Written by Aaron Andrews, Carmen Duimering, and Megan Matlock Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences students at Western University
Working on this CEL project as a team was an incredibly rewarding experience. From the very beginning, we leaned on each other’s strengths and found that our diverse perspectives helped us navigate the complexity of our task: building an accessible training module for sociodemographic (SD) data collection. Whether it was collaborating on the script, troubleshooting design challenges, or refining our language to be more inclusive, we constantly checked in with one another, offered feedback, and kept the end-users—frontline service providers—at the center of our decisions.
A huge part of our learning came through working closely with our community partner, Christine from CRHESI. She brought invaluable insight from her experience on the ground, reminding us to stay rooted in the lived realities of service providers and the communities they serve. Her thoughtful feedback pushed us to think critically about clarity, tone, and accessibility in a way we wouldn’t have been able to achieve on our own. Christine wasn’t just a collaborator—she was a guide, helping us align our academic goals with community needs.
What stood out most was how much we learned by doing. This wasn’t just about completing a project—it was about learning how to communicate clearly, balance accountability with compassion, and make meaningful decisions as a group. We often found ourselves reflecting on how nuanced SD data collection really is—not just from a systems level, but also from a human one. We learned to think more critically about accessibility, representation, and the real-world application of equity-based tools.
In the end, the process shaped us just as much as the final deliverable. We’re proud of what we created, but even more so of how we grew as teammates, listeners, and advocates for equity in health and social systems.