Empowering Youth in Healthcare: Skills for Coping and Collaboration

Dr. Rachael Coakley is pediatric pain psychologist in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she serves as the Director of Clinical Innovation and Outreach in Pain Medicine. Additionally, she is the Founder and Director of The Comfort Ability Program, an internationally disseminated program that empowers youth living with chronic pain and functional symptoms and their families through evidence-based intervention, education, and compassionate support.

Dr. Coakley is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School and holds national and international leadership positions. Her research focuses on translational and implementation science as it relates to the development and dissemination of evidence-based psychological intervention. She has been honored with several awards for her program development work, including the American Psychological Association’s National Carolyn Schroeder Award for outstanding clinical practice. Outside her academic work, Dr. Coakley enjoys lecturing and writing to educate patients, parents, and providers about chronic pain. Her book, "When Your Child Hurts: Effective Strategies to Increase Comfort, Reduce Stress and Break the Cycle of Chronic Pain" won a national book award for a best parenting book of the year. Her writing is also featured in a Psychology Today column, the Washington Post, and other publications.

Natisha Nabbijohn, PhD, is a Psychologist in Supervised Practice at McMaster Children’s Hospital, where she works in the Gender Diversity and Adolescent Medicine programs. She recently completed her PhD in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology at the University of Guelph under the supervision of Dr. Meghan McMurtry, successfully defending her dissertation in August 2026.

Natisha’s research focuses on advancing theory and methods for understanding coping in the context of pediatric chronic pain, with a focus on better capturing the diverse needs and lived experiences of youth. During her master’s training, she conducted a scoping review of coping in pediatric chronic pain, identifying gaps in how coping has been conceptualized and measured. This work informed the development of the Integrative Model of the Coping Process as applied to pediatric chronic pain. Her doctoral research used a multimethod approach to further evaluate and develop this model, examining adolescents’ perspectives on coping, the role of social identity, and differences in coping across contexts and social groups, including gender and socioeconomic status. Her graduate research was supported by scholarships from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS).

Natisha has been actively involved in the pediatric pain community through Pain in Child Health (PICH) and the Society of Pediatric Pain’s Gender and Pain Special Interest Group. Her interest in the intersection of social identity and youth well-being began during her undergraduate and master’s training at the University of Toronto, where she examined biological, psychological, and social factors related to the well-being of gender minority youth. She now brings together these areas of expertise in her clinical work, supporting youth with diverse gender identities and experiences of chronic illness and pain.

Nicole MacKenzie is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Stinson, and a Psychologist in Supervised Practice in the SickKids Chronic Pain Clinic. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Dalhousie University. Her research focuses on implementation science and practice within pediatric pain, with particular interests in shared decision making and interest-holder engagement in knowledge mobilization activities. Nicole takes a patient-centred lens to all of her research and her work aims to improve how people with lived experience are included in processes to put knowledge into action.