This article originally appeared on the CAPHC Conversations blog.
The largest annual meeting of the child and youth healthcare provider community in Canada will be taking place October 22-24 in Montréal, Québec. The Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres (CAPHC) Annual Conference engages a broad stakeholder group of approximately 400 delegates that includes Hospital CEOs, Chief Financial Officers, Senior Administrators, Physicians, Clinical Directors, Multidisciplinary Practitioners, Policy Makers, Researchers, Families, Youth and many others.
In partnership with the Montreal Children’s Hospital and the Shriners Hospital for Children -- Canada, CAPHC is honoured to welcome a number of experts in the paediatric health care field to our conference this year.
The Right Honourable Paul Martin will join delegates as the opening Keynote speaker to talk about The Martin Family Early Years Initiative. In this highly interactive opening keynote presentation, the Right Honourable Paul Martin will share with conference delegates some of the progress his initiative has made to provide a continuum of services, and culturally appropriate early childhood programming for Indigenous children and families prior to kindergarten. Following this overview, Mr. Martin will be looking to engage in an open and honest dialogue to learn from the collective experience of the delegation.
Alexandre Bilodeau and members of his family will speak to Achieving Excellence in the Face of Adversity. As our Motivational Keynote speakers, we will hear their stories of a young family, trying to balance the needs of a child with cerebral palsy, with the needs of two other children, including one on a path that would eventually lead to Olympic greatness. This session will be hosted by television and TSN radio broadcaster, Ian Mendes.
The Closing Keynote address will be given by Dr. Cindy Blackstock. Her talk on Reconciling History – Jordan’s Principle will discuss how history matters and reconciliation requires that we learn from it. This presentation unpacks contemporary inequities to demonstrate their historical roots and the many solutions that are available to fix them.
A full list of 2017 CAPHC Annual Conference speakers and presentations can be found on the CAPHC website at www.conference.caphc.org.