Interview with Dr. Cheryl Furchuk
Trust, conversations, system change:
Dr. Cheryl Forchuk’s work recognized through
two achievement awards
Cheryl is a lifelong systems thinker. Growing up listening to her grandmother recite the names of seven generations of ancestral healers grounded her with a strong sense of self, and family debate sessions around the dinner table offered Cheryl critical thinking and perception beyond her years. As a volunteer candy-striper at the local Brantford hospital during high school, Cheryl experienced the disorganization of health care – the flawed schedule, the ineffective physical layout. Cheryl came to nursing to organize the system so it could help people.
Though at the time a diploma was the required educational preparation for nursing, Cheryl entered nursing with a BScN. As she saw the benefits of Masters level education, she entered and accomplished parallel training in nursing and psychology. During her first placement in psychiatry, Cheryl fell in love with the complexity and unpredictability that she witnessed. Her curiosity and systems thinking found a home in this area where so much was, and still is, unknown.
As an example, Cheryl mused, “Why is someone depressed? Every system level has a cause for depression – hormonal, intrapersonal, interpersonal, society (perhaps unemployment), side effects of medications; there are causal relationships, you don’t really know.”
Rather than frighten Cheryl, the uncertainty and unpredictability stimulated Cheryl. Her deep roots provided confidence and her nursing and psychology training provided process and skills that allowed her to perceive interpersonal or system dynamics and be situationally and self-aware. Cheryl’s quest for system change brought her to doctoral studies and subsequent research in the field of mental health, homelessness and poverty. Cheryl recalled a meaningful moment when three unhoused women led her on a tour of garbage bins to show how, on a cold night, the right bin to sleep in was selected. Through direct contact with people with lived experience of homelessness, ethnographic data and eye witness accounts, Cheryl’s publications resulted in change.
When Cheryl saw that people experiencing homelessness had higher rates of COVID than the general population, Canada prioritized vaccines for this population. When community members disclosed that they put needles in their linen when hospitalized if the sharps boxes were removed, Cheryl ensured that nurses in hospital became aware of this in her effort to bring harm reduction models into hospital settings, and this change occurred hospital settings.
When Cheryl learned that the Ontario assistive device benefit was for physical conditions only, she approached her MP, Terrance Kernaghan. Terrance saw the value in Cheryl’s argument to include mental health. He put forward a private member’s bill to have this changed to include mental health devices, such as phone apps. Unfortunately, the chilly attitude towards mental health at the time in Ontario meant this change did not go through, but the idea has been tabled, with hope for a future change. This same MPP nominated for the King Charles Coronation Medal for this work.
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The Coronation Medal commemorated the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III as King of Canada and was administered by the Chancellery of Honours at Rideau Hall. Recipients were recognized as people who have made a significant contribution to Canada or to a province, territory, region or community of Canada, or have made an outstanding achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada.
In June 2025, Cheryl learned of a second award, the Order of Canada. The Order of Canada award is the cornerstone of the Canadian Honours System. It is presented by the Governor General and recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation. Here are the words used to describe Cheryl and her work from the Governor General:
Cheryl Forchuk, O.C., O.Ont.
Brantford, Ontario
Cheryl Forchuk is an esteemed nurse scientist at the forefront of mental health, poverty and homelessness research in Canada. Her investigations on therapeutic relationships and her groundbreaking Transitional Discharge Model ensure that people experiencing mental illness and homelessness are treated equitably and provided with the necessary resources to rebuild their lives.
https://gg.ca/en/order-canada-appointees-june-30-2025
Cheryl’s work re homelessness includes a national study in which she and her team visited all provinces and territories to meet and learn from 400 people experiencing homelessness and 200 front line workers during the pandemic (see select articles below) and her transitional discharge plan model (TDM) was selected by the World Health Organization as a leading practice that supports human rights in their Guidance on Community Mental Health Services: promoting person-centered and rights based approaches document: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240025707
Thank-you Cheryl for your tireless, honourable work and your inspiration!
Sample of Cheryl’s work:
Forchuk, C., Benbow, S., Reiss, J., Lawson, S., Northcott, S., Vann, R., Catunto , D., Jeffrey , M., Booth , R., & Peters, A. (Online 2023; July 18th). Preventing Discharge to No Fixed Address – Version 2: Evaluation of a Best Practice Program to Prevent Discharge from Hospital into Homelessness. International Journal on Homelessness, 3(3), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.5206/ijoh.2023.3.15663