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OPHA Open House — Celebrating 20 years of the OPHA Secretariat |
OPHA Secretariat 20th Anniversary Open House "celebrates the past and moves forward to the future"
OPHA Executive Director Connie Uetrecht welcomed past and present colleagues and friends to an Open House at the OPHA offices on June 14th. Connie said she was "pleased to see OPHA members, people from our many partnerships, the Ministries of Health Promotion and Health and Long-Term Care, local Public Health Units, and others" gather to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the OPHA Secretariat.
Connie praised the staff of OPHA and noted that Nolly Baksh-Singh, Angella Kalloo, and Kathleen Orth, who chaired the Open House Committee, "have been with OPHA for many years and know a lot about the organization."
Connie acted as MC for the event, introducing speakers OPHA President Dr. Garry Aslanyan, Kathleen Orth, and OPHA President-Elect Carol Timmings.
OPHA President Dr. Garry Aslanyan gave a brief history of OPHA, an edited version of which appears below. President-Elect Carol Timmings focused her comments on the issues and plans that OPHA hopes to realize.
Kathleen Orth recalled the many projects she has worked on, beginning with Literacy and Health, which allowed her to broaden her experience and develop skills in a variety of areas, as well as see the development of public health and health promotion. She thanked her fellow Open House committee members and OPHA staff for their support of the Open House over the past few months and for their contribution to making the event a success.
As well as enjoying refreshments, a spectacular 20th anniversary cake, music provided by a trio of flautists, and the festive decorations, guests were also able put OPHA staff faces to the names they have known for years, discuss current issues, and pick up information on OPHA membership and the annual conference in November.
Remarks by Dr. Garry Aslanyan on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary Open House (edited):
On behalf of the OPHA Board of Directors and staff, I want to welcome you to our 20th anniversary Open House. I’m going to start by clearing up confusion about how old OPHA actually is — we talk about being close to 60, and yet here we are celebrating 20 years. I hear there's even a rumour going around that we are 60 but we just appear really young because of our endless energy, excitement, and very young President … in actual fact, both 60 and 20 are correct.
OPHA got its start as an organization in 1949, so it will celebrate 60 years in 2009. However, in 1987, we went from being a strictly volunteer-based association to a Secretariat, with offices and staff. In 1986, then-President Dr. Peter Cole and Vice-President Dr. Trevor Hancock worked to bring together OPHA and the various public health organizations in Ontario, including CHNs, PHIs, PHI supervisors, Public Health dentists, nutritionists, and health promotion specialists &mdah; the outcome was the formation of a new umbrella organization with several "affiliates", the first of our 10 Constituent Societies.
Dr. Hancock has said that this was spurred on "in part by our own needs as public health professionals to find a unified voice, and in part by the demands of former Health Minister Larry Grossman", who was frustrated by the fact that he could meet with one organization for the entire medical profession, one organization for hospitals but up to a dozen organizations for the much smaller public health sector.
After the formalities associated with starting up this kind of organization were completed, the province agreed to provide OPHA with $50,000 a year. And off we went. An interesting side note is that in the meantime, an election had taken place in the province and what was begun under the Conservative government was concluded by Liberal Health Minister Murray Elston. This tradition of working with governments of all political stripes in order to improve public health continues today.
If you look at this banner, and you look around this room, you see evidence of the amazing projects and resource centres that OPHA is proud to be connected with. The Nutrition Resource Centre, the Heart Health Resource Centre, the Ontario Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance, our Alcohol Projects, these are part of a wonderful heritage that began with the Literacy and Health project.
There's always been a dynamic and symbiotic relationship between our projects and resource centres and the advocacy work that we do. The Alcohol Policy Network, our first resource centre, came into being because of funds advocated for by our Alcohol Workgroup. Our Environmental Health Workgroup, one of our busiest, got its start as a project that evolved when funding dried up, and continues the great work that the project began. And when one of our proudest endeavours, the School Bus project, revealed that children are exposed to substantial levels of air pollution while riding to and from school, the advocacy around this issue was taken up not just by OPHA but also by many health units and organizations throughout the country.
One of the constants at OPHA has been the tireless advocating that's been undertaken on behalf of the residents of Ontario, and particularly on behalf of those who deliver the programs and services that make up our Public Health system. Though the commitment has never wavered, the way in which we are able to do our work has evolved. In the beginning, our efforts were mostly targeted at mandatory program revisions, but SARS, simply put, transformed the public health landscape. We knew at the time that change was necessary, and OPHA participated extensively in shaping that change to ensure that it would result in a progressive, accountable, and inclusive Public Health system. We continue this work today, and collaborated with all of our stakeholders and partners on informing the new Public Health Standards.
Some Candid Snapshots of the Fun We Had
This OPHA display was set up outside the office to greet guests. |
Kathleen Orth makes remarks while Monica Mitchell and Garry Aslanyan look on. |
OPHA Executive Director Connie Uetrecht and President Garry Aslanyan cut into the 20th anniversary cake. |
Treasurer Larry Stinson, President-Elect Carol Timmings and other guests enjoy the food and company at the Open House. |
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