The Centre for Research and Expertise in Social Gerontology (CREGÉS) excels in four Domains of Expertise:
- Counter Mistreatment of Older Adults
- Inclusive Aging, Diversity, Health and Well-Being
- Palliative Care
- Caregiving
Through the coordination of practitioners-researchers in these areas, a variety of projects are designed to develop Leading practices and share expertise with practice settings. These projects, developed in partnership with researchers and staff at the CREGÉS who support them in terms of research, evaluation and knowledge transfer, involve the participation of collaborators from the clinical and community practice settings. The development of Leading practices attests to the CREGÉS’s commitment, as part of its academic mission in social gerontology, to develop better practices by focusing on research and innovation.
What is a Leading practice? A Leading practice is a set of structured activities designed to fill gaps or address needs in service delivery, and to produce innovative knowledge and tools.
According to the reference framework for the university designation of the social services sector establishments, a Leading practice must:
- Constitute specific and well-defined expertise;
- Represent an innovation compared to the current or standard practices (improvement or new practice);
- Be subject to a development process that includes implementation and review;
- Be associated with research and evaluation;
- Be subject to knowledge transfer and mobilization activities within the establishment;
- Be developed with a perspective of transfer to other organizations.
At CREGÉS, the development process of Leading practices is comprised of 6 main steps:
- Emergence and identification of a need;
- Analysis of relevance;
- Development;
- Implementation and evaluation;
- Updates;
- Adaptation and/or conclusion.
Summary document - Reference Framework for Developing Leading Practices in the Health and Social Services Sector (in English)
This reference framework, developed by the Directorate of Academic Affairs and Research Ethics of the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Centre-Ouest-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, is intended for the entire CIUSSS community, its managers, staff, physicians, students, researchers, volunteers, patients and users, all of whom may be involved in the development, evaluation and implementation of leading practices.
Its goals are:
- To share a common definition of a leading practice, the major steps and factors that contribute to its development and its sustainability in the provision of services;
- To develop a common understanding of the principles that govern their implementation, the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders and authorities that support their development with a view toward innovation and continuous improvement of practices;
- To provide teams with tools to help them identify ideas or practices that have the potential to become leading practices so they can support these practices’ development, evaluation and transfer to other organizations.
