Abstract: Youth-Led Research to Improve Abortion Access, Experience, and Continuing Professional Development Resources for Social Workers on Reproductive Justice (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Schedule:

Thursday, January 15, 2026

Marquis BR 7, ML 2 (Marriott Marquis Washington DC)

* noted as presenting author

Stephanie Begun, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Gaja Ananthathurai, MSW, Researcher, University of Toronto, ON, Canada

Samantha Kennedy, Researcher, University of Toronto

Annalies Smith, Researcher, University of Toronto

Anysha Reid-Henry, MSW, Researcher, University of Toronto, ON, Canada

Kim Griarte, Researcher, University of Toronto

Cam Bautista, Researcher, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Ayla Arhinson, Researcher, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Temulun Bagen, MSW, Researcher, University of Toronto

Sarmitha Sivakumaran, Researcher, University of Toronto

Preetika Sharma, PhD, Research Associate, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Background and Purpose: Though legal and available in Canada, there are disparities in how accessible and affirming abortion care is for equity-deserving groups, including youth. As social workers are often the most trusted providers of information, referrals, and social support to equity-deserving groups, they also often engage with people who are seeking abortion information, referrals to services, and self-determined decision-making supports. However, social workers do not often learn about the many nuances in abortion policy, jurisdiction, and resources aside from research they do on their own to support clients. This project sought to identify new ways of making abortion information and services more accessible and comfortable for equity-deserving groups across Canada. By empowering youth researchers to lead such efforts, new insights and interpretations from youths' intersectional perspectives could enrich approaches to delivering abortion information and care, which could then be used by social workers and allied helping professionals.

Methods: Youth Wellness Lab (YWL) youth researchers (ages 18-29) engaged a diverse sample of 54 family planning professionals (e.g., pharmacists, family physicians, OB-GYNs, nurses, midwives, social workers, abortion navigators) from across Canada in qualitative interviews. In these conversations, youth “flipped the script” by steering discussions with adult professionals to explore how services and approaches might be more optimally designed to provide affirming and judgment-free abortion information and care, by, with, and for equity-deserving groups, including youth. Youth researchers were mentored to analyze qualitative data, and then developed infographics and other easy-to-use abortion information and referral tools for social workers, other abortion care providers, and youth to use, respectively.

Results: Findings indicate that more resources are especially needed to support: 1) safe and non-judgmental abortion care for trans and non-binary individuals; 2) youths’ understanding of their rights to privacy and confidentiality in abortion care; and 3) abortion training and professional development opportunities specifically for non-medical professionals such as social workers, also expanded to include topics focused on reproductive justice more broadly. Resources developed by our team in response to our findings (e.g., infographics, clips of podcast conversations, excerpts from webinar trainings, patient-centred and practitioner guides) will be shared as part of this presentation.

Conclusions and Implications: Knowledge created and shared by youth researchers bring fresh insights and tools that may advance abortion access and experience for equity-deserving groups across Canada, also informing reproductive justice tools and trainings that could benefit social workers entering the field as well as those who are seeking knowledge and updates through continuing professional development.