Through TACC’s Partners for Change initiative, members can access funding opportunities, partnerships, and support that help transform community priorities into research and innovation.
One example is the Innovation and Evaluation Grants offered through Société Inclusive, a Québec-wide platform that supports participatory and intersectoral research with and for people living with disabilities. Through this program, up to $35,000 is awarded to support projects developed in response to needs identified by community organizations, with the goal of improving quality of life and social inclusion. The program funds the co-design, testing, and evaluation of innovative social, clinical, technological, and service solutions.
As part of its partnership with Société Inclusive, TACC helps connect researchers, practitioners, community organizations, and people with lived experience to these opportunities while supporting funded projects in autism and neurodevelopmental conditions.
We are pleased to highlight one of the projects funded through Société Inclusive’s Fall 2025 Participatory Research Program: Adapting Acceptance and Commitment Training Tools to Autistic Youth: A School-Based Approach to Promote Mental Health (ACT for Youth), led by TACC Regular Members Valérie Courchesne and Anne-Marie Nader (Université de Montréal).
In collaboration with Seuin Thomas Henderson (Giant Steps), lived experience partners Richard Marcotte and Nathalie Miyake, and additional community partners, the team will co-develop and pilot adapted Acceptance and Commitment Training tools for autistic students in school settings.
The project addresses a significant gap in accessible mental health supports for autistic youth, particularly those with intellectual and/or communication differences. Through co-development with students and educators, the team aims to create practical, classroom-ready tools and a bilingual, open-access toolkit to support emotional regulation, stress management, and inclusion.
This project reflects the type of community-informed innovation that Partners for Change seeks to advance: research developed in partnership with the people and organizations closest to the issue, and focused on generating solutions with real-world impact.
We congratulate all six funded teams and look forward to following their progress.