Daily News

Posted on Oct. 22: CanChild to ease challenges faced by families with children with disabilities

Helping understand and ease the challenges faced by families of children with disabilities is the goal of a new study at CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster. Led by Gillian King, CanChild investigator, and with $85,644 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), researchers at CanChild will gather information from interviews with up to 24 families of children with Down syndrome or autism from across Ontario in the next three years. The study, "Understanding the Values, Priorities, and World Views of Families Raising Children with Chronic Developmental Conditions", is aimed at discovering how parenting a child with a disability affects families' values, priorities, and views. "As time goes on, there is an adaptation and accommodation process. What it means to a family to have a child with a disability may change," says King, a social scientist with CanChild, located in the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster. She is also assistant clinical professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster and research director at Thames Valley Children's Centre in London, Ontario. "Over time, what family members consider to be important may shift," says King.

Posted on Oct. 22: CIS restructuring explores new possibilities

McMaster's Computing & Information Services (CIS) has restructured most of its organization into two new areas infrastructure and information management. "The new structure will help us focus our energies and resources more closely on administrative computing and infrastructure services and support," says Pat O'Day, director of CIS. CIS has experienced both a change in mandate and a reporting line change to the assistant vice-president administration over the past year, explains O'Day. "We anticipate the new organization will benefit our clients by simplifying our structure and better positioning our resources to meet their changing needs and service expectations. Within CIS, the new structure is expected to generate more synergy between groups and enable us to explore new possibilities in both services and technology." The infrastructure component will include the software group, network group, database analysts and security. Information services will consist of the systems analysts, programming group and the LAN (Local Area Network) support group.

Posted on Oct. 21: Lowitja O’Donoghue to speak at annual Gandhi lecture

McMaster's Centre for Peace Studies will feature former Australian of the Year Lowitja O'Donoghue at its seventh annual Mahatma Gandhi Lecture on Nonviolence. O'Donoghue, from Flinders University, South Australia, will speak on "Human rights and reconciliation in Australia in the 21st century: an unfinished journey". Born at Indulkana, located in central south Australia, O'Donoghue is a member of the Yankunjatjara people of North West South Australia. Her commendations include the Order of Australia (1977); commander of the British Empire (1983); Australian of the Year (1984) and Australia's Living National Treasures (1998). She was also the former chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) from the inception of the Commission.