Alison Gerlach
Position
Contact
Credentials
MSc (San Jose), PhD (UBC)
Area of expertise
Advancing equity-oriented policy, organizational, practice changes in early years and childhood dis/ability sectors so they are inclusive of and responsive to structurally marginalized communities, families and children. Principle-based and relational approaches including cultural safety and trauma- and violence-informed care. Critical, relational, and intersectional theorizing, mixed methods; community-engaged and participatory research.
Alison Gerlach
Alison Gerlach is an Associate Professor who joined the SCYC in August 2018. Alison’s current program of research and scholarship focuses on informing systems change for equity-oriented child- and family-centred care in diverse early years and healthcare contexts with Indigenous and non-Indigenous families and children who experience structural forms of marginalization and a greater risk of health inequities.
Alison’s work draws on 25 years of providing occupational therapy with dis/abled children in diverse community and family contexts, and in partnership with Indigenous organizations and First Nations in British Columbia. Alison is particularly interested in the continuities between children’s early experiences of adversity, dis/ability, and health inequities and the development of inclusive, responsive, and equity-oriented structural, organizational, and practice level approaches. She is committed to community-based participatory research that engages with communities, organizations, families, and children as research partners.
Alison is interested in supervising graduate students with research interests in critical disability studies and/or equity in the early years sector.
For publications: