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Linzi Williamson, PhD

Dr. Linzi Williamson is currently completing a three-year funded Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Patient Oriented Research, Transition to Leadership Fellowship with Dr. Colleen Dell. The overall research is related to Understanding the role of stigma for Veterans with PTSD and determining methods for better supporting the integration of service dogs into their lives with three underlying projects:

· Project 1 will examine the role of significant others in the lives of Veterans with Service Dogs, including determining the needs of significant others and protocol for assessing the family context to maximize a smooth integration.

· Project 2 will explore stigma related to Veterans with PTSD who are supported by Service Dogs, increase understanding of the Canadian general publics’ perceptions of Service Dogs, and determine how best to increase general public knowledge of interacting with a decrease perceived stigma of Veterans and their Service Dogs.

· Project 3 will involve evaluation of the PTSD and Moral Injury content provided by Service Dog organizations working with Veterans, focusing on building the capacity of organizations to offer this information.

You can read more about Linzi’s experiences with research on canine-assisted interventions and love of dogs in her SCPOR interview.

Linzi is originally from Toronto, Ontario and regularly returns home to visit her tight-knit family. She is a novice therapy & service dog trainer and foster, sentimental greeting card writer, commonly sought-after speech writer, Cards Against Humanity empath, amateur origami artist, semi-hardcore gamer, yoga and meditation enthusiast, and avid non-fiction reader.

Linzi here with a therapy dog which helps her service dog research

Photo Credit: Bronwyn Edwards

Selected Conference Presentations

Williamson, L. E. (June, 2020). Causality vs contribution; How should we evaluate a service dog organization serving Canadian veterans with PTSD? Conference presentation given at the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) Annual Conference, Ottawa, Ontario. *rescheduled due to COVID-19

Williamson, L. E., Chalmers, D., Osgoode, N., Lohnes, C., Lapointe, M., & Dell, C. (November, 2019). A pilot test of the effect of psychiatric service dogs on PTSD symptoms and problematic substance use among a sample of Canadian veterans. Conference presentation given at the Saskatchewan Health Authority Research Showcase, Regina, Saskatchewan.

C. Dell, L. Williamson, S. Gauthier, S. Mills, H. Goodfellow. (May, 2019). “Who Let the Dogs In!” From Teaching to Research Publication: The Fundamentals of doing SoTL. Saskatoon, Canada.

Williamson, L. E. (November, 2018). A Dog Lover’s Dream: Participatory Research with a Service Dog Program for Veterans. Conference presentation given at the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) Annual Conference, Ottawa, Ontario.

Selected Posters

Ahmed, A., Husband, A., Dell, C. A., & Williamson, L. (November, 2019). PTSD-diagnosed veterans combatting problematic substance use with psychiatric service dogs: What community pharmacists should know. Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction (CCSA) Conference, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Chalmers, D., Dell, C. A., Williamson, L., Carey, B., Husband, A., & Rogers, N. (November, 2019). Researchers leaning about veterans’ experiences with opioid addiction by training a service dog: A patient-oriented approach. Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction (CCSA) Conference, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Cruz, M., Gibson, M., Williamson, L., Chalmers, D., Osgoode, N., & Dell, C. (October, 2019). The Impact of Service Dogs in the Lives of Veterans Who Problematically Use Opioids. Animal-Human Relationship: Ways of Knowing and Understanding Annual Conference, University of Saskatchewan.

Linzi Williamson, PhD

Selected Peer-Reviewed Publications

Selected Conference Presentations

Selected Posters

Linzi's Dog Steve