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Dr. Strumm completed her BSW (2004) and MSW (2010) at the University of Calgary and PhD in Social Work (2022) at Carleton University. She has been a registered social worker (RSW) for 20 years and has practiced social work in a variety of areas including health care, gender-based violence, child welfare, poverty reduction, and group and individual counselling. Dr. Strumm’s social work practice took her to England, India, Jamaica and South Africa. She has previously also led global service-learning trips to Guatemala and India. Brianna is passionate about student-centered and trauma-informed teaching and won two student-nominated teaching excellence awards (2016 & 2018). In 2020, Brianna won a UFV Innovative Teaching Award for a project entitled A Socially Just Global Service-Learning Program. Dr. Strumm’s work with newcomer women earned her and the entire research team a Fraser Valley Diversity Award nomination for small project innovation (2023).

Dr. Strumm’s current research projects include a focus on the following areas: feminist and anti-oppressive social work practice, experiences of newcomer women in health and social care, social worker resiliency and well-being, trauma-informed practice and pedagogy, and grassroots community development. She is engaged in two projects as a co-researcher: 1) investigating women’s migration experiences of belonging and exclusion in Canada, Images of Newcoming, and 2) Trauma-Informed Pedagogy: Experiences of Educators in British Columbia which looks at the use of trauma-informed teaching in post-secondary classrooms in B.C. In addition to this scholarly work, Dr. Strumm has collaborated closely with Dr. Amea Wilbur, and they created a trauma-informed pedagogy and practice undergraduate course, which they co-teach in Adult Education. They also deliver regular workshops on trauma-informed pedagogy across the Lower Mainland. Lastly, Dr. Strumm is co-authoring a textbook  for Oxford University Press.

Faculty Associate, UFV Centre for Justice, Equity, and Sustainable Action (JESA)

RSW, British Columbia College of Social Workers #14422

Individual member, Canadian Association of Social Work Education (CASWE)

Individual member, Canadian Association for the Study of Adult Education (CASAE)

2024

Strumm, B., & Wilbur, A. (June 2024). Trauma-informed Pedagogy and Practice: Experiences of Educators in British Columbia [Paper presentation]. Canadian Association of Social Work Education (CASWE) Annual Conference, Montreal.

 MacPherson, S., Kelly, A., Munjee, R. M., Strumm, B., & Wilbur, A. (June 2024). Adult Education in the Promotion of Mental Health and Wellbeing: Anti-Oppressive, Trauma Informed, and Mindfulness-Based Praxes in Adult Education. [Symposium]. Canadian Association of the Study of Adult Education (CASAE) Annual Conference, Montreal.

 Strumm, B. (May 2024). Strengths-based Assessment [Micro-teaching]. ConnectEd Conference, Abbotsford.

2023

Wilbur, A., Strumm, B. (June 2023). “Belonging and Exclusion for Newcomer Women in the Lower Mainland and Northern Ireland” [Paper presentation]. Canadian Association of the Study of Adult Education (CASAE) Annual Conference, Toronto.

Strumm, B. (April 2023). Trauma-Informed Pedagogy: Fostering Collaboration with Students [World Café]. ConnectEd Conference, Abbotsford.

2022

Sawkins, T., Strumm, B. & Wilbur, A. (2022). Images of Newcoming [Photos representing newcomer experiences with belonging and exclusion]. Photograph collection. (November 14-November 24, 2022). Vancouver Community College, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Sawkins, T., Strumm, B. & Wilbur, A. (2022). Images of Newcoming [Photos representing newcomer experiences with belonging and exclusion]. Photograph collection. (September 13 – October 7, 2022). University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, B.C., Canada.

Sawkins, T., Strumm, B., Mancilla-Fuller, M. & Bolow, H. (March 2022) Images of Newcoming [Presentation]. Metropolis Conference of Canada, Vancouver.

Sawkins, T., Strumm, B., Mancilla-Fuller, M. & Bolow, H. “Images of Newcoming.” Metropolis Conference of Canada, March.

Strumm, B., Wilbur, A. & Sawkins, T. (Fall Issue, 2023). Belonging and exclusion for newcomer women in the lower mainland. Perspectives News Magazine of the BC Association of Social Workers, 45(3), 8-9, 11.  

Strumm, B. (2023). Reflection for well-being: The reflective practice experiences of social workers employed in global development, Reflective Practice, 24(2), 238-250. DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2022.2158798

Strumm, B. (2020). Using critical reflection to question self and power in international development. Gender & Development, 28(1), 175-192. DOI: 10.1080/13552074.2020.1717173

Asakura, K., Strumm, B., Todd, S. & Varghese, R. (2019). What does social justice look like when sitting with clients? A qualitative study of teaching clinical social work from a social justice perspective. Journal of Social Work Education, 56(3), 442-455. DOI: 10.1080/10437797.2019.1656588

Strumm, B. (2019). bell hooks: The teacher, the feminist pedagogue, the film critic, the activist and most of all, the black feminist. Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, [special issue], 31(1), 54-58. 

Todd, S., Barnoff, L., Moffatt, K., Panitch, M., Parada, H. & Strumm, B. (2016). A social work re-reading of students as consumers. Social Work Education: The International Journal, 36(5), 542-556. DOI: 10.1080/02615479.2016.1225712

Strumm, B. (2015). Women in Harperland: A critical look at gender inequality in Canada since 2006. Special Issue: Social Policy and Harper, Canadian Review of Social Policy/Revue Canadienne de Politique Sociale, 71(1), 98-110.