Holly Symonds-Brown, PhD, RN

Area of Study / Keywords

care in the community care infrastructure dementia chronicity family care practices mobilities

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About

I have worked as a nurse in mental health and addictions for many years in many settings and have always been interested in formal care practices and their fit with people's everyday life.

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Research

As an early career qualitative researcher, my work focuses on how care infrastructures shape the everyday lives of marginalized people due to cognitive or mental health differences.  I am particularly interested in how everyday life and care create possibilities for who people can be and where they can go. Most of my current work is related to life with dementia in the community. My work uses critical theory and theoretically informed ethnography to re-think taken for granted ideas of care, social inclusion and everyday life with chronicity.

Current Projects

Staying in the Life with Dementia (University of Alberta Hospital Foundation)

Reimagining Aging Futures with Mental Illness  (SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant- Principal Investigator)

Dementia and Mobilities of Everyday Life in Public Spaces (SSHRC Insight Development Grant- Priniciple Investigator)

LIVinG with ChrONIc cancer TrEatments (LONGEVITI) (SSHRC Insight Development Grant - Co-Investigator)

Strengthening Unpaid Care Mobilization in Canada’s Social Welfare State  (SSHRC Insight- Co-Investigator)

Living with Aortic Diseases( SSHRC Institutional Grants Co-PI )

Dementia and Public Spaces: Dyadic social mapping with carers and people living with dementia at home. (SSHRC-Explore Principle Investigator)

Adult Day Programs and their effects on individuals with dementia and their Caregivers  (ADAPT-DemCare): Developing Program theories on the how and the why.

(CIHR Operating Grant – Knowledge Synthesis Grants  Role: Co-applicant)

Assessing the Impact of DAy programs on individuals living with Dementia and their family/friend Caregivers (AIDA-DemCare): A prospective, cross-provincial cohort study.Evaluation of Dementia Programs, Services, & Care Models ( CIHR Operating Grant Role: Principle Applicant – Regional Lead, PI: Matthias Hoben).

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Teaching

I teach mental health nursing (Nurs 327/437) in the undergraduate program and Advanced Nursing Inquiry (Nurs 601) and Ethnography in Healthcare (Nurs 661- independent study) in the doctoral program.

I am accepting PHD students interested in doing ethnographic or participatory action-based work on the social health of people living with dementia at home or using critical theory to explore care infrastructure for marginalized populations.

NURS 601 - Advanced Nursing Inquiry

The purpose of this course is to foster advanced scholarly inquiry and to assist students to understand, position, and defend their research theoretically and methodologically in the context of multiple perspectives and different theoretical standpoints. Emphasis will be placed on the diverse but distinctive nature of nursing inquiry created through engagement of multiple communities within health related contexts.

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Browse more courses taught by Holly Symonds-Brown

Michelle Lavoie, Jinny Menon, Vera Caine, Holly Symonds-Brown, Margot Jackson

Journal of Applied Youth Studies. 2025 November; 10.1007/s43151-025-00201-1

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Holly Symonds-Brown, Christine Ceci, Wendy Duggleby

Ageing and Society. 2025 November; 10.1017/S0144686X24000564

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Nicole L. Tegg, Colleen M. Norris, Holly Symonds‐Brown

Nursing Inquiry. 2025 July; 10.1111/nin.70045

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Holly Symonds-Brown, Christine Ceci

Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine. 2024 January; 10.1177/13634593221116501

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Holly Symonds‐Brown, Christine Ceci, Harkeert Judge

Sociology of Health & Illness. 2022 November; 10.1111/1467-9566.13532

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Janna Klostermann, Laura Funk, Holly Symonds-Brown, Maria Cherba, Christine Ceci, Pat Armstrong, Jeanette Pols

Societies. 2022 March; 10.3390/soc12020052

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INYI Journal. 2022 January; 10.25071/1929-8471.98

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Holly Symonds-Brown, Christine Ceci, Wendy Duggleby, Mary Ellen Purkis

Dementia. 2021 January; 10.1177/1471301219884429

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Christine Ceci, Holly Symonds Brown, Harkeert Judge

Dementia. 2020 April; 10.1177/1471301218790037

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CHRISTINE CECI, HOLLY SYMONDS BROWN, MARY ELLEN PURKIS

Ageing and Society. 2019 June; 10.1017/s0144686x17001477

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