Her areas of interest and scholarship include critical mental health, girlhood studies, girls' mental health, homelessness and girls/women, women's experiences of psychiatry, women and ECT (electroshock), women’s self esteem, young women and anger, girl’s experiences with shame in physical education, children’s rights in health care, electroshock, the rights of psychiatric survivors, human-animal bonding and the healing of spirit injuries, understanding homelessness from a critical social theory perspective, feminist nursing practice, critical population health, children's health and quality of life, children's rights, feminist pedagogy, eco-therapy, and the relationship between oppression and mental health.

Research Interests

Her areas of interest and scholarship include critical mental health, girlhood studies, girls' mental health, homelessness and girls/women, women's experiences of psychiatry, women and ECT (electroshock), women’s self esteem, young women and anger, girl’s experiences with shame in physical education, children’s rights in health care, electroshock, the rights of psychiatric survivors, human-animal bonding and the healing of spirit injuries, understanding homelessness from a critical social theory perspective, feminist nursing practice, critical population health, children's health and quality of life, children's rights, feminist pedagogy, eco-therapy, and the relationship between oppression and mental health.

Cheryl van Daalen-Smith teaches in the School of Nursing, School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies and the Children,Childhood and Youth Program, In the School of Nursing, she teaches community nursing, social justice nursing, critical public health, women’s health and child-centred nursing. For the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies she teaches Women and Madness, Critical Girlhood Studies and Women, Health and Healing. In the CCY program she teaches Children's Health and Quality of Life as well as Girlhood. She is the co-founder of York’s Sexualities Studies program and the Girls' Studies research cluster with the Centre for Feminist Research .

A well-known feminist nurse whose practice is rooted in social justice, her agenda is always emancipatory. For example, her work regarding children’s rights in health care settings is cutting edge. Her research exploring girls’ anger broke down barriers between service providers and the girls and young women they serve. One of her professional goals is to transform how children and youth are viewed and believes that they should be viewed as citizens worthy of both voice and choice.

She is a respected community health and pediatric mental health nurse. As founder the Ontario and Canadian Pediatric Nursing Associations, van Daalen-Smith’s dedication to collaborative leadership is evident. Her goal was to root pediatric nursing practice in the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the child so as to ensure children’s voices were listened to, valued and acted upon. A belief that children have rights has always been central in her many consultancies, invited leadership roles and nursing practice.

van Daalen-Smith speaks of bearing witness to children and youth during her years as a public health nurse and has taken those “privileged experiences” into her classrooms, feminist research with children and youth and her appointment as a special advisor on the Canadian coalition for the rights of children. Her master’s work explored women’s self esteem, feminist research, feminist pedagogy and girls experiences with physical education. Her doctoral work explored the lived experience of anger in the lives of diverse girls and young women- the first and only study of its kind in Canadian nursing.

Her areas of interest and scholarship include women’s self esteem, young women and anger, girl’s experiences with shame in physical education, children’s rights in health care, electroshock, the rights of psychiatric survivors, human-animal bonding and the healing of spirit injuries, understanding homelessness from a critical social theory perspective, feminist nursing practice, feminist pedagogy, eco-therapy, and the relationship between oppression and mental health.

She has volunteered as a street nurse in Toronto, is currently working on rural out of the cold programming, has a private pro bono community health nurse practice for isolated seniors, continues to practice as a visiting nurse and as a professor, joins students in their journey to become socially active Registered Nurses at York University in Toronto, Canada.

Degrees

Appointments

Professional Leadership

Associate Dean, Academic, Faculty of Graduate Studies
• 2019 Co-Founder, Girls and Girlhood Studies, A Research Cluster The Centre for Feminist Research, School of Women’s Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies.

• 2009-2011 Author/Founder, Professional Development Certificate in Children’s Rights, Division of Continuing Education, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies.

• 2009-2011 Member, Inclusive Mosaic Advisory Panel, Black Creek Community Health Centre, Toronto.

• 2006-2007 Visiting Scholar, The Centre for Women’s Studies in Education, The University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

• 2005-2006 Planning Committee/Co-Applicant, Canadian Association for the Study of Women in Education Institute & 6th Bi-Annual Conference WOMEN, HEALTH and EDUCATION?. Healthy girls, healthy women: Promoting health and healthy educational communities. May 30 - June 1, 2006?York University, Toronto.

Research Interests