Mero is a technology innovator in the facility management automation industry, serving commercial properties with wireless IoT devices that monitor the metrics behind washroom use and waste. With the recent spread of the COVID-19 virus, hand sanitizer use is at an all-time high. For commercial properties to sustainably provide sanitization to the public, monitoring of their supply is a must. With Mero's sensing technology, this process is streamlined and readily available, but some refinement of the product remains. This grant will enable Mero to develop a scalable, repeatable retrofit solution to incorporate their sensors into existing hand sanitizer and soap dispensers regardless of the dispenser vendor, as well as create the packaging and training manuals necessary for commercial use. This technology will help keep essential workplaces, communities and cities safe during and post the COVID-19 pandemic.

When experiencing mental health crisis, many people rely on emergency services such as 9-1-1 dispatchers, paramedic services, police services and hospital emergency department services. Emergency response to mental health calls has recently gained significantly greater attention, recognizing that these interactions may have substantial, potentially life and death consequences for those already in distress. Many of these first response services lack sufficient resources and training and have few options to offer when providing care. Humber College and TAIBU Community Health Centre & Middlesex-London Paramedic Service will collaborate on the "Developing a best practice model for mental health crisis care: A community-engaged approach" project which brings together community-based service providers and emergency care providers to develop a best practice model for response to mental health crisis care. This project plans to highlight and develop practices that appropriately support all members of the community requiring emergency mental health support with particular attention paid to those of lower socioeconomic status, Black and Indigenous communities, People of Colour, and LGBT2SQ+ and immigrant communities. In addition to a best practice model, the project aims to co-develop workshops and training for practitioners working in these fields. Along with the partner organizations, this multi-disciplinary team of researchers bring extensive academic and frontline experience from across care sectors.

Humber College will conduct a mixed methods, three phase project over the course of three years that will engage and educate young-adult cannabis users (18-30), the age group most likely to consume cannabis, and the age group most likely to consume cannabis on a daily or near daily basis. By targeting this age group we hope to impact long-term cannabis consumption practices, thereby having the best potential for improving public health and wellbeing outcomes for decades to come. In Phase One we will gather the data necessary to understand what new public education materials need to be developed by conducting an online survey and a series of focus groups across the country. In Phase Two, we will work with Humber College advertising students, or partner organizations, and cannabis consumers to develop new public education materials focused on effectively engaging consumers with harm reduction information about cannabis 2.0 products. In Phase Three, we will launch the new materials, and being an evaluation of their efficacy before updating the materials to respond to any shortcomings identified in our evaluation. Our partners on this project include the Association of Canadian Cannabis Retailers (ACCRES), the National Institute of Cannabis Health and Education (NICHE), Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP), and Aurora Cannabis Inc.

Canadian employers have consistently identified that internationally trained professionals (ITPs) are not hired for three key reasons: (1) lack of familiarity with Canadian workplace practices; (2) inability to effectively assess the relevance of work and education experience obtained abroad; and (3) lack of experience working in a typical Canadian team/matrix workplace environment. These barriers create significant underemployment for these highly skilled professionals who have immigrated to Canada, and this project is focused on overcoming these three identified barriers. ACCES Employment (ACCES) assists ITP's who are facing barriers to employment that prevent them from integrating into the Canadian job market into their field of work that reflects their past experience. The challenge faced by ACCES is how to measure the impact of both implemented and planned experiential learning opportunities on the employment readiness and actual employment of the ITP's who participate in their bridging programs. The key objective of this study is to develop an evidence-informed base of information which will help measure the impact of both implemented and planned experiential learning opportunities on the employment readiness and actual employment of the ITP's who participate in ACCES' bridging programs. This project is intended to research and measure the impact of these learning experiences to determine efficacy and effectiveness from both an ITP and employer perspective, and to use this data to inform decisions about which are and which are not effective.