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Program Updates |
Injury Prevention Initiative
Preparation for Prevention of Injury and Substance Misuse Public Health Standards; Implementing Ontario's Injury Prevention Strategy; Violence Prevention Strategy
On June 24th, 2008 the Injury Prevention Public Health Managers’ Alliance met in North York, Ontario. Organized a year ago through support from the Ministry of Health Promotion, the Alliance is able to connect occasionally via in-person meetings to discuss priorities, program planning, and strategic direction in regards to injury prevention in public health throughout Ontario.
The main objectives of the June 24th meeting were to identify how the Alliance can effectively:
Influence and support Ontario health units in implementing the Prevention of Injury and Substance Misuse Public Health Standards, set to be released in January 2009. Influence the provision of resources and supports needed to fully implement Ontario's Injury Prevention Strategy [PDF], released through the Ministry of Health Promotion in August 2007.
Defined group work and guided facilitation saw concrete steps towards addressing these objectives. The Alliance also heard from guest speakers from the Canadian Cancer Society, and the Ministry of Health Promotion, who offered advice in moving provincial strategies forward and provided an update on recent Ministry of Health Promotion initiatives, respectively.
"It was inspiring and energizing to see the coming together of public health managers from across Ontario to discuss and prioritize public health injury prevention issues and initiatives for the province," said Loretta Bernard of York Region Health Services and co-chair of the Alliance.
"On behalf of the Alliance, we would like to express our appreciation to the public health managers for their commitment to injury prevention," added Kerri Richards of Toronto Public Health and co-chair of the Alliance.
"We would also like to thank the Ontario Public Health Association, the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, and the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion for their continued support and leadership of injury prevention and look forward to working together with them long into the future," Richards concluded.
Most regions across Ontario were represented at the meeting. A meeting report will be compiled and finalized shortly, available to Public Health Injury Prevention Managers.
Violence Prevention
The fourth annual Violence Prevention Town Hall meeting took place this year in June at the Canadian Public Health Association conference in Halifax.
Over forty attendees heard speeches from a variety of agencies including opening remarks from Dr. David Butler Jones from the Public Health Agency of Canada, along with presentations from Andrea Hilchie-Pye, Vice-Chair of Prevention of Violence Canada (PVC)-Prévention de la violence Canada; Terry Gibson, President of the Saskatchewan Public Health Association and co-chair of PVC; Shannon Turner, Past president of Public Health Association of British Columbia and co-chair of PVC; and Dr. Irvin Waller, Director at the Institute for Prevention of Crime at the University of Ottawa.
The main outcome of the day was the successful start to establishing a charter of violence prevention for Canada, with the information presented to be provided to Public Health Associations across Canada.
“The fourth annual town hall meeting of Prevention of Violence Canada-Prévention de la violence Canada was a resounding success,” exclaims Lori Snyder MacGregor, co-chair of the OPHA Violence Prevention Workgroup.
"We will utilize the information and experiences gathered through this forum to develop a violence prevention strategy for Canada. On behalf of the workgroup, we thank OPHA for their continued leadership and support of Prevention of Violence Canada-Prévention de la violence Canada, along with the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Public Health Association and other organizations across Canada showing tremendous leadership in this area," Snyder MacGregor concluded.
Snyder MacGregor was joined by OPHA Executive Director Connie Uetrecht, Past-President Garry Aslanyan, and Workgroup member Daina Mueller at the town hall meeting.
For further information about this or the OPHA Injury Prevention Initative, please click here.
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