Henry Parada
Prior to his academic appointment, Henry Parada spent nine years working as a child protection worker, conducting family counseling, and working as a sexual abuse specialist within Toronto’s social service sector. His academic experience includes working in the Caribbean, Central America, and other parts of Latin America on issues of child protection, human rights, and youth participation. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses at Toronto Metropolitan University and has guest lectured in universities in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Honduras.
Henry Parada’s combined research expertise includes the areas of social development, children’s and women’s social welfare, and violence prevention. He has also developed practical skills in the areas of counselling, development, and social work. As a committed action-oriented researcher, he has valuable national and international expertise facilitating the gathering of relevant knowledge as well as the transfer into the hands of the organizations and agencies that are equipped to implement the partnership’s research findings.
His projects have received funds from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Global Affairs Canada (formerly the Canadian International Development Agency), Latin American and Caribbean Exchange Grant (LACREG), UNICEF-Santo Domingo, Italy International Cooperation, Ryerson International Initiative Funds and Network of European Foundations. His ongoing program of research – focused on child protection, family violence, and children’s rights in seven regional areas of concentration – was awarded the SSHRC Partnership Grant for a seven-year, international project titled The Rights for Children and Youth Partnership (RCYP).
Teaching responsibilities (Canada):
- IS8904: Research Methods
- IS8931: Refugee Studies
Teaching responsibilities (International):
- Thesis Development, Pontifical Catholic Universidad Madre and Maestra, Dominican Republic
- Research Methods, Pontifical Catholic Universidad Madre and Maestra, Dominican Republic
- Epistemologies of Social Work, Pontifical Catholic Universidad Madre and Maestra, Dominican Republic and Universidad La Plata, Argentina
- Critical Research Methodologies, National University of Managua, Esteli Campus, Nicaragua
- Foundations of Social Work, Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
- Theories of Social Work, Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
- Introduction to Forensic Social Work, Pontifical Catholic Universidad Madre and Maestra, Dominican Republic
Henry Parada’s program of research – focused on child protection, family violence, and children’s rights – has been directly shaped by his theoretical training in sociology, his on-the-ground social work experiences, and his personal ties to the Caribbean region and Latin American culture. In particular, his combined research expertise includes the areas of social development, children’s and women’s social welfare and violence prevention.
Informed by his career as a social worker in Toronto during the 1990s when the Ontario government implemented significant child welfare reforms, his doctoral thesis was an institutional ethnography of the Ontario child welfare system. Useful for understanding the ways that people function within and across institutions, his utilization of institutional ethnography yielded valuable insights about how these policy reforms limited both the professional autonomy of social workers and their ability to respond to their client needs.
He is currently involved in a large scale SSHRC funded Partnership Grant aimed at increasing knowledge of factors which support or hinder the protection of children and youth rights in the Caribbean, Central America, as well as the diaspora populations in Canada, which are disproportionately represented in the Canadian child protection system.
Research projects:
- Project: Arab Refugee Families’ Experiences in the Ontario Child Welfare System
- Year: 2022 - 2025
- Role: Principal Investigator
- Funding Received: $157,650
- Funded by: SSHRC, Insight Grant
- Project: Fostering Latinx Resilience to Trauma between El Salvador, Canada, and the United States
- Year: 2022 – 2025
- Role: Co-Applicant (Maria Liegghio, PI)
- Funding Received: $71,500
- Funded by: SSHRC, Partnership Development Grant
- Project: Strengthening Institutional Responses: Exploring Intersections of Child Protection, Immigration, and Criminal Justice to Better Support Caribbean and Latin American Children and Youth in Canada
- Year: 2021 - 2022
- Role: Principal Investigator
- Funding Received: $25,000
- Funded by: SSHRC, Connection Grant
- Project: Exploring the Role of Cultural Brokers as Intermediaries Between Immigrant and Refugee Families and Child Welfare Workers.
- Year: 2018 - 2021.
- Role: Co-Applicant.
- Funding received: $ 172, 018.
- Funded by: SSHRC, Insight Grant.
- Project: Journey Home: Refugee Settlement and Integration Project.
- Year: 2016 - 2020.
- Role: Principal investigator.
- Funding received: $152, 749.
- Funded by: SSHRC, Insight Grant.
- Project: Study on the Experiences of Institutionalized Children and Youth in the Dominican Republic.
- Year: 2016 - 2018.
- Role: Principal investigator.
- Funding received: $31, 018.
- Funded by: UNICEF.
- Project: Rights for children and youth partnership: Strengthening collaboration in the Americas
- Year: 2015.
- Role: Principal investigator.
- Funding received: $4,216,583.
- Funded by: SSHRC, Partnership Grant.
Articles:
- King, B., Parada, H., Fallon, B., Escobar Olivo, V., Best, L.M., & Filippelli, J. (2023). Latin American Children in Ontario child welfare: An examination of investigation disparities (external link, opens in new window) . Children and Youth Services Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107357
- Parada, H., Perez Gonzalez, L., Rampersaud, M., & Escobar Olivo, V. (2023). “Parents don't know they have the option to say no”: The Experiences of Caribbean and Latin American Parents Navigating Special Education in Ontario. Race, Ethnicity, and Education.
- Akuoko-Barfi, C., Escobar Olivo, V., Rampersaud, M., Parada, H., & Schuster, R. (2023). “I feel like I was targeted”: Black youth navigating policing in Ontario, Canada (external link, opens in new window) . Child & Youth Services. https://doi.org/10.1080/0145935X.2023.2243436
- Parada, H., Perez Gonzalez, L., & Escobar Olivo, V. (2023). “Do White parents feel the same?”: Latin American and Black Caribbean parents fighting for participation in partnership-oriented education (external link, opens in new window) . Whiteness and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/23793406.2023.2249904
- Akuoko-Barfi, C., Parada, H., Gonzalez Perez, L., & Rampersaud, M. (2023). “It’s not a system that’s built for me”: Black youths’ unbelonging in Ontario schools (external link, opens in new window) . Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2023.2240686
- Edwards, T., Chowdhury, R., Laylor, A., King, B., & Parada, H. (2023). Pushed, dropped, or fleeing from care: The narratives and adultification of Black youth who have aged out of Ontario’s child welfare system (external link, opens in new window) . Child & Youth Services. https://doi.org/10.1080/0145935X.2023.2173565
- Parada, H., Sánchez Morales, D., Escobar Olivo, V., Recinos, E., & González, A.R. (2022). La construcción institucional de prácticas en el sistema de protección de niños, niñas y adolescentes en El Salvador (external link, opens in new window) . Revista de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud, 21(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.11600/rlcsnj.21.1.5593
- Edwards, T., King, B., Risidore, J. & Parada, H. (2022). Many households but never a home: stories of resistance from Black youth navigating placement instability in Ontario’s child welfare system (external link, opens in new window) . Journal of Youth Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2022.2080539
- Parada, H., Escobar Olivo, V., & Limón Bravo, F. (2021). “I just want to belong somewhere”: Latinx Youth’s experiences in the education system in Ontario, Canada (external link) . Journal of Latinos and Education, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348431.2021.1996366
- Escobar Olivo, V., Parada, H., & Limón Bravo, F. (2021). “I don’t want anyone to follow my path:” Commercial sexual exploitation of children in the Dominican Republic (external link, opens in new window) . Journal of Human Trafficking. https://doi.org/10.1080/23322705.2021.1959757
- Akuoku-Barfi, C., McDermott, T., Parada, H., & Edwards, T. (2021). “We were in White homes as Black children:” Caribbean youth’s stories of out-of-home care in Ontario, Canada (external link, opens in new window) . Journal of Progressive Human Services: Radical Thought & Praxis. https://doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2021.1931649
- Suazo, M., Cruz, K. A., &, Parada, H. (2020). Explorando el sistema de protección de la niñez en Honduras (external link, opens in new window) . Revista Latino Americana, 18(2), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.11600/1692715x.18207
Books:
- Parada, H., Escobar Olivo, V. & Cruz, K. (2023). Central American youth migration: Coloniality and epistemologies of the South (external link) . Routledge.
- Parada, H., Escobar Olivo, V. & Cruz, K. (Forthcoming). Central American youth migration: Coloniality and epistemologies of the South. Routledge.
- Parada, H., Villeda, B., & Cruz, K (eds) (2022). Derechos de la niñez en Centroamérica y República Dominicana: Un acercamiento a los sistemas de protección y sus prácticas institucionales. IPNUSAC.
- Parada, H., & Wehbi, S. (Eds.). (2017) Reimagining anti-oppression social work: Reflecting on Research. Canadian Scholar Press.
- Wehbi, S., Parada, H. (Eds.). (2017.) Reimagining anti-oppression social work: Reflection on Practice. Canadian Scholar Press.
Book Chapters:
- Parada, H., & Escobar Olivo, V. (2023). The Overrepresentation of Latin American Children in Canada’s Child Welfare System Findings from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect-2019 (external link, opens in new window) . University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University. https://doi.org/10.32920/24649341.v1
- Parada, H., Fallon, B., Best, L., Escobar Olivo, V., Filippelli, J., & King, B. (2023). Understanding the Overrepresentation of Latin American children in Ontario child welfare services (Version 1) (external link, opens in new window) . Toronto Metropolitan University. https://doi.org/10.32920/24085521.v1
- Edwards, T., & Parada, H. (2022). The counter-story of resistance: Black youth disengaging from Ontario’s educational system. In Tilleczek, K. & MacDonald, D. (eds). Education for Wellbeing and Rights of Youth in the Americas.: Youth, Young Adulthood and Society Series. Routledge.
- Escobar Olivo, V., Parada, H., & Limón Bravo., F (2022). Latin American youth and belonging at school in Ontario, Canada. In Tilleczek, K. & MacDonald, D. (eds). Education for Wellbeing and Rights of Youth in the America Youth,: Young Adulthood and Society Series. Routledge.
- Parada, H., Ibarra, A.L., Mulvale, E. & Limon Bravo, F. (2019). Youth and resilience. In H. Bauder (Ed.) Putting Family First: Migration and Integration in Canada. (pp. 197-212). UBC Press.
Reports:
- Parada, H., & Escobar Olivo, V. (2023). The Overrepresentation of Latin American Children in Canada’s Child Welfare System Findings from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect - 2019 (external link) . University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University. https://doi.org/10.32920/24649341.v1
- Parada, H., Fallon, B., Best, L., Escobar Olivo, V., Filippelli, J., & King, B. (2023). Understanding the Over-representation of Latin American children in Ontario child welfare services (Version 1) (external link) . Toronto Metropolitan University. https://doi.org/10.32920/24085521.v1