Community Partner Projects: Supporting Women Led Initiatives

Manulife Centre for Community Health Research hosted the SWAN (Sex Workers Action Network) board meeting on October 26, 2016. MCCHR has worked with SWAN for a number of years helping them to build their capacity through research. Presently SWAN is discussing the recommendations from research that the MCCHR conducted two years ago relative to best practices.

MCCHR is dedicated to helping SWAN and other grassroots organizations capitalize on community-university partnerships in order to strengthen their work in the community In 2014, our researchers executed a needs assessment on street-based sex workers and less visible sex workers and their lived experiences of working in the sex industry in the Region of Waterloo. This project evaluated the relevance of health and community services for sex works. There were 52 sex workers interviewed as part of this project. Several important recommendations came out from this needs assessment around better service delivery, access to services, and more training for agencies and organizations providing services to sex workers.