invites applications for the temporary contract position of
Physiotherapist for Grades K to 12.
This position is a district based itinerant position that sees the successful applicant travelling to schools throughout the district. Services will be to a maximum of 300 hours for the 2017/2018 school year. The successful applicant reports to the Director of Instruction of Learning Services. The Gulf Islands are located in the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver and Victoria (www.sd64.bc.ca). The effective date is September 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018.
Collaborate with school teams in support of IEP development and curriculum delivery for students who experience physical challenges
Work with other Learning Services team members to provide support services across the district
Consult with school staff, parents and community agencies regarding the needs of students who experience physical challenges
Utilize diagnostic and assessment procedures and tools in order to develop and implement preventive and therapeutic courses of intervention
Use evidence-based treatment interventions to focus on improving gross and fine motor skills, balance and coordination, strength and endurance, as well as cognitive and sensory processing/integration
Baccalaureate Degree in Physiotherapy or Rehab medicine or equivalent
Eligible for registration with the Physiotherapy Association of British Columbia (PABC)
Proven ability to support school teams with the implementation and delivery of services
Valid BC class 5 driver’s license
Reflex integration training and experience
Exemplary experience as a physiotherapist in the public school system
Exemplary behaviour management and organizational skills; documented evidence of an ability to develop rapport with students
High energy, enthusiasm, ability to collaborate with colleagues, and to work as a member of teaching teams
Review of applications received will commence on May 19, 2017. You are encouraged to submit your application prior to this date for full consideration; however, the competition will remain open until a successful candidate is found or until otherwise advised on our website.
Complete application packages should be directed to:
Linda Underwood, Director of Instruction, Human Resources
Drawing practitioners of public health from all over the province, PHABC’s annual Summer School is BC’s leading forum for inspiration, sharing, and learning on public health and health equity at the individual, health care system, and community levels.
Join us for our 2017 PHABC Summer School on July 6-7, 2017. This will be our 8th consecutive year as we explore the theme “Facing a Changing World: Transformative Leadership and Practice” and its applications through public health sectors Child and Youth Health, Indigenous Health, Planetary Health and Healthy Built Environments, and Immigrant and Refugee Health.
Main Sites
University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, University of British Columbia Okanagan, University of Northern British Columbia
Online Registration is now open, click here to register!
We welcome participants who are working directly or indirectly on public health issues and health promoting activities across our province, including but not limited to:
Frontline Health Providers
Recreation Practitioners
Municipal Council Members
Academics & Researchers
Program & Project Planners
Policy Analysts
Health Educators and Community Health Workers
Graduate & Medical Students
Why attend?
This two-day summer school is a unique collaboration of key-note presentations, case studies and hands on workshops that dive into the meaning of transformative practice and social innovation and its applications across multiple sectors in public health. The PHABC Summer School provides the opportunity for professionals throughout the province to meet, mingle and learn during discussion groups on site as well as across sites through UBC Video Technologies.
*Registration does not include lunch; but refreshments will be served at main sites.
PHABC Membership Annual Fee (Optional)
Regular: $50.00
Student: $30.00
Retired: $30.00
Benefits of becoming a PHABC Member:
1. SAVE on registration for the Summer School and Fall Annual Conference;
2. Stay in touch with Public Health activities and Health Promotion initiatives across BC; and
3. Network with intersectoral partners concerned about climate change and its impact on the health of British Colombians.
For more information on registration contact Annie and Kate at coordinator@phabc.org
The Public Health Association of B.C. believes that one of the best places to start trying to curtail mental illness would be with a comprehensive poverty-reduction strategy. When one in five Canadians is experiencing mental illness at any one time, and B.C. has the highest rate of mental-health-related hospitalizations, as well as the second-highest poverty rate in Canada, it’s time to get serious about the role poverty plays in causing mental illness.
Award-winning scientist John Read describes how “poverty dampens the human spirit, creating despair and hopelessness … directly impacts learning, drug and alcohol abuse, and increases suicide, depression and severe mental illness.”
According to the Canadian Medical Association, our genetics determine about 15 per cent of our health. Instead, it’s our socioeconomic status that plays a far more significant role, accounting for 50 per cent of our physical/ mental well-being. A vast array of socioeconomic issues are at play here, including access to stable, well-paying employment, good food, a safe and stable housing situation, and access to social support. Working poverty and precarious work are increasing, which has negative consequences on mental health, especially for those prone to mental illness.
When mental illness does strike, maintaining stabilizing factors like jobs and housing, as well as social-support networks, become difficult, increasing stress and worsening mental illness. Additionally problematic, according to the B.C. Psychiatric Association, is that getting help can be extremely complicated even for those who have loved ones to help them navigate the system. Small but critical programs where volunteers ‘diagnose poverty,’ try to connect patients with the help they need and are entitled to as citizens, are few and need expansion. Many mentally ill people aren’t getting the care they need and may end up on the streets, exposed to new traumatic situations, as has occurred for many patients after the closing of Riverview Hospital.
When we think of our fellow human beings ending up on the street, it’s hard not to think of the ongoing fentanyl crisis. According to Dr. Gabor Mate, fentanyl is an extremely powerful drug to treat pain, but it also targets mental anguish. Many of the people using these drugs have come from childhood abuse and neglect, which often stems from poverty and unstable households. Further, childhood trauma and core emotion patterns shape the developing brain in ways that make them more susceptible to addiction than people without childhood trauma. Having safe-injection sites is laudable, but we need a plan to help families out of the trauma of poverty before it disrupts child mental health.
New studies are revealing that poverty can shape a child’s mental health on a genetic level. Research from Duke University shows that low socioeconomic status in childhood triggers changes in gene-markers, called epigenetics, which may act to block the activation of a gene and interfere with the processing of serotonin, the lack of which is associated with chronic stress and depression. These changes can be made worse by other factors often associated with poverty, such as poor nutrition and exposure to smoke. When there are one in five children living in poverty in B.C., and there are reasons to believe that the trauma of poverty can potentially be passed down generations, we need real interventions.
For those who would say that tackling mental health and poverty is too expensive, despite being the right thing to do, the Canadian Mental Health Commission estimates that mental illness costs Canada about $51 billion annually ($6.7 billion for B.C. on a population basis, not factoring in the larger-than-average, mental-illness prevalence). The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives estimates that a poverty-reduction strategy, including social supports, much-needed social/transitional housing and better access to health services, would cost B.C. about $4 billion, a figure that would lessen as we break the cycle of poverty and mental illness.
Inequality is growing in B.C. faster than anywhere else in Canada, and inequality is associated with poorer mental health for society as a whole. In order to really alleviate some of the main factors in the development and perpetuation of mental illness, we need to address an underlying cause.
For B.C., a poverty and mental-illness reduction strategy is long overdue.
Increasing Income Inequality, a Major Public Health and Societal Problem:
What are the trends, why is this happening and what can be done?
By: John Miller
Income inequality is increasing steadily in Canada as it is in most developing countries. While poverty levels persist at unacceptably high rates the very wealthy are taking an ever bigger share of incomes so that wealth is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of a very small percentage of the population at the top of the socioeconomic (SE) hierarchy.
This increasing inequality in income and wealth is having profound effects on the economy, the environment, the effective functioning of democracy and most importantly on population health.
The effects on the economy are several: first, as wealth is increasingly concentrated among the already very wealthy who have more money than they can spend, there is less consumption of market products and a slowing of economic growth; second, there is a reduction of economic mobility – that is the opportunity in life to move up the SE ladder and achieve a higher standard of living (and health).
The effects on democracy are very important to consider when thinking about how to make the changes needed to reverse the trend of increasing SE inequity. Money is power, so those with plenty of resources can heavily influence governmental and corporate policies in their favour so that they keep and enhance their wealth. Hence we slowly see a well-functioning democracy and market economy replaced by a plutocracy/oligarchy. In recent times this has resulted in the widespread implementation of so-called ‘neoliberal’ economic policies that are contributing to increasing inequality (more discussion below).
The environment also suffers from the differential political power stemming from an increasingly inequitable distribution of wealth. As governments deregulate and corporations pursue ever increasing profits, natural resources are depleted and pollution (including greenhouse gases and therefore global warming) increases.
And SE inequality has huge effects on population health. Statistics Canada estimates that income inequality accounts for 40,000 premature deaths per year in Canada. In the US where income inequality is considerably worse than in Canada, the life expectancy of the white, non-Hispanic middle class is dropping for the first time after most of a century of steady increases. The causes of death are often the ‘diseases of despair’ (suicide, opioid overdoses, alcohol, tobacco, violence).
And health inequalities are on the rise in Canada with respect to unhealthy lifestyles. The rates of smoking tobacco, poor diets, lack of physical activity, stress and obesity are becoming ever higher among those of low SE status.
And we see the consequences on a daily basis: more precarious employment at below poverty levels, unaffordable housing, increasing numbers of homeless people sleeping on our sidewalks, epidemics of opioid overdose deaths across the province and the country.
The reasons for these alarming changes in our society are now well known. They include (among others):
The changing economy: the economy has shifted from one driven by resource extraction and manufacturing, retailing and services, to one dominated by financialization and IT. And in the financial sector (banks, insurance, investment) and IT (software, hardware, etc.) the remuneration for top executives has skyrocketed compared to entry level employees or other sectors.
Automation, artificial intelligence and robotization are eliminating many low –skill jobs.
Offshoring: many companies, pursuing better profits, have moved manufacturing jobs to China, Mexico and other countries with more ‘attractive’ tax and labour policies.
The acceptance by many politicians, policy makers and the public of a ‘Neoliberal’ ideology: this is an ideology advanced notably by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek in the US, and others including a number of well-funded ‘think tanks’ and implemented by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and some of their successors (including the current Liberal government in BC). Neoliberalism promotes the notion of Adam Smith’s economic ‘invisible hand’: a free (liberal) market where a well- informed public is free to make rational choices as to how they spend their money on products and services so that the economy will flourish and grow, wealth will be created and theoretically ‘trickle down’ to even the poorest so that poverty will not exist and there will be an equitable sharing of overall wealth. This neoliberal ideology promotes smaller (more business friendly) government, lower personal and corporate taxes, deregulation, balanced budgets, fewer public services and privatization of services such as education, health care, prisons, libraries, garbage collection, etc. It is an ideology that has now been shown empirically to be ineffective and unfair. And economists such as Thomas Piketty have shown that an unrestrained free market economy will inevitably lead to an ever increasing concentration of wealth among the elite.
Action is now needed to reverse this unhealthy development in our society. Persistent poverty, precarious work and decreased SE mobility is causing widespread unhappiness, hopelessness, stress and despair, a lack of social cohesion, and worse health and increased healthcare and other societal costs. It is also considered by many analysts to lead to such populist political outcomes as the election of Donald Trump and Brexit. When we also consider depletion of resources and environmental pollution, unless appropriate action is taken now, this unsustainable situation will lead to an ever worsening downward spiral.
So what can be done? There are two broad approaches to this problem;
A long term strategy is a (slow) movement to transform the business world to move away from a primary focus on ‘shareholder value’ and increased return on investments (i.e. profits) and toward a broader focus on social value and corporate social responsibility. There are many such companies that have various forms of employee ownership, cooperatives, profit sharing, revenue sharing and so forth. These should be encouraged and policies and incentives should be enhanced to speed up this transformation. But this will be a slow process so we must look to more immediate solutions.
Of most relevance to the current election in BC, there is a need for government policies that will create a dynamic economy while at the same time addressing poverty and the unhealthy concentration of wealth at the top of the SE hierarchy. This will require policies that redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom and middle rungs of our society. This can be done by what economists call ‘taxes and transfers’.
A progressive policy agenda for a new BC government could include:
1. Taxes: several policies should be considered:
Making income tax more progressive by increasing the top marginal rates (particularly on extreme cases of executive compensation/bonuses) and decreasing rates for middle and low incomes
Regulating stock buy-backs
Closing loopholes such as tax breaks on capital gains, dividends, income splitting
Wealth and inheritance taxes
Increased taxes on socially harmful products: alcohol, tobacco, sugar, fossil fuels (and carbon more generally), pollution
2. Government transfers and services:
Improved access to early childhood care and development (ECD)
1. 10$/day daycare
2. Increased ECD capacity
An enhanced earned income tax benefit
Improved benefits for the poor : increased welfare, unemployment and disability rates (possibly a guaranteed annual income such as being tested in Ontario)
A commitment to reducing poverty through a formal poverty reduction strategy ( BC has the highest childhood poverty rates while being the only jurisdiction in Canada not to have a poverty reduction strategy)
A formal homelessness strategy
Improved public education
Improved healthcare services
Infrastructure development: public transit, renewable energy, power grid, social housing, recreation facilities, communications, internet access.
Sustainable environmental policies
3. Employment policies
Minimum wage $15/h
Incentivize a Living wage
Other jurisdictions, notably some of the Nordic countries, have such progressive policies and consequently have healthier populations. By electing a government in BC that will implement such a policy agenda we can hope to return to a more equitable, compassionate, happy, dynamic society that will reduce health inequities and ensure sustainable health and wealth for generations to come.
Aboriginal Infant Development and Aboriginal Supported Child Development
Provincial Office
Job Opportunity
Administrative Assistant
The B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres (BCAAFC) is seeking a qualified individual
to support the Provincial Advisors for Aboriginal Infant Development (AIDP) and Aboriginal
Supported Development (ASCD) who provide guidance/education/professional development
information and support to AIDP/ASCD workers throughout B.C. This is a full time position with
benefits based in Victoria, B.C. with some occasional travel required.
Key Duties and Responsibilities
With/or on behalf of the AIDP/ASCD Provincial Advisors, facilitate communication with
AIDP/ASCD programs, AIDP/ASCD regional advisors, ECD stakeholders and provincial
advisory committee.
Coordination of AIDP/ASCD Provincial Advisory Committee meetings
Support the Professional Development Fund and Partnerships Project Committees.
Administrative support for Provincial Advisors including managing phone calls, file
management, reporting, cheque administration, travel planning, taking minutes and
assembling meeting packages.
Website maintenance.
Competencies and Requirement
Post-Secondary education in a relevant discipline of office management.
Working knowledge of office management systems and procedures.
Proven experience as an administration assistant with general and key duties and
responsibilities.
Experience and proficiency in Microsoft Office, website maintenance, SharePoint, social
media
Strong organizational, critical thinking and problem solving skills.
Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills.
Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to work effectively within a team.
Comfort working with all ages from a culturally safe, family centred practice philosophy and
work regarding children with special needs and families.
Experience working with Indigenous communities and urban Aboriginal service organizations
Planning and coordination of committee meetings
Successfully undergo criminal record and vulnerable sector checks
Pursuant to section 41 of the BC Human Rights Code, preference may be given to applicants of
Aboriginal ancestry.
Please provide a cover letter, resume, and 3 current references to:
Diana Elliott – advisor@aidp.bc.ca
Phone: (250)-388-5593 or toll free: 1-866-338-4881
Deadline extended to: 4:30 pm, Friday, May 5th, 2017
Administering
Aboriginal Infant Development and Aboriginal Supported Child Development
Provincial Office
Address: Phone: 250-388-559
551 Chatham St. Toll free: 1-866-338-4881
Victoria, B.C. Fax: 250-388-5502
V8T 1E1
Website: www.aidp.bc.ca
Website: www.ascdp.bc.ca
Applications are invited for the position of Manager of Health and Safety for School District No. 73 (Kamloops/Thompson). As part of School District No. 73’s management team, the Manager of Health and Safety is responsible for the continued development, implementation and oversight of the occupational health and safety program for the district. This broad set of responsibilities includes prevention and claims (including all claim reporting to WorkSafeBC, Review Division and Appeal Tribunal Representation). The manager is responsible for related Human Resources functions, such as employee orientations.
The successful applicant for this position will demonstrate:
Five (5) years’ experience in a lead role as Manager of Health and Safety for a large organization
Degree/diploma in Occupational Health and Safety or equivalent
CRSP designation
Experience in the field of Human Resource Management
Application Deadline: Sunday May 7, 2017
@ 11:30 PM
Letters of application and resume, including references, to be submitted through the Make a Future website: www.makeafuture.ca/kamloops-thompson
Further information is available on the Employment section of the School District No. 73 website: sd73.bc.ca/careers
