August 2011 - Program Updates

Alcohol Policy Network

The Alcohol Policy Network (APN) partnered with Peel Public Health on several programming initiatives early in the fiscal year. 

In early June, APN staff presented an alcohol policy workshop to Peel Public Health. The objective of the workshop was to align the needs of Peel Public Health, the Ontario Public Health Standards and seven key evidence-informed alcohol policy levers that are proven to reduce harm from alcohol. The seven policy levers are:

  1. Regulating physical availability
  2. Taxation and Pricing
  3. Altering the Drinking Context
  4. Education and Persuasion
  5. Regulating Alcohol Promotion
  6. Drinking-driving countermeasures
  7. Treatment and early intervention

The evaluation data obtained after the workshop confirmed Peel staff favoured the quality, usefulness, and timing of the event.

In late June, APN teamed with Peel Public Health, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and Ryerson University to deliver a quarterly teleconference. The teleconference, titled Alcohol and High-risk Drinking among Adolescent and Young Adult Males: Implications for Alcohol Policies addressed a systematic review and analysis written and prepared for Peel Public Health, researched and written by CAMH and Ryerson University staff. 

The teleconference reviewed:

  • The background of adolescent and young male drinking rates in Peel Region
  • The Literature Review process and results
  • Highlights and Recommendations moving forward

If you are interested in finding out about upcoming events regarding alcohol policy you can access the APN calendar of events  or the APOLNET listserv. 

The Healthy Communities Consortium

Planning is underway for the Consortium’s provincial conference, Linking Healthy Communities. The conference is specifically designed to meet the needs of those working within Ministry of Health Promotion and Sport’s (MHPS) Healthy Communities Fund. In fact, this is the first time that those working within all three streams of the Fund -Partnerships Stream, Grant Stream and Resource Stream - will come together under one roof! To meet the needs of such diverse participants, the conference will have several learning streams and will provide opportunities for information and knowledge exchange, networking and skill-building.  Linking Healthy Communities will take place on November 1 and 2 at the BMO Institute for Learning. More information will be released soon on the Consortium’s website, www.hcconsortium.ca.

Youth Engagement

Since 2009, OPHA’s Youth Engagement Project has engaged six pilot sites to work with and develop helpful youth engagement tools and resources. As the project’s pilot sites begin to wrap up their partnership with OPHA and start to work on sustaining their regional programs, OPHA conducted six in-person interactive workshops throughout Ontario to showcase youth engagement theories, lessons learned, the great resources that have been developed, and the launch of the Youth Engagement website.  

OPHA also received bridge funding from Health Canada to continue with the project until September 30th, 2011. The project will enhance its workplan based on these new timelines while continuing to be advised by a Partner Group consisting of representatives from:

  1. The Injury Prevention Public Health Managers Alliance;
  2. Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition;
  3. Ophea; and
  4. Toronto Public Health.

Some of The Youth Engagement’s upcoming initiatives include:

  • Continued coaching and consultation services to public health staff
  • Developing new tools and editing existing resources based on the needs of the field
  • Working with project evaluation data to create valuable resources and reports
  • Hosting two more informational webinars
  • Hosting four additional interactive in-person workshops across Ontario
  • Continuing to update the Youth Engagement website
For more information on this project, please contact Project Assistant Evanna Li at eli@opha.on.ca or visit the project webpage at www.youthengagement.ca.