Michelle Phoenix, SLP, Reg. CASLPO, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science and CanChild Scientist at McMaster University. She is a speech-language pathologist with clinical experience working with young children and families. She has studied family-centred care, models of service delivery, parent mental health, cultural adaptation, and engagement in rehabilitation services. She believes that disabled youth and caregivers should have meaningful opportunities to inform service delivery and evaluation. Her research has included developing theories, teaching tools, and guidelines to improve meaningful and equitable engagement in research. She has found that embedding the arts in research methodologies and knowledge sharing has sparked creativity, passion, connection, and joy through the vulnerable sharing of emergent and messy ideas.
Dr. Phoenix and authors explore the metaphor “a seat at the table” in the context of including Disabled People and their families in system-level service design and research. They challenge us to consider inclusivity by interrogating this vision of “the table” in terms of ownership, participation, and consequences after a discussion ends.