Meet the Team

We’re privileged to work with a wide variety of individuals and community partners who bring inter-related fields of expertise. Our core team is based in the Comox Valley and includes an Elder and Traditional Knowledge Keeper, Peers/People With Lived and Living Experience of the toxic drug poisoning crisis, experienced researchers, and professional artists. While hailing from distinct life journeys, we have come together in a spirit of solidarity and with intent to facilitate transformative change.

  • HEALTH ADVOCATE & TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE KEEPER

    Elder Barb Whyte has been part of the Walk With Me team since the project’s inception. Barb is carrier of the Coast Salish Healing Wand. She is a descendent on the Pentlatch people on her father’s side; her mother was adopted from the residential school orphanage system into the Sahtloot people—the highest-ranking tribe in the K’omoks Territory. Barb comes from Chiefs lineage on both sides of her family. Her grandfather was the appointed chief of the Pentlatch people. Barb has worked in health, has been a nurse by trade for 48 years, and has witnessed a drastic change in the picture of health since the COVID-19 pandemic, with particularly devastating impacts on mental health. She has served over the past four years as the Voice for the Vulnerable Population on the Primary Care Network developed by the Division of Family Practice—a Provincial network piloted in the Comox Valley, focusing on identifying and resolving gaps in the health care system. Within this role, she advocated for mental health to be included alongside acute care. Whyte has also served on the hiring committee for the Primary Care Network working fill identified gaps. She helps to coordinate the Comox Valley doctors’ learning journey in cultural safety, where she teaches cultural safety protocols. In her Traditional Knowledge Keeper Role, Whyte works with food and plants for medicine. She was part of the North Island Hospital Development Project for 5 years, coordinating the all-nations room, and the hospital’s plant medicine garden—the first to be attached to a hospital in Canada. As part of this work, she delivers workshops to doctors and nurses on the use of plants in the garden. Through her various health care roles, Whyte has seen many sides of the health care system, and has gathered wisdom. Whyte has served for over 25 years as Health Advocate with Island Health’s Aboriginal Health. She has also worked for 22 years as a Traditional Knowledge Keeper in School District 71 Aboriginal Education—delivering presentations to teachers, students and the wider community.

  • PROJECT DIRECTOR & COMMUNITY ENGAGED RESEARCHER

    Dr. Sharon Karsten is a cultural and community development researcher and practitioner. She completed her PhD through Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication—focusing on cultural policy, cultural mapping, and community transformation. After defending her dissertation and after many years as Executive Director of the Comox Valley Art Gallery where she oversaw extensive growth, Karsten initiated Walk With Me in 2019 in partnership with community. The project represents a life’s work in accumulation of capacities. Throughout her extensive career, Karsten has served in leadership roles within cultural organizations, championing and developing programs rooted in anti-oppression principles and systems-change. Karsten is also an Open Learning Faculty Member at Thompson Rivers University, where she teaches Communications.

  • RESEARCH ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR

    Christopher is a passionate activist who believes that access to mental health, housing, and alleviation from addiction is a human right that all deserve. He feels blessed to be able to use his lived experience to help foster a better future for those who struggle. Christopher’s responsibilities and capacities are flourishing as Walk With Me continues to grow. He has also begun working for AVI Health and Community Services through his association with Walk With Me since joining the team in 2021.

  • Caresse is an interdisciplinary performing, visual and media artist. She works with various organizations that strive to create change in our communities and has happily joined the Walk With Me team in 2023 as a Peer Coordinator and Researcher.

  • COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

    Sophia became involved with Walk With Me in 2020 through her work with Sharon and the Comox Valley Art Gallery’s Youth-Media-Project. Like Christopher, Sophia is a Peer researcher with the project and a Person With Lived and Living Experience of the toxic drug poisoning crisis. With a demonstrable skillset in navigating technology, design, and communications, Sophia is critically involved in all our publications, applications, reporting, and our presentations to the public. Sophia is also a proud mother, active member of her community, and fierce advocate for vulnerable peoples.

  • MITACS POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW

    Dr. Andrew Mark comes to research with Walk With Me as an activist and academic and joined the team in 2022. He met Sharon in his capacity as the former Executive Director of the Hornby Island Arts Council. He holds a PhD in environmental studies with attention to anti-oppressive research methodologies and community solidarity & the arts. Working as an ethnographer and phenomenologist with a background in non-profit executive administration and start-ups in the arts, Andrew is supporting Walk With Me’s storytelling, publication efforts, knowledge mobilization, and scaling to meet increasing demand. Andrew has been a sessional instructor at York University and University of Victoria and is supervised by Dr. Amanda Wager with the Faculty of Education at Vancouver Island University.

  • MITACS POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW

    Trevor Wideman is a MITACS Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education at Vancouver Island University. Trevor's community-engaged research with Walk With Me looks at municipal/organizational governance and health policy in small cities in British Columbia, and how these intersect with individual lived experiences of the housing and toxic drug poisoning crisis. He holds a doctoral degree in geography from Simon Fraser University, and his broader research program examines the role of land use planning in relation to housing advocacy and the governance of residential property in Canadian cities.

Artists We Work With

Arts and connection are at the heart of our process and work. All our team members have a background in the arts, and many have active arts practices and careers in the arts. Here are some of the artists and speakers we have worked alongside in the past and continue to work with.

  • In the summer of 2020 we invited artists Patrick Dionne and Miki Gingras from Montreal to come and work with unhoused participants in the Comox Valley to create several collages depicting people walking together. These art pieces showed members of the community, both housed and unhoused, walking together as we did throughout the following months that Walk With Me was hosting events outside the Comox Valley Art Gallery. These walks were very impactful on the community as was the opportunity to work with Patrick and Miki to create these collages.

    Check out Patrick and Miki’s website here

  • Guy Felicella, a fierce advocate for harm reduction and recovery, came to Campbell River to join us in circle and speak about his life both in and out of the throes of addiction. Since finding his way off the streets and out of addiction, he has learned to tell his story and use it to motivate others. He talked about how telling one’s story in a safe and supported environment can be a big step in changing one’s life path for the better.

    Check out Guy’s website here

  • Joseph Dandurand is an award-winning poet and author and a member of the Kwantlen First Nation. Joseph has joined us on walks, shared his writings and has hosted creative writing workshops for our team and community. Joseph continues to work alongside our core team as a long distance artist in residence, supporting our strategic planning and growth.

    You can listen to Joseph reading one of his poems here, and see his other works here

Additional Team Members and Acknowledgements

Galen Rigter - AVI

Holly Taylor - AVI

Shawn Decare - Kwesa Place

Zaraya Chelsea Thomas - VIU

Nadine Bariteau

Nadine Bariteau - Artist (Former Creative Director)

Check out Nadine's current work with the Campbell River Art Gallery's Art Hive

Guy Felicella - Public Speaker

Many incredible individuals significantly contribute to our work, have contributed to our work, advise and support us, and we want to acknowledge and honour their contributions. Many of them work across institutions and between fields of expertise. We’ll be adding more individuals through time to this section