Based on research that was awarded the Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal, Healing Home is an exploration of the lives and health of young women experiencing homelessness. Vanessa Oliver employs an innovative methodology that blends sociology and storytelling practices to investigate these women’s access to health services, their understandings of health and health care delivery, and their health-seeking behaviours. Through their life stories, Oliver demonstrates how personal and social experiences shape health outcomes.

"Healing Home is a book of high quality on all dimensions - theoretical, methodological, substantive, and technical. Vanessa Oliver's focus on 'homeless' young women in Canada, as well as her provision of space for them to tell their stories, is unique: despite the ever-proliferating literatures on homelessness, even feminist researchers have paid very little attention to youth who are inadequately housed or note housed at all, and considerably less attention has been devoted to female than to male youth in that situation. Oliver is to be commended for conducting this much-needed, groundbreaking exploratory study that will provide a solid foundation for future research on 'homeless' young women. She makes a compelling case for the urgent need for decision-makers at all levels to elicit the perceptions, experiences, and recommendations of those who will be targeted by their legislation and policies." -- Dorothy Chunn, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Simon Fraser University

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