She has received multiple awards over her career, including, in 2023, the Muriel Driver Memorial Lectureship Award from the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT), which is considered the highest honour in occupational therapy (OT) in Canada.  

In 2022, she published Promoting Occupational Participation: Collaborative Relationship-Focused Occupational Therapy, a textbook offering a guide to occupational therapy in Canada, co-edited with Dr. Mary Egan, director of the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Ottawa. 

The textbook has been noticed internationally and she has spoken to audiences in Australia, the United Kingdom, Amsterdam and New Zealand. 

Originally from Winnipeg, Restall is a UM alumna with degrees in medical rehabilitation and community health sciences. She retired in 2021 but is still involved in research related to anti-stigma approaches for people living with HIV and transforming OT toward justice- and rights-based practices. 

Restall recently spoke with UM Today about her ongoing research. 

You’ve described your recent work as being focused on transforming OT into a more anti-oppressive practice? Can you describe what this means?  

For many decades OT emphasizes the importance of collaborating with individuals, families, groups and communities in decisions about their own care. However, like many health-care professions, we’ve often neglected to fully consider the ways that social, political and economic contexts influence what people can do. We’ve also neglected to recognize the influence of our own world views and those of the dominant culture. This can lead unintentionally to practice in ways that can be oppressive, particularly toward those who have been socially racialized, excluded and stigmatized. The structure of our health and social systems make it difficult for therapists from dominant social positions to recognize the perpetuation of oppression and discrimination. At the same time, therapists from equity-deserving groups are acutely aware of the perpetuation of these injustices.  

My work is aimed at supporting therapists to recognize oppressions when they occur and to creatively identify new ways of building and sustaining collaborative relationships, so they consistently practice in ways that promote justice, equity and rights.  

In our textbook, Dr. Egan and I emphasized the need to evolve OT practices toward ones more intentionally inclusive of, and relevant to, the diversity of people and communities that therapists work with. Importantly, we emphasized the unique position of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the implications of the ongoing legacy of colonization on OT practices. 

You’ve also been involved in a digital storytelling project in collaboration with Nine Circles Community Health Centre and REACH Nexus, a national initiative focused on HIV-related research. What are some of the goals related to this work? 

We’ve been doing a series of digital stories with Indigenous women and two-spirit people around their lived experience of HIV, particularly in the context of stigmatizing experiences, with guidance from Elder Albert McLeod. My role is providing opportunities for people to tell their own stories, highlighting what they want to emphasize. These powerful stories have strong messages about how the storytellers have been supported in their journeys and provide words of hope for people who are newly diagnosed. One of the most consistent messages has been the importance of connecting with culture and peers for their personal well-being. They’ve also found ways to benefit their communities, support peers and educate communities about HIV and AIDS. 

What did receiving the Muriel Driver Memorial Lectureship Award from CAOT mean to you? 

It was humbling to have my work recognized by my peers and I’m grateful to colleagues and mentors who nominated me. A tradition of receiving the award is the opportunity to give a lecture on a topic that is important and significant to the recipient. In May 2024, I chose to talk about occupational therapists’ individual and collective responsibilities to change the settler colonial structures in our society that create and perpetuate inequities and injustices for many people. We need to be vigilant. We all need to hone our moral imaginations and courage to act in ways that create a more just country and world. 

Dr. Linda Larcombe, associate professor, internal medicine, Max Rady College of Medicine and Dr. Gayle Restall, associate professor, occupational therapy, College of Rehabilitation Sciences recently received a three-year $445,423 operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for their project titled Mapping the Journey.

Larcombe and Restall lead a team of 16 researchers along with Albert McLeod, an indigenous scholar with Two-Spirited People of Manitoba, a non-profit organization focused on helping Indigenous LGBTQ/two-spirit people across the province.

“We want to look at how the journey of people living with HIV in the north compares with those in Winnipeg, because we all know that most health services in the province, particularly the specialized ones, are centralized in Winnipeg,” Restall said. “We also know there are gaps and barriers for people to get tested and treated in northern Manitoba, and we want to understand what those are.”

The project was born out of HIV-related research projects they separately worked on at the Manitoba HIV Collective Impact Network, an organization made up of researchers, clinicians and government representatives. Larcombe’s research centred around community readiness to tackle increasing rates of HIV, while Restall focused on the stigma surrounding the virus.

“One of the things we want to understand is what the experiences really are for people who are diagnosed with HIV – not just about the infection and disease, but how it looks when you’re dealing with HIV and looking for housing and employment,” Restall said.

The research is critical, they said, because data from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) shows that new HIV diagnoses in Canada have increased 17.1 per cent between 2014 and 2017, and Indigenous peoples are overrepresented in the rates of new infections.

The researchers noted that engaging individuals living with HIV with early and sustained antiretroviral treatment and other supports, can prevent progression to AIDS, greatly reduce the risk of HIV transmission and help people to live well in relatively good health.

Larcombe said they want to see the whole picture of life with HIV in these communities, not just the negative aspects related to geographic isolation.

“It’s our mission to highlight that there is resilience, as well as a lot of joy and laughter, that isn’t always apparent in health research or media representation,” she said. “My experience with First Nations housing is that people are strong, resilient and creative – we’ve seen this in the healthy housing designs that were created through a joint project with the Dene First Nation communities and the departments of medicine and architecture.”

The researchers also include representatives from the U of M’s Internal Medicine and Sociology departments, the Rady Faculty’s Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing- Ongomiizwin, the Northern Health Authority, Nine Circles Community Health Centre, Manitoba HIV Program, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Inc., First Nations and Inuit Health and PHAC.

This project will use qualitative research based on interviews with individuals in several communities to gain knowledge from multiple perspectives about culturally-appropriate best practices for HIV testing and care.

“Ultimately it’s about having people with HIV in northern Manitoba live well and have options,” Restall said. “You shouldn’t have to move from your home community if you don’t choose to.”

Gayle Restall, a researcher in the department of occupational therapy in the College of Rehabilitation Sciences, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, focuses on the social environments and attitudes people face that could support or hamper their participation in the activities they value like, work, family, and community life.

While most people can grasp the physical barriers a patient may encounter, the social barriers and attitudes may not be so readily apparent.

Restall’s research work has been centred on three main areas: Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), mental health conditions and HIV. These three conditions have something in common in that they’re ‘episodic’ disabilities, meaning people can have relatively long periods of good health before experiencing a setback. The episodic nature of these conditions creates a set of needs quite different from those of people living with permanent disabilities.

Restall says that her interest in social environments stems from her clinical work experience.

“I worked with people living with mental health conditions and the social component is important for that group,” Restall says. “I’ve worked in many different settings and the importance of environments became obvious to me and how willing and open the environment is to supporting people, regardless of their impairments.”

Currently, Restall is working with a research team focused on people living with IBD.

“One of the areas we looked at was work and how it impacts those living with that particular chronic disease,” Restall says. “Some of it was focused on the physical environment, but a lot more was around the social environment, whether it was peoples’ attitudes if someone disclosed they had IBD; or attitudes they may face if they needed some kind of workplace accommodation; or the willingness of an organization to create and provide accommodations. Our interest is in how all those things came together to either help or hinder people to have long-term employment.”

Restall’s other research area is in HIV.

“HIV used to be considered a terminal illness but because of advances in medical treatments it’s now considered a chronic long term health condition,” Restall says. “One of the research projects we’ve been working on is developing delivery service models that include occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech language pathology to support those living with HIV and also looking at what people living with HIV perceive as the things they need in terms of long term support.”

The stigma attached to HIV is also a major component in the social environment of those living with this chronic condition.

“One of the things that strike us when we look at the information and the research is the impact of stigma” Restall says. “Our research is looking at ways that we can both monitor the experience of stigma for people living with HIV and develop some interventions to reduce the kinds of stigma that people feel, whether in the health care system or the community at large.”

In all her research, Restall strives to work closely with the community and encourages the participation of those who will be impacted by her work.

“The thread that goes through my research is the whole idea that people who live with chronic health conditions are active participants, not only in research, but in their own health and the development of health services and social policy,” she says. “When I do research I like to really focus on effective ways of making sure their voices are heard, honoured and respected.”