The P2B and VOY research projects are based at the Quality of Life Research Unit (QOLRU) in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of Toronto. Researchers at the QOLRU have conducted research to develop conceptual models and instruments for research, evaluation, and assessment, and to better understand people’s lived experiences of quality of life.

Dr. Rebecca Renwick directs the QOLRU and is the lead investigator for the P2B and VOY projects. Her research program has focused on understanding quality of life, particularly for people with IDD. Her research on quality of life has focused on the process and outcomes associated with experiencing (or not) meaning, enjoyment, and well-being in life and includes attention to people in context (i.e., how people’s environments and society help shape experiences of quality of life). From this perspective, the ultimate goal of studying quality of life and its subsequent applications is to foster and support quality of life for people with and without disabilities, that is, to have lives experienced as both meaningful and enjoyed.

Through rigorous analyses of multidisciplinary literature on quality of life and qualitative data gathered through focus groups and in-depth interviews with people with and without IDD, quality of life has been conceptualized as the degree to which a person enjoys the important possibilities of their life.

This research conducted through the QOLRU also revealed the Being Belonging Becoming Model of quality of life (Figure 1) (see Renwick, 2014). Visit the Quality of Life Research Unit’s website for further details of our Quality of Life model (Figure 1), past projects, instruments, reports, manuals, and other publications developed through our research.