Centre for Health
Promotion |
E-Info Update Fall
2007
Summer at the Centre for Health Promotion is always a busy time. We had 3 German students and 3 Greek students on exchange with the Centre. Their individual projects are listed elsewhere in this newsletter. It was also the summer of summer schools! I and the Centre led four training events, one week in May in the Yukon with First Nations about health promotion planning, our annual summer school in June in Ontario on mental health promotion, two weeks in July for Bosnian and Serbian health professionals on health promotion planning and youth friendly primary health services, and two days in August in St. Vincent and the Grenadines for people from 11 countries in the Caribbean on participatory evaluation. There is more information on each of these events in different sections of this newsletter. The evaluations of these training events show that people found them to be very useful and it was a wonderful chance for me to meet people doing some marvelous things in health promotion in different parts of the world. As we move into the fall months, we need to celebrate that Ali Kilbourn from The Health Communication Unit started a Masters of Social Work, Noelle Gadon (of OHPE Bulletin fame) started a PhD in medieval literature at University of Toronto, and Mohini Athia (at the Centre) started a one year Bachelor of Education program at OISE to become a high school teacher. We are sad to see these people go but it is wonderful that they are moving on to bigger and better things. Ali’s replacement as Coordinator of the Workplace Health Promotion project is Jessica Elgie and Mohini’s replacement as the Financial and Administrative Assistant for the Centre is Kate Thorpe. I want to say a big thank you to both Ali and Mohini for all of their work at the Centre for Health Promotion and I would like to extend a warm welcome to Jessica and Kate. In other big news, the Centre has been renewed as a WHO Collaborating Centre in Health Promotion for another four years. Our main partner is the Pan-American Health Organization, although we continue to have good relations with WHO-Geneva. This is a prestigious designation but it does not come with any funding. The University of Toronto is paying my full salary for a year in my role as Director of CHP as I continue to play a role as the Co-Director of the Global Health Concentration in Public Health Sciences as well as teach and supervise students in the MHSc in health promotion. Michael Goodstadt, Fellow of the Centre, is the new Director of the MHSc Health Promotion, after Blake Poland stepped down from that position after many long years of dedication and service. It has been a pleasure to be Director of the Centre for Health Promotion over the last six months since the last newsletter and I look forward to seeing you at our AGM in November! All the Best, Suzanne F. Jackson, Ph.D. Centre for Health Promotion’s Annual General Meeting 2007 Guest Speakers: Cameron Norman and Charlotte Lombardo (Youth Engagement
Unit) A formal invitation will be sent at the end of October. NEWS FROM THE HEALTH COMMUNICATION UNIT (THCU) THCU Workshops Introducing: Health Promotion Skills and Tools *********************************************** Topics and dates
Time Web conference technology About the series In each web conference,
Continuing: THCU introduced a new series of provincial workshops this year entitled, Skills for Health Promotion. The first set of four half-day workshops was held at Oakham House, Ryerson University in downtown Toronto on May 30 and 31. This successful pilot will be followed by additional events covering all four half-day topic sessions and are offered in upcoming months:
For more information, or to register online, please visit our website at http://www.thcu.ca. THCU Regional Workshops
The scope of our consultation service varies, depending on need. We offer:
They range from short one-time contacts to a number of longer sessions (1/2 day or more). Some time and travel limitations may exist. During the past 6 months, we have provided advice and assistance to over 160 people. Service request forms are available online at http://www.thcu.ca/consultation/request_form.htm.
THCU's Workplace Project
THCU continued to facilitate the development of the Ontario Healthy Workplace Coalition (OHWC) by fulfilling the role of Secretariat. The Coalition is now moving forward, the Steering Committee has now been chosen and on September 14, the newly-elected steering committee had its inaugural meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to chart a course for the future, beginning with the confirmation of roles and responsibilities. We plan to hold another Provincial Gathering in March 2008, where the work of the Coalition will continue to grow.
Starting in October we will be offering a series of comprehensive workplace health promotion webinars from October 2007-March 2008. We will offer the regular webinar series on topics such as: ‘Influencing the Organizational Culture’, ‘Situational Assessment and the New Mandatory Core Guidelines’ as well as addressing ‘Mental Health in the Workplace’. New this year we will be offering shorter, 30 minute webinar series on topics such as ‘The International Perspective’ (who is doing what), ‘Data for the Business Case’ and ‘The OHA and Working with Hospitals’. And a third short webinar series we will be offering is called ‘Trials and Tribulations’ presented by outside intermediaries who will share their strategies and success stories around workplace health.
There will soon be new Well-Regarded Interventions available on-line; we will continue to add interventions to the Catalogue as they are nominated. As well, the existing resources on the THUC website (www.thcu.ca/workplace) have been updated with a variety of new resources available. We will continue to look for more resources to add to our web-site. You are also able to post your own resources, messages and connect with professionals in the field through our Virtual Community, go to http://www.thcu.ca/workplace/vc/ for more information and how to sign up (it’s free!). If you have Workplace Project questions, comments and/or requests for materials, please contact Jessica Elgie at workplace_admin@thcu.ca.
The Youth Tobacco Vortal Project is now in its 8th year of encouraging and supporting community public health agencies make use of web-based technologies to communicate with and engage young people in tobacco control issues. The project’s central website, Smoke FX (www.smoke-fx.com), provides local agencies a gateway to information and resources targeting young people. Since its inception, the Youth Tobacco Vortal Project has grown to include 47 community-based affiliate sites. The majority of these affiliates are Youth Action Alliances representing the various regions throughout Ontario. The YTVP supports its affiliate base by assisting them in developing their own regional websites that focus on tobacco control and youth. All of the YAAs are affiliates of the project and over half of these YAAs worked with the YTVP web development team to create their regional site(s). As part of the YTVP’s promotional campaign the YTVP affiliates all received bookmarks promoting SmokeFX and its network of sites. The first part of the 2007/08 fiscal year has been busy for the YTVP. The year started out with plans to completely revamp the content of SmokeFX. The content has been re-written to appeal to the target audience (i.e., youth) and to improve usability. The finishing touches are being finalized before being uploaded to SmokeFX. In order to better support our affiliates, SmokeFX was moved to a new ISP who specializes in Action Apps, the technology used to help our affiliates create their websites. To expand the YTVP affiliate base, a submission outlining the YTVP and inviting new affiliates was included as part of the Stupid.ca and PTCC toolkits which were distributed to all High School Grant Programs. To promote the project, 800 SmokeFX bookmarks were included in the delegate packages of OPHEA’s Kid’s Health Conference. Comments and/or questions about the Youth Tobacco Vortal Project can be directed to Julie Duda (SmokeFX.Julie@thcu.ca).
News from the International Health Promotion Unit
Fran Perkins played an active role at the IUHPE conference in staffing
the IUHPE booth and answering questions for delegates to the conference
in Vancouver, June 10-15. The Centre for Health Promotion was also
profiled as one of the organizers of the conference which attracted
around 3000 delegates from around the world interested in health promotion.
Suzanne was elected to the International Board of Directors for IUHPE
and to the Board of Directors for the North American Region. Over the summer, this program attracted 3 German students, Kristin Haefner, Nicole Siegmund, and Wiebke Stoppelmann, from the University of Magdeburg to the Centre for 3.5 to 5.5 months. They worked on the Summer School, projects with CAMH and projects of the Youth Engagement Unit. Three Greek students, Dina Zota, Despina Christacou, and Filippos Filippidis from the University of Athens also came to the Centre. The women stayed for 6 weeks and explored ideas and ways of working in the Canadian health system regarding school health and mental health. Filippos worked with the Toronto Public Health for 3 months. All of these students got funding from the European Union to come to Canada. In exchange, two students from Toronto went to Magdeburg with funding from HRDC. It was a pleasure to have these students here for the summer and we learned a lot about our respective health promotion perspectives.
As a WHO Collaborating Centre, our main partner is PAHO. Sustainable Development and Environmental Health Area, with the Urban Health, Health Determinants and Social Policies Unit, the following activities happened between April and September:
-- Fran Perkins and Suzanne F. Jackson HEALTH PROMOTION SUMMER SCHOOL (HPSS)
Special cultural and social events were organized, including a Francophone multi-media presentation and special introduction to 'la francophonie' in Ontario, offered by the Chair of the Francophone subcommittee, Denise Hébert (Public Health, Ottawa). The Francophone subcommittee also offered a special banquet highlighting bilingual storyteller and musician, Njacko Backo and international cuisine. The First Peoples' Committee organized the annual Aboriginal Feast, with a special performance by a youth dance group from Hamilton. A fantastic feast was offered, featuring traditional Aboriginal cuisine - and a special book of recipes created by a member of the subcommittee and a student placement at the CHP was distributed to eager participants. The subcommittee also organized a tipi to be set up and available to all, with special times set aside to talk to Elders attending the Summer School. HPSS 2007 was rated very highly by participants in the evaluations and anecdotally, expressing their appreciation for the high quality curriculum, and nourishing atmosphere: “Excellent! I am so glad I came. I would recommend this Summer School to anyone who wants to enhance their work in teaching, research, and practice” “I thought that the HPSS was fantastic! Well organized, great sessions. Well done! I hope to be back again!” A special thank you to our funding partners Heritage Canada, Ministry of Health Promotion, and Ministry of Health Promotion, Smoke Free Strategy. HPSS 2008 HPSS 2008 will take place in Toronto
June 23rd - 25th, 2008, highlighting the theme of health promotion
in times
of crisis. A title for the
theme was selected in October by the Steering committee from submissions
by participants who entered a contest offered at HPSS 2007 -- the
winning contestant will receive free registration! The winner was
Laurie Schertzer (Canadian Diabetes Association) with “Health
Promotion Under Pressure: Strengthening Community Action”. -- Lisa Weintraub YOUTH VOICES YOUTH ENGAGEMENT UNIT Youth Voices seeks to promote Youth Engagement, Expression, Empowerment and Exchange through youth-driven media and participatory research. Current Projects The 5 E’s for Health:
Understanding eLiteracies for eLearning in Electronic Educational
Environments Youth Engagement in Ontario: Towards a Community of Practice To Our Good Health: Youth Leadership for Healthy Communities Balkans Youth and Health Project For more information on any of our initiatives please contact Youth Voices project manager, Charlotte Lombardo at 416-978-2201, c.lombardo@utoronto.ca.
New YouthBet.net (19-24) Website Development For more information on any of our gambling initiatives, please contact Jennifer Reynolds, project manager at (416) 978-8498, jennifer.reynolds@utoronto.ca. -- Charlotte Lombardo Circumpolar Health Suzanne is a Co-Investigator on a Team Grant on Chronic Disease Prevention in the Circumpolar Regions of Canada with Dr. Kue Young at University of Toronto. Her role is to work with residents of the three Territories, especially the First Nations, to help them take the data and research results related to their communities and turn this into disease prevention and health promotion actions at the community level. Working closely with a planning team in the Yukon and with the support of MHSc student, Katherine Minich, Suzanne conducted a one week health promotion planning Spring School in May for about 22 participants, representing 11 First Nations in the Yukon. They worked in small groups focused on the top health issues they identified in the Yukon -- residential schools, depression, substance use, diabetes and food security.
Under the leadership of Nancy Edwards at the University of Ottawa, Suzanne is part of a writing team working on some papers discussing the issues and ideas for planning and evaluating programs (like most health promotion programs) that use multiple strategies at multiple levels with multiple outcomes and that affect and are affected by the context.
The Centre for Health Promotion is one of the members of the Canadian Consortium for Health Promotion Research. Although its main interest is research and training, the Consortium has been focused on planning the IUHPE Conference that was held in Vancouver in June. As a member of the Board of Directors, Suzanne provided some of the oversight for the financial and personnel issues of running a huge international event like this and the Centre was profiled at the event as one of the sponsors. -- Suzanne F. Jackson UPDATE ON SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS Cancer Prevention Interest Group (CPIG) Members of the CPIG group have and continue involvement in numerous programs and activities including:
The committee has been actively meeting and working. Unfortunately no one was able to submit a report for this newsletter. You can look forward to an update in the Annual Report which will be available at the Annual General Meeting.
The Healthy U of T Awards continues to be a key fall activity of the Centre. The Individual Award and the Group Award were both established as a way of recognizing individuals, groups, departments or organizations within the University of Toronto (student, staff or faculty) that have made a healthy difference through a substantial and lasting contribution to the health and well-being of campus life and/or the broader community. Recognize your peers! Send your nominations in now! The deadline for nominations is Friday October 26th, 2007. Awards will be presented at the Centre’s Annual General Meeting on Tuesday November 27th, 2007. Please go to http://www.utoronto.ca/chp/healthyawards.htm for more information and application forms. -- Kate Thorpe UPDATE ON THE CENTRE'S SPECIAL PROJECTS Student Practicums Wiebke Stoeppelmann visited the Centre from Germany, under the CEIHPAL exchange program between Canada and Europe. She worked in the Youth Engagement Unit providing activity and organizational support to “Royal Winter Fair – Journey to your good Health”. This is a project designed to enable youth to identify priorities on agriculture, food security, healthy living and the environment through Photovoice, and to set forth an agenda with research-based projects for youth to lead and take action in their own communities. Kristin Haefner, also visiting from Germany under the CEIHPAL exchange program, revised a Guide for Mental Health Promotion in Adults 55+, helped to develop and pilot test a tool to assess the health promotion concepts incorporated into planning documents for local area health care, provided general assistance to the Ontario Health Promotion Summer School, and worked together with the Youth Engagement Unit. Nicole Siegmund, our final German exchange student, provided assistance to the coordination of the 14th Ontario Health Promotion Summer School 2007. She assisted with the promotion of the event and developed, delivered and analyzed the evaluation. Debbie Christacou, visiting from Greece with the CEIHPAL exchange program, worked with the Youth Engagement Unit, gathering information, liaising with youth organizations, and conducting literature reviews on their publications. Dina Zota, another of our Greek exchange students, explored ideas and ways of working in the Canadian health system regarding school health and mental health. Filippos Filippidis, our third student from Greece, worked with the Toronto Public Health for 3 months. Katherine Minich, a UofT MHSc in health promotion student, worked with Suzanne over the summer helping to rewrite the THCU Health Promotion Planning Manual for a First Nations audience and assisting at the Yukon Health Promotion Planning Spring School in May 2007. The rest of the time she did small jobs for Suzanne and developed her research project which will be conducted from January to April with the Inuit population in Labrador and Nunavut. At the end of the summer, Danielle Schirmer handed over her position
as the UofT Coordinator for the CEIHPAL exchange program between
Canada and Europe to Uitsile Ndlovu. Both students helped other students
with the logistics of the exchange on both sides. CAMH One of the key funding partners of the Centre is the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Our work in the last six months has included:
The other key partner of the CHP is the Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse. We are working together to co-lead the Health Promotion Affiliate of the Canadian Health Network. Our website is being reworked to meet the quality standards set by CHN as one example of our activities over the summer. -- Suzanne F. Jackson Visitors to the CHP over the Summer included:
-- Suzanne F. Jackson E-Info Update If you would like to be added to our email list for the E-Info Update, please contact Kate Thorpe at centre.healthpromotion@utoronto.ca This site is optimized for Netscape |
|