30/wordcraft-at-camp-method-vs-methodology/

Wordcraft at Camp: Method vs. Methodology Leslie H. Nicoll clarifies the distinction between "method" and "methodology." Method refers to specific procedures used in research, while methodology pertains to the theoretical frameworks guiding these methods. Authors are encouraged to use "method" for clarity in most cases, reserving "methodolo...

Call for Papers Witness Volume 8 (2)
Nursing under late-stage capitalism

Intended Focus of this Special Issue
Witness: the Canadian Journal of Critical Nursing Discourse is pleased to announce an upcoming special issue focusing on nursing under late-stage capitalism. Characterized by globalization, the dominance of multinational corporations, widespread commodification and
consumerism, and extreme wealth inequality, late-stage capitalism affects health in pervasive, all-consuming ways (Creaven, 2025).

The health impacts of these prevailing
economic forces are in the purview of nurses, especially those concerned with upstream root causation of illness such as ubiquitous commodification of life-sustaining resources and environmental degradation. These economic forces are not inevitable but reflect political choices - a fact foretold by German pathologist and social reformer Rudolf Virchow, who
asserted, “All disease has two causes, one pathological and the other political” (1859).

In this special issue, we invite the critical exploration of the political economy of nursing/care broadly given late-stage capitalism and its implications for nursing, care, health outcomes, with an emphasis on implications for nursing writ large.

Potential topics with explicit nursing analysis and relevance may be found on the Witness webpage

July 1, 2026 firm deadline

Good morning colleagues and friends,

On behalf of the RE-AIM Coalition, I’m reaching out to ask for your support.

On June 18, 2025, the University Health Network (UHN) abruptly dismantled the Asian Initiative in Mental Health (AIM) program founded by Dr. Kenneth Fung and Dr. Peter Lim in 2002—without consultation with patients, community partners, or AIM staff. This decision undermines equitable access to culturally safe, language-concordant mental health services for Asian communities and sets a troubling precedent for all racialized groups.

We are calling on UHN to:

Immediately reinstate the AIM program, and
Convene a cross-sector consultation forum to ensure that the voices of Chinese, Portuguese, and other diverse communities are central to the planning and delivery of equitable mental health care.

Please sign the open petition, share it widely, and post it on your social media to help amplify this urgent cause.

Petition Link:

RE-AIM: Please sign the Open Petition letter We, the undersigned, representing a wide range of health and social service providers, advocacy groups, academia, patient right advocates, service users, families, healthcare organizations, as well as concerned individuals are writing to urge you to redress the abrupt and unconscionable closure of t...

https://nursingconf.info.yorku.ca/the-june-awrey-lecture/the-2025-june-awrey-lecture/

The 2025 June Awrey Lecture | The School of Nursing Conference Page The 2025 June Awrey Lecture The York University School of Nursing in the Faculty of Health will present the 2025 June Awrey Lecture “Health Service Use and Health Outcomes of Black People in Canada” on May 21, 2025, from 2:00-3:30 p.m. Please register on zoom webinar. Established in 2018, ...

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19tUxDSQsh/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Day 1 of

What is ?

See several definitions:

https://tinyurl.com/zttaaj8

See the Ravenswood Medial film -

One Health Linking Human, Animal and Ecosystem Health

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pyLm2j3jxI

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19sR9WPBv1/?mibextid=wwXIfr

A new report shows antipsychotic use among LTC residents without a psychosis diagnosis dropped from 27.2% (2014-15) to 20.2% (2019-20), but has risen to 24.5% in 2023-24 since the onset of the pandemic. Read the full report about rising rates in Canada: https://ltcmeds.ca/

The latest issue of WITNESS features thought leader and nurse ethicist Dr. Franco Carnevale - who in his invited commentary turns 'pediatric nursing' and the developmentalist bent appended to issues of consent and agency on their head.

Vol. 6 No. 2 (2024): Children are people too! Re-imagining Children's Nursing through a social studies of childhood lens | Witness: The Canadian Journal of Critical Nursing Discourse                                                                                                                                                                                                         ...

With enormous appreciation, Witness wishes to thank the extensive contributions of Dr. Simon Adam. From the genesis of the journal - discussed over lunch in Caledon Ontario, it was Simon's presence that enabled a vision to become a reality. As the co-editor of the inaugural issue, Simon's contributions were a force that propelled Witness forward. From co-developing the goals of the journal, to exploring and securing an open access infrastructure that reflected the ethos of WITNESS, Simon's insights were invaluable.

While the editorial advisory board now bids him a fine farewell and thankyou, on a personal level, it was, in part, his belief in the glimmer in my eye I shared with him about the necessity of a journal like this in CANADA, that moved a glimmer to collective action.

Thank you so much, Simon. Selfishly, I hope you'll return to the journal at a future date.

In the meantime, check out Simon's Podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/7rDEvp4MBznVUWTiiXZDUC
Cheryl

Crazy Making Podcast · Dr. Simon Adam · Crazy Making presents a variety of topics related to mental health and mental illness and will engage in discussions ranging from depression, to mad studies, to critical mental health movements, to the politics of the DSM.