The launch of Here We Are Among the Living (Tightrope Books) will take place Wednesday, June 20 at 7:30pm at Revival, 783 College St. in Toronto.�� A second launch will take place July 8 at 5pm in Dufferin Grove Park.

An inter-generational story, the book documents the first years of the 21st century, beginning with a conflict between Bernstein and her mother over the meaning of 9-11 and their responses to it. In another early scene, Bernstein finds a letter from her father to her mother written after their divorce in which he rails against flower child hypocrisy. Here We Are Among the Living is in part about our attempts to reconcile ourselves to history, both familial and cultural.

Samantha Bernstein

The epistolary form has for over 200 years been an outlet for social criticism and an expression of engagement, especially for young people.�� Bernstein’s memoir in e-mails captures both her generation’s political sensibilities and desire for instant communication.��

Bernstein started writing it while completing her master’s degree thesis in Interdisciplinary Studies in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Graduate Studies, and the story  includes her time as an undergraduate student in the University’s Creative Writing Program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

Her poetry and prose has appeared in various publications, including Exile Literary Quarterly, Books in Canada, The Fiddlehead and the anthology TOK 3: Writing the New Toronto.��

In addition, Bernstein received federal funding for her dissertation this year, which considers some of the central questions about ethics and aesthetics posed in Here We Are Among the Living.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The diary was written by David Koker, a 21-year-old student from Amsterdam, who was sent to the Vught concentration camp in Holland in 1943. The entries, which include both poetry and powerful insights into the emotional life of a camp prisoner, were made on scraps of paper and children's exercise books that were smuggled out of the camp and sent to his best friend Karel van het Reve. His family collected the various parts comprising 73,000 words and had the work published in 1977 as Dagboek geschreven in Vught (Diary written in Vught). It immediately became a part of the Dutch literary canon.

Horn served as the main translator for the English edition, which was edited by Robert Jan van Pelt, professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo, who has written extensively about the history of the Holocaust and Auschwitz. Van Pelt provided the informative introduction and biographical information about Koker. John Irons was brought into the project to render Koker's Dutch poetry into English. "The project took over my life," said Horn, professor emeritus at Glendon and University Historian, who came to Canada from the Netherlands 60 years ago.

Horn became involved in the project when van Pelt found his name on a list of translators kept by the Dutch Foundation for Literature, which supports writers and translators and promotes Dutch literature abroad. "He liked the fact that I was in Toronto, a historian, and he would have access for collaboration," said Horn. Irons, who lives in Denmark, specializes in translating poetry from Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German and Dutch into English. When Horn recommended to van Pelt that they get someone to do a proper translation of Koker's poetry, they found Irons through the foundation.

What makes At the Edge of the Abyss special is the quality of Koker's writing, which "is remarkable for its combination of historical significance and penetrating eloquence," wrote the publishers.

Horn says he was drawn to Koker as a person after reading the first page of his work. "He was somebody I could relate to. He was astonishingly well read – he wasn't your average 21-year-old. He describes situations we didn't have any knowledge of."

Right: Michiel Horn

Horn said he was struck by Koker's decision to go to Vught with his family, even though he could have used an exemption he had and then could have gone into hiding. “He believed that the family was absolutely central to Jewish life.” He managed to help his mother and younger brother survive, but both he and his father became ill and died in February 1945, during transport between camps.

"David's death was a calamity for Dutch literature," said Horn. "There is every reason to believe that David would have had a distinguished career as a writer of prose and poetry."

Left: Robert Jan van Pelt

Horn said he wept when he reached the end of the postscript to the Dutch edition, written by David’s brother Max.  "You get so close to your subject when you’re translating. I don't think anyone gets closer to a text than a translator."

At the Edge of the Abyss: A Concentration Camp Diary, 1943-1944, is published by Northwestern University Press (2012), with the support of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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There are three launches scheduled for Keeney's new books, First Woman (Inanna Publications) and You Bring Me Wings (ANTARES Publishing House of Spanish Culture). The first is Tuesday, Nov. 8 at The Art Bar at 8pm, second floor of the Paupers Pub, 539 Bloor St. W. in Toronto.

The second will be at 91��ɫ on Wednesday, Nov. 16, from 3 to 4:30pm, as part of the Canadian Studies Speaker Series, in the Senior Common Room, 010 Vanier College, Keele campus, where she’ll also read and discuss her creative work and research. The third launch by Inanna Publications���ڴǰ���First Woman will take place Thursday, Nov. 24, from 6 to 8pm, at the College Street United Church, 452 College St. in Toronto.��

Keeney draws her greatest inspiration from the intersection of cultures, whether between members of one family, intimate friends or peoples around the world. She is a constant traveller.��This academic year alone, she was involved in conferences and arts festivals from Russia to Slovenia to Iran. As Keeney puts it, "I'm a wanderer...more of a cultural explorer than a tourist." And it is those wanderings that seep deep into the layers of her work, emerging as poems that often express a different way of seeing the world.

Left: Patricia Keeney

For You Bring Me Wings, Keeney travelled to Mexico City for a summer of imaginative conversation with Mexican poet Ethel Krauze that spilled onto the pages of their new book.��This bilingual (English and Spanish) collection is infused with what  identifies as "poems and conversations around love, the creative process, the conditions of womanhood and the marginalization of two distinct cultures co-existing along the American border.” The conversations explore approaches to writing poetry and living life fully. As writer Eva Tihanyi puts it in her introduction: “Finally a book that presents talking and poetry as a partnership, that dares to embrace its own ���ܲ���𳦳پ������ٲ�.”

Keeney was one of the first Canadian writers to be given a grant under the North American Free Trade Agreement to open up areas of cultural exchange with Mexico.

Keeney's poems have been hailed as lyric and political, ranging from sexual love to individual relations, to confrontations with power and profound meditations on life and culture. In her First Woman collection of poems, she examines, at a "deeply personal level, the richly ambivalent experience of living in South Africa, for instance, and it explores the dynamics of family. So, the interior life is both personal and political, local and global.��For me, there is no discrepancy in this," says the author of nine books of poetry and a novel.��"The way we see things and the weight we give them determines their importance in our sense of who we are." 

Keeney continued her investigation of cultural borders in Iran recently where it is mandatory for women, including foreign visitors, to wear a hijab. "The ambivalence I felt about this was echoed in some extraordinary conversations with women in academia and the arts around various kinds of repression in a society that is deeply divided. I am writing about it already," she says.

Left: Patricia Keeney sharing a traditional meal in Iran with her husband, 91��ɫ theatre Professor Don Rubin, and a friend (left)

Her poetry has been translated into French, Spanish, Bulgarian, Chinese and Hindi. As a book and theatre reviewer, and an arts journalist for over 20 years, Keeney has written extensively in various Canadian and international publications, including The Canadian Forum, Maclean's magazine, Canadian Literature, Canadian Woman Studies, Arc Poetry Magazine, New Theatre Quarterly, based in London, England, South African Theatre Journal and Critical Stages, a web journal.

Some of Keeney’s previous work includes her first collection of poetry Swimming Alone (Oberon Press, 1988); a post-feminist novel, The Incredible Shrinking Wife (Black Moss Press, 1995); and Selected Poems of Patricia Keeney (Oberon Press, 2002). She is currently working on new fiction.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Election to Fellowship in the CAHS is considered one of the highest honours for individuals in the Canadian health sciences community. Pepler was elected to the CAHS for her demonstrated leadership, creativity, distinctive competencies and a commitment to advance academic health science.

Left: Debra Pepler

“I am very honoured to be nominated as a Fellow and look forward to contributing to the academy's efforts in health promotion through our collaborative efforts to promote the healthy development of children and youth through healthy relationships,” says Pepler.

Pepler has conducted two major research programs on children at risk within the context of peer relationships at school and in context of the family.��To study aggression and bullying, she developed an innovative methodology to observe children’s interactions, which would normally be hidden from adults.

She was awarded a Networks of Centres of Excellence: New Initiatives grant to establish PREVNet – Promoting Relationships & Eliminating Violence Network together with Wendy Craig, her first 91��ɫ PhD student. This collaborative and interdisciplinary initiative brings together 62 researchers from 27 Canadian universities and 49 national organizations. The grant, the first stage of Canada’s largest funding mechanism, is the culmination of many years of work for Pepler, who has been tirelessly involved in community-based research and public policy development on pressing social issues related to children and youth.  

Pepler’s research has changed the way people think about bullying, aggression and other forms of violence, especially among marginalized and alienated young people.��She speaks widely to professional and community audiences about children at risk.��She has also edited four volumes in the past four years on understanding and addressing children’s aggression, bullying and victimization.

A professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Health since 1988, Pepler was also director of the LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence & Conflict Resolution from 1994 to 2002. She has been a senior associate scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children since 2001.

In honour of her research, Pepler has previously been awarded the Contribution to Knowledge Award from the Psychology Foundation of Canada, the Educator of the Year Award from Phi Delta Kappa (Toronto), the University of Waterloo Arts in Academia Award and the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public or Community Service.

Established in 2004, the works in partnership with the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering to form the three member academies of the Council of Canadian Academies. The CAHS provides timely, informed and unbiased assessments of urgent issues affecting the health of Canadians.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Pregnant with her third child, she was conducting a series of interviews as research for the play, , on loss and how it is transformed, when she lost her son Ethan. “I was just struck by how I was immersed in this phenomena and living it at the same time,” she says. I'm Still Here was co-created with 91��ɫ nursing Professor Gail Mitchell and playwright Vrenia Ivonoffski.

Right: Christine Jonas-Simpson, holding the children's book she wrote, Ethan's Butterflies

Ethan was stillborn at 38 weeks – or, as Jonas-Simpson prefers to say, born still – causing a rent in the universe as she knew it. After the loud silence of her delivery, she remembers hearing a primal scream of agony, realizing some moments later it was coming from her.

Almost a decade later, Jonas-Simpson is about to premiere her third research-based documentary film, about how mothers and their families live with the loss of a child. The premiere will take place Sunday, May 15, from 1 to 3:30pm at the Fox Theatre, 2236 Queen St. E. in Toronto. Tickets are $25 per ticket with proceeds going to Bereaved Families of Ontario-Toronto. To buy tickets, call 416-440-0290 or e-mail info@bfotoronto.ca.

Enduring Love looks at the lives of four women, the agony of loss, the impact the death of their infant has had on them and their families and how they learned to live with their loss. It also traces the importance of recognizing their other children are also grieving, the continuing presence of their deceased child in their lives, the rituals they’ve developed and how they not only endured but have been transformed by their loss. Funded by 91��ɫ's Faculty of Health and the Health Leadership & Learning Network: Interprofessional Education Initiative Fund, the documentary answers the research question, what is the meaning of living and transforming with loss for mothers who experience the loss of their baby?

As one woman in the film says of her family, it was a “seminal event in their lives”; there was a before and an after. The women make the point that many fail to realize that losing their baby, whether at 24 weeks gestation or several weeks after delivery, is a profoundly felt loss that changes, not only them, but their husbands and their children, forever. One of the universally hard moments for these women was going home from the hospital without their baby. It feels so unnatural, says Jonas-Simpson.

It was the experience of losing her own son that guided Jonas-Simpson’s research toward providing a body of arts-based research for others who experienced perinatal loss. She had often used music in her nursing practice and research, and then began incorporating art, drama and film. “With grieving and loss it seemed appropriate to keep going with the arts.” Although, she will write papers on her latest research, she believes presenting her findings with an art-based approach makes it more accessible and touches people in a way a research paper in a journal wouldn’t. “It’s a way of showing the human experience, rather than just telling,” she says.

Being a researcher, I looked at the literature to see what was out there. I was struck by how little there was out there in light of grieving and loss about mothers’ lived experiences. My graduate student, Jennifer Noseworthy, and I are conducting a comprehensive literature review and we’ve only found a few qualitative studies focused on the human lived experience of perinatal loss.” And that moved Jonas-Simpson to conduct research and create resources for others like her.

Enduring Love is her third film. Her first was , while her second, is a short made from footage shot for Enduring Love, which focuses on the surviving children. “These children have an incredible bond and relationship with the babies,” their siblings who’ve died. Jonas-Simpson recently gave a talk and showed Why Did Baby Die? at a Women's Health and Mental Wellbeing Speakers Series event at 91��ɫ.

Some of the children, as seen in Enduring Love, have drawn family portraits years later that have included their deceased siblings. “Grieving and loss isn’t always something we talk about openly, but it is experienced by many, if not all, of us,” says Jonas-Simpson. Even after the physical death, the relationship continues. “It’s still hidden. Perinatal loss is also disenfranchised in our society.” To help grieving children with the loss of a baby sibling, she also wrote the children's book .

Jonas-Simpson started talking about her own experience of losing Ethan, born with vibrant red locks, and how her other two sons, now 11 and 13, have integrated him into their lives as a way to help others. “The children integrate this loss very well,” she says. One of her children even wrote a letter to Ethan as a school assignment, asking if there are dinosaurs in heaven and if it hurt to die. The teacher may have been uncomfortable, but Jonas-Simpson says it’s important to talk about and to understand the continuing relationship following death.

Next, she is hoping to do research on children age three to 18 who are grieving a loss of a baby sibling. Children, she says, are often forgotten about, but they too grieve. “If we can be more open about grief and loss as a natural human experience and if we can begin in the schools with that,” it could be really helpful for the children, she says. She would also like to explore the common and unique threads of grieving around the world.

For more information or to view or buy Jonas-Simpson’s films, visit the Faculty of Health’s Living and Transforming with Perinatal Loss website.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The report said it's estimated that roughly 65,000 young people are homeless or living in homeless shelters throughout the country at one time or another during a given year.

, associate dean of research and professional development in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Education, used to work in the youth homelessness sector in the '90s. He said the approach in Canada has remained much the same since — namely, the focus on provision of emergency services.

“The longer I’m involved in this issue, the more upset I am that we allow 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds to languish in emergency shelters rather than to provide them with better solutions and better options,” he said. He co-authored the report with , an associate professor in 91��ɫ’s department of anthropology, and researcher Tara Patton.

Gaetz noted that other countries, such as Australia and the U.K., have evolved approaches focusing on prevention and moving individuals out of homelessness and into housing. He said while emergency services are needed, the real emphasis should be on preventing young people from becoming and remaining homeless.

He said research in Canada is pretty consistent in showing that between 60 and 70 per cent of young people come from households where they’ve experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Yet even in situations where they’re leaving households where they may have been abused, it doesn’t mean their relationship with all family members has soured, he noted.

Even though family conflict is probably at the core of the majority of youth homelessness, it doesn’t mean that those relationships are irreconcilable, Gaetz said. In certain cases, there may not be a history of abuse but perhaps family conflict which can often be addressed. That means more intensive support is needed for both the youngster and their family.

“If there’s conflict parents may not know what to do. There may be anger management issues that need working on; there may be mediation. There may also just need to be a cooling-out period.”

The report profiles the Family Reconnect program run by , which operates three shelters in the Toronto area and works with homeless and at-risk youth aged 16-24 to get them off the streets permanently.

The program provides youngsters with support through various channels, including counselling, to help get them on track to potentially return home or move into the community, ideally with family support.

Between 2005 and 2010, the program helped 376 clients. Among them, 62 per cent of youth became more actively involved with family members and 14.5 per cent reconciled with a family member after repairing a damaged relationship.

Parents are also able to benefit from the program.

Gaetz said it will require a unified approach from all levels of government to develop strategic responses to homelessness.

At the provincial level where funding is controlled for most service delivery, they recommend establishing an inter-ministerial working group that spans all sectors. They’re also asking municipal governments to develop strategic plans to address youth homelessness.

“I really believe that the knowledge is there about how to do this and, in many cases, the commitment is there to do things differently.”

also covered the report April 13.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Some 65,000 young people are homeless or at risk of homelessness across Canada. In Toronto, approximately 1,700 youth are on the streets on any given night, about half of them in emergency shelters.

Right: Report co-authors Daphne Winland (left) and Stephen Gaetz

“In Canada, we really need to radically reform our approach to youth homelessness,” says , associate dean of research in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Education and co-author of the Family Matters report. “We need to be much more strategic in how we address the problem, and this means placing a greater emphasis on prevention, family reconnection and rapid re-housing efforts. This not only improves lives, it’s also more cost effective.”

Prevention programs, including family mediation and support for the development of healthy family relations, are likely to produce longer-lasting results and a quicker exit from the streets, according to the report. Such interventions, which cost about $7,000 a year per youth, make better financial sense than putting a young person in a shelter for a year at a cost of more than $20,000. Unfortunately, such programming is rare in the sector, it says.

One exceptional initiative that the report says should be scaled up and replicated is the Family Reconnect Program, run by Eva’s Initiatives in Toronto. The Family Reconnect Program offers youth and their families access to free individual and family counselling to help them understand the nature of family conflict and resolve or better mitigate family problems. As a result, many youth decide to go back home, while others go into independent housing, supported by their community or family.

“The shelter system provides critical services, but it should never be the only option,” says Rachel Gray, director of the National Initiatives Program at Eva’s Initiatives. Between 2005 and 2010, the Family Reconnect Program helped 376 clients: 62 per cent of youth became more actively involved with family members; 14.5 per cent reconciled with a family member after repairing a damaged relationship; and the housing situation improved for more than 40 per cent of participants.

The Family Matters report also details the success of national youth homelessness prevention programs overseas that could serve as models for Canada. In Australia, work is done with school and community-based services to engage young people and their families before youth become homeless. In the U.K., family mediation programs help move young people out of the shelter system and back with their families or their community in a safe and planned way.

Part of the challenge in Canada is that emergency shelters are largely designed to provide young people with protection from abusive family situations. While this focus on protection is essential, given that 60 to 70 per cent of homeless youth flee households where they experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse, the potential role of family or extended family members to help youth move on with their lives is largely ignored.

Left: According to the report, prevention programs, including family mediation and support for the development of healthy family relations, are likely to produce longer-lasting results for homeless youth

“For many young people who become homeless, family still matters,” says report co-author , a professor in the Department of Anthropology at 91��ɫ. “Just because one comes from a household characterized by abuse, doesn’t mean that there are no healthy or redeemable relations within the family.”

Given the gaps in the current Canadian response to youth homelessness, Eva’s Initiatives is launching an online toolkit that will give youth service providers across the country detailed information about how to incorporate prevention strategies into existing programs.

However, much more remains to be done if Canada is truly committed to ending youth homelessness, the report says. It calls for concrete measures and increased funding at the national, provincial and municipal levels to make prevention integral to Canada’s response to youth homelessness.

The Family Matters report and executive summary are available online as part of the Homeless Hub Research Report Series on the  website.��The report, which includes detailed recommendations, also tells the personal stories of youth and families who have benefited from the Family Reconnect Program.

The Homeless Hub Research Report Series is a initiative based at 91��ɫ, highlighting the work of top Canadian researchers on homelessness. The goal of the research series is to take homelessness research and relevant policy findings to new audiences.

works with homeless and at-risk youth ages 16 to 24 to get them off the streets permanently. They operate three shelters in the Greater Toronto Area that house 114 youth each night.��Eva’s also operates the Family Reconnect Program, which works with young people in a protected environment to support their efforts to address family conflict in a way that helps them move forward in their lives.

By Janice Walls, media relations coordinator at 91��ɫ, and Micol Zarb,  Media Relations at Eva’s Initiatives.

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"If a child is bullied at home by his or her parents or siblings, they’re going to learn the patterns they need to learn about the use of power and aggression in relationships," says Debra Pepler [Distinguished Research Professor in psychology at 91��ɫ’s LaMarsh Centre for Child & Youth Research].

These "children who are morally disengaged tend to think that the other child is just deserving of it, that they’re not human. They really disregard that child’s basic rights."

Pepler, who works at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Health] and the in Toronto, co-founded the Promoting Relationships and Eliminating Violence Network.

She says that for most kids, bullying or being bullied are minor problems that pass with time. But 10 to 15 per cent require extra support, and chronic bullies need help from mental health experts.

Pepler found that "85 per cent of the time, we saw bullying in the schoolyard or in the classroom, other children are there, and they form the audience for bullying and they reinforce the child who is bullying."

Her findings show that chronic bullies are more likely to skip school, abuse substances, sexually harass others, use violence in romantic relationships and eventually get into crime.

"They don’t have that voice inside that says, ‘Is this a good idea, should I do this?’ They’re really willing to go along to keep their friends, to keep their status, and do all sorts of negative things when they’re exposed to peer pressure. If we wanted to identify and help those children who are going to cost society the most in terms of criminal behaviour . . . we would be looking at the children who are involved in high rates of bullying."

These kids "probably need mental health services, (and) they and their families need a lot of support around how to develop the social-emotional capacity for healthy relationships." Schools need to keep track of every occurrence of bullying and focus their resources on the chronic bullies, she says.

Combating the stigma against reporting bullying to adults requires re-educating both children and adults, Pepler says.

"Children have a responsibility to tell when it’s happening, either to (teachers) or to someone else, because it violates a child’s rights, to be bullied. A child who is bullied isn’t safe, and similarly a child who bullies others is really in need of help."

This approach also helps combat cyberbullying because "the children who are cyberbullying are the children who traditionally bully," Pepler says.

She says teaching math and literacy is different from teaching kids how to interact positively. "Two plus two always equals four, and Cat on the Mat always looks the same, but social-emotional development is hugely complex," she says.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Researchers from the University of New Brunswick, the University of Alberta, Ryerson University, and 91��ɫ released the findings of their groundbreaking research on Thursday that examined students at Oromocto High School near Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, who recently had a parent serving in the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.

The researchers reported the teens worried their parents would not return home or would come back "different."

The study found that stress caused concerns at home. The young people felt a sense of responsibility for the emotional stability of their other parent and for any younger siblings at home. The teen felt additional stress if the parent remaining in Canada was having difficulty with the other parent being away on the military mission.

. . .

The teens reported feelings of isolation in attempting to deal with those problems, according to the study.

In particular, adolescent girls took on a large share of the family's emotional burden when one parent was overseas.

. . .

[The] study was funded by the .It is a part of a larger study into the mental health and well-being of adolescents in military families.

The studywas covered by , the , the , and among other news outlets.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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