ACCESS Research Opportunities

To help fulfill our mission of supporting children and youth across Manitoba and to promote equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging in our communities, the Rehabilitation Centre for Children (RCC), located at SSCY Centre, has introduced a new process to connect RCC clients and families with research – ACCESS Research Opportunities. ACCESS Research Opportunities is an “opt-out” approach to research communication which aims to keep RCC families from missing opportunities to participate in research.  This opt-out approach enhances equal access to research participation by automatically including families on communications from RCC about ongoing research projects. 

ACCESS Research Opportunities continues to be developed in close collaboration with the RCC/SSCY Family Advisory Council and the RCC research department. The success of ACCESS Research Opportunities is dependent on this strong partnership to ensure ethical and privacy safeguards are met and transparent communication of research with RCC families.

How It Works

Starting July 2, 2025 as a family attends appointments at RCC, they are automatically enrolled in ACCESS Research Opportunities. When an RCC-affiliated researcher wants to recruit families for an approved research project, they can request a search for potential participants from the RCC Privacy Officer. The Privacy Officer then searches the ACCESS database for families eligible for the project and those families are contacted with the ethics-approved recruitment material.

The communications you receive through ACCESS Research Opportunities will include information about a project and contact information for the researcher. A link to be removed from the program will also be provided should a family wish to opt out of ACCESS Research Opportunities. 

To express interest in a study, a family must contact the researcher.

If you wish to not be contacted about research opportunities, you can inform an RCC admin or clinician that you want to opt out, or fill out the on-line opt-out form. You will then be removed from ACCESS Research Opportunities.

Privacy and Security with ACCESS Research Opportunities

All research projects at RCC must be approved by the RCC Research Department, the University of Manitoba’s Research Ethics Board, and the Provincial Health Research Privacy Committee (PHRPC) (if applicable). Approved studies are compliant with Manitoba’s Personal Health Information Act (PHIA). Only approved studies can make requests to ACCESS Research Opportunities. Through a ACCESS Research Opportunities request, the RCC Privacy officer makes lists of eligible participants in the RCC database. These lists are then used to contact families.

ACCESS Research Opportunities is a part of RCC’s secure Electronic Medical Record software and sensitive information is not shared with researchers or removed from RCC. To express interest in participating in a study, families must contact the researcher as instructed in the ACCESS Research Opportunities communication.

 For more information about ACCESS Research Opportunities, please check out our Frequently Asked Questions or contact the RCC Research Department at research@rccinc.ca.