Chaylan's Story

What is the CND OHT:

Ontario Health Teams (OHT) is an organization whose job is to transform the provincial health care landscape. This group works towards building high-performing integrated care delivery systems across Ontario that provide seamless, fully coordinated care for patients. Ontario Health Teams helps to achieve better outcomes for patients, improve population health, and better value for the province. Their purpose is to reorganize and deliver health care in a different way for our communities. The goal is to get the partner and associate agencies to work together as one coordinated team to deliver primary care, rehabilitative, hospital care, long-term care, mental health & addictions services & more.

Personal Article About Experience:

What is beyond amazing about the CND OHT, is that this organization is run by only 6 people. This means everyone relies on each other and can count on one another to ensure all goals are met. During my time at this placement, I have become part of this team and taken on important projects that will directly impact the community. My ideas and opinions are respected by the team and are often valued as another point of view. I have been given the chance for amazing opportunities when working on these projects to learn and help with a lot in this community. There is always excitement with this placement because my jobs and requirements are constantly changing depending on what projects are needed for the community at that time. This placement was very flexible in hours where I was working a hybrid system. Majority of the time I was working remotely and working on my own schedule. I would also have the opportunity to work onsite to get some important in person experience.

On a daily and during my overall placement some of the tasks and projects I have been responsible for are:

• Create posters and flyers on Canva to be posted on social media or handed out for advertising important causes

• Update calendar events for the team to ensure everyone is up to date on upcoming events and deadlines

• Sit in on board-wide or team meetings where decisions are made on what would best benefit the community

• Meet one on one with my supervisor (online or in person) to be given projects and go over the products I produce

• PFAC (Patient, Family & Caregiver Advisory Council) recruitment project to encourage people to join this council to help with decision-making in the community

• Created a one pager and presentation regarding information held on the Spectrum Website

• Analyze social media statistics and report them to supervisors

• Go onsite to other organizations (Langs) for the volunteer training program

Some of My Larger Project Experiences:

PFAC Recruitment:

My overall goal in this project was to find ways to recruit more people to join PFAC Patient, Family & Caregiver Advisory Council. This council works towards a transformation in our community to increase access to care, provide a voice to service users, help reach our goal of putting community perspectives, values and needs first. It also works to improve care coordination, collaboration and lastly, improve health outcomes and experiences for everyone accessing CND OHT services. The target audience this council focuses on are older adults, individuals in a visible minority group and those who have accessed mental health and addiction services. To do this, I would start by brainstorming different methods of advertising. I would make flyers and posters to be distributed and posted on social media platforms to spread the word. I would also reach out to organizations with the intended target audience to request to use their space to set up a booth to recruit people. I began by making a Doodly calendar for organizations to see my availability to be onsite. Once a time was arranged, I would plan to go onsite to set up these booths where I have an opportunity to interact with people in the community and voice the importance of this council and the benefits to them joining. As of now, I have gone into Langs and will continue looking to go in person to other organizations to reach more success with this project

Spectrum Project:

One of my larger projects was finding ways to help prepare for Pride Month. To do this, I would spend a lot of time researching on ourspectrum.com to see what was available in the community to best benefit people in the LGBTQ2+ Community. It was really interesting looking further into this topic and seeing the amazing opportunities and resources our area has to offer to make life easier for people in the LGBTQ2+ Community. I have spent a bit of time recently creating a one-pager tip sheet on Canva to summarize some important resources available to people in this community. This is meant to help LGBTQ2+ people find important resources located near them to help them feel more supported. This can help reduce isolation, enhance education on the topic and overall allow everyone to feel more accepted. I then made a short presentation, where I went over all of the resources that can be found on this website. I will soon present that to the CND OHT team to help everyone be further informed of what resources can be accessed to help prepare for pride month. My job was to find and expand the knowledge of what resources are available in our community. This will help the team become more aware of how we can support people in this community and can help the team expand the available resource provided. My goal was to help the CND OHT to become more pride ready for pride month coming up in June to allow us to work towards a further supportive, inclusive and equitable environment for all.

Career Path Opportunities With This Placement:

The amazing thing about the CND OHT and the reason I chose to take on this part-time CO-OP position was because of its versatility. I admired the members affiliated with this organization and how the CND’s goal was to unite all these members together to create a more collaborative healthcare system. Since the CND OHT has such diversity, this helps lead opportunities to many different career paths. I personally am still unsure of what I want to do for a living, so a placement like this was perfect to experience and be surrounded by many different job types. This placement could lead to countless career paths such as Doctor, Nurses, Communication Coordinator (the job of my supervisor), Mental Health Care Professional and many many more. This job allowed me to see the importance of all of these healthcare systems in our community and opened up new possibilities for personal career paths in the future!