Welcome to our New CHWN Blog!
A Big Anniversary, A New Podcast and Lots of Gratitude
By Ivy Bourgeault | February, 2025
I’m pleased to kick off this new blog series – where we’ll be keeping you up-to-date on the latest news, insights and updates from the Canadian Health Workforce Network. Check back regularly to see what we’re working on and how you can partner with us.
There are a number of exciting updates to share for this inaugural blog, but I want to start first with some words of gratitude:
Over the course of its existence, but most importantly since its rebranding in 2015, the Canadian Health Workforce Network has attracted some of the most knowledgeable and committed members, co-leads and organizational partners - people I’ve been so honoured to work alongside.
At our 10th anniversary conference back in November, our amazing team of co-leads gifted me with flowers and a certificate, to mark a decade of leadership at the CHWN. I said at the time that I didn’t have words to express my gratitude; I appreciate the opportunity to offer some now, upon time and reflection:
None of us is as smart as all of us, is a quote attributed to Ken Blanchard. So true.
The team of volunteer co-leads at CHWN embody an enormously broad range of interdisciplinary and interprofessional expertise, who collectively represent hundreds of years of academic, embedded and front-line experience in the health workforce domain. They have brought critically important insights and ideas to our operations as we confront a range of health workforce issues and organizational challenges. I am so grateful for their tireless work to show up for our community.
I also have enormous gratitude for our incredible group of organizational partners. They share our commitment and have always managed to help support us to keep the lights on, so to speak. The Canadian Health Workforce Network was from the outset, designed to be a knowledge mobilisation network, linking those who can address important health workforce knowledge gaps with those who need this knowledge. We’ve been able to succeed in this endeavour thanks to these partnerships. CHWN members and leads have gained important insight and knowledge from our organizational partners – their perspectives have honed our work and made our outputs more relevant.
As the African proverb goes, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. To go far, to achieve lasting, meaningful solutions we need to go together through partnered health workforce research.
As we start our 15th year of operations and 10 as the Canadian Health Workforce Network, we are looking forward to supporting the teams who represent the largest ever dedicated CIHR investment into health workforce research as their Evidence Support and Knowledge Mobilisation (ESKM) Hub. Check out the dedicated page we have set up for them!
Noting critical knowledge gaps of how health workforce data has and can be used to help a range of decision-makers plan to meet population needs, we are sponsoring a special issue of Healthcare Management Forum. Supported by proceeds from the 2024 Canadian Health Workforce Conference, this special issue of promising practices is earmarked for publication later this year.
We will also be launching a new podcast this year called ‘Who Cares’ where we will showcase the work and lives of a range of health workers across Canada. Through our guest interviews, listeners will hear first-hand accounts from diverse health workers – what they do, the joys (and challenges) in their careers, and how they meet unique health care needs. Let us know if you are interested in participating!
In closing, it is mindful to reflect on Margaret Mead’s words: never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. We look forward to continuing to change the world of health workforce knowledge development and mobilisation along with all of you.
Please let us know how the Canadian Health Workforce Network can work better for all of you - by sending your ideas to
Thank you for your past and continued support.