Grandview Kids welcomes Dr. Fiona Moola as a Research Associate

As Grandview Kids embarks on expanding its reach in research, innovation and knowledge mobilization, it has recently welcomed Dr. Fiona Moola as a formal Research Associate. Dr. Moola is an Associate Professor at the Toronto Metropolitan University and comes with a long history of research excellence across many children’s hospitals in Canada. She is also a status-only professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Institute at the University of Toronto. Dr. Moola is also a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and operates a small therapy practice for kids and families. Dr. Moola is the second Research Associate to join Grandview Kids.

Grandview Kids is pleased to welcome Dr. Moola as our newest Research Associate. Partnering with her, and harnessing her incredible passion and expertise, we will advance our research efforts to deliver more innovative, evidence-informed and culturally safe services for thousands of children and youth with communication, developmental and physical needs.

Tom McHugh, CEO, Grandview Kids

The partnership is built on the founding values of Grandview Kids: Caring and commitment, whole-child and family-centred, trust and respect, innovation and continuous learning, accountability, and excellence. Together with Dr. Fiona Moola, Grandview Kids Executive Lead of Research, Innovation and Knowledge Mobilization, Dr. Taryn Eickmeier, will be able to inform culturally-safe practices to support all clients and caregivers. This partnership advances a commitment to engage children, youth and caregivers in research and innovation – especially in equity-deserving and marginalized communities.

Over the past three years, I have enjoyed many research-interactions with Grandview Kids. Their research is deeply rooted in an ethics of care, humility, listening, decolonization, relationality, and reciprocity with researchers and participants. It brings me great joy to join Grandview Kids as a formal Research Associate in partnership with the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). Together, across Grandview Kids and TMU, I look forward to elevating and amplifying paediatric disability research and discovery in Canada with a particular emphasis on listening to the voices of marginalized communities through an equity lens. I feel privileged and honoured that Grandview Kids has generously opened their doors. I look forward to leaving a lasting footprint on paediatric disability research in Canada with Grandview Kids.

Dr. Fiona Moola, Grandview Kids Research Associate

As the only Children’s Treatment Centre in the Durham Region, Grandview Kids is committed to ensuring all children and youth have equitable access to developmental and rehabilitation services. Furthermore, it is imperative that these services are evidence-informed and ethical. Partnerships with researchers, like Dr. Moola, can help ensure clinical and medical staff are delivering the best available therapies and treatments to clients, in a way that supports goals that are meaningful for each family.

More information about Dr. Fiona Moola and the Grandview Kids Research, Innovation and Knowledge Mobilization portfolio can be found on our Research page.

About Dr. Moola

Dr. Fiona J. Moola is an Associate Professor in the School of Early Childhood Studies in the Faculty of Community Services at Toronto Metropolitan University. Dr. Moola is a Canadian-South African who is the daughter of anti-apartheid activists from South Africa. Dr. Moola is a woman of colour.

Dr. Moola completed Undergraduate, Masters, and Doctoral Degrees at the University of Toronto, graduating in 2011. She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Concordia University in 2012 before joining the Faculty at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Moola comes with a long history of excellence across many children’s in Canada where she has maintained many lines of research. These include a) children with disabilities, play, and physical activity, b) childhood disability and the arts, c) marginalized childhoods, and d) childhood disability, narrative, and storytelling. Dr. Moola also maintains ongoing lines of research in Indigenous childhoods and children’s mental health.

Dr. Moola’s research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institute for Health Research, TMU, VERTEX, the Holland Bloorview Foundation, and the University of Toronto. Dr. Moola’s work is strongly committed to principles of critical health psychology, social justice, and anti-oppression. Thus far, Dr. Moola has contributed 55 publications (articles and book chapters) to the academic peer reviewed literature. Fiona is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and has a small therapy practice. Fiona also teaches and delivers equity, diversity, and inclusion workshops. Dr. Moola is delighted to join Grandview Kids as its second Research Associate.

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