Hélène Laperrière
Hélène Laperrière
Full professor

2009: Postdoctorate, Popular health education, Universidade Federal da Paraiba
2008: PhD, Public health (health promotion), Université de Montréal
2004: MSc, Nursing, Université de Montréal
2002: BSc, Nursing, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

Room
LEE 516C


Biography

Hélène Laperrière brings her nursing experience with Latin-American social movements, including with community-based organizations (women’s and sex workers’ associations, pastoral health-care workers, seamen’s club, coalition to fight AIDS, popular education) and with public and community health programs (leprosy and STBBI/AIDS prevention) in the states of Amazonas and Paraiba (Brazil), and with the relationship of multiethnic families to social services in Quebec (Canada). She completed postdoctoral studies in popular education in health at the Universidade Federal da Paraíba (Brazil, 2008). These engagements raised her consciousness of power verticality and internal colonization in international aid co-operation and globalization, as well as the methodological ambiguities of participatory approaches with civil society in public health. Professor Laperrière is co-ordinating the Niikaniganaw: All My Relations Indigenous research project, which aims to develop an Indigenous research perspective in the field. This project offers accessible, inclusive ceremonies for Indigenous people and those involved with them in an urban setting, in Ottawa-area sharing circles.

Professor Laperrière is accepting new students for thesis supervision.

Research interests

  • Indigenous healing practices
  • Community health
  • Safe, stigma-free cultural practices for Indigenous people
  • Critical epistemology of Latin American health care
  • Participatory, cross-disciplinary research, collaborative ethnography, group reflective practice, Indigenous research in urban settings and in Indigenous territory, ceremony as methodology
  • Experiential learning on dangerous ground

Research

  • SSHRC. Queens University, Ontario, Canada. Furlano, J, Roy, A, Vuyk, W., Patterson, K, Gambacort, L, Grady, C., Lapointe, M., Dionne, N. Brant, K, Brant, K,  Laperrière, H. (co-researcher). Indigenous Wealth Committee Case Study. Connection Grant.
  • CnPQ. Brazil. Pereira de Tugny, R.; Furtado, J. Gonçalves, G.; Quitiaquez, JT, Laperrière, H. ; Ferreira Santos, N.; Tomaz, V.; Antonio, R.; Belisario, BP, Costa, R. Cantar e curar a terra: construção de diretrizes pedagógicas para a formação de agentes agroflorestais Tikmuun [Singing and healing the Earth; construction of pedagogical directrices for the education of agroflorestal agentes Tikmuun].
  • CIHR-IRSC, Community-based research, Indigenous HIV/AIDS, Laperrière, NPI, Dopler, S. (PKU), Pennock, T. (KU), Masching, R. (KU), Loppie, C. (co-PI), Niikaniganaw (All my relations): building capacity for stigma-free and culturally-safe care for indigenous people living with and affected by HIV in Ottawa-Gatineau.
  • IHR-IRSC. Operating Grant: Knowledge Synthesis: COVID-19 in Mental Health & Substance Use. Indigenous People’s Health. Laperrière, H. (NPI); Bendevis, C. (PKU) et al. Niikaniganaw (All My Relations) II – the COVID-19 Rapid Response: Indigenous approaches to synthesizing knowledge for culturally-safe and stigma free mental health care for under-served Indigenous communities in Ottawa-Gatineau.

Publications