The Prevent Stroke Team
Who We Are:
Our Partners:
Our Prevent Stroke Team:
Who We Are:
The mandate of Prevent Stroke (PS) is to build and extend partnerships between hospital-based stroke centres across Ontario and health promotion organizations in their local communities.
At least 90,000 Ontario citizens are living with the effects of stroke that include motor, sensory, cognitive and communication deficits. The personal and emotional costs of stroke on families can be debilitating. Yet stroke is highly preventable.
Since 2001, the PS team has been funded through the innovative Coordinated Stroke System funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care, Health Promotion and Wellness, Public Health Branch. The Ministry recognized the need for staff working in clinical stroke settings to make connections to health promotion and to have access to resources for stroke prevention.
Our task has been to build community capacity in health promotion through training, consultation, resource dissemination and networking.
Our PS team networks with staff at Ontario's Regional and District Stroke Centres and Secondary Prevention Clinics to learn about their work and identify ways to support primary prevention and health promotion.
In addition to working with the designated Stroke Centres, we also work closely with members of the Ontario Health Promotion Resource System, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Ontario Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance and other health promoters.
Suzanne Schwenger (s.schwenger@healthnexus.ca) has worked in health promotion for 15 years. She speaks French and holds Masters Degrees in Social Work and Education. Her passions include community engagement, public policy development and electronic dialogue. Suzanne is co-author of the resource, Prescribing Prevention: Health Promotion and Stroke Prevention. Suzanne has been a member of The Prevent Stroke Team since November 2002.
Subha Sankaran (s.sankaran@healthnexus.ca) is a Health Promotion Consultant with Prevent Stroke and the Health Promotion Resource Centre at OPC. She has a wide range of interest and experience within the health promotion and social services sectors that draws upon her twenty five year career in Canada and India. Some of these areas are inclusion, health disparities and the social determinants of health, immigration, community development and organizational issues. Subha has previously worked in the field of HIV/AIDS in Canada, taught Sociology at the university level in India, and continues to be interested in issues of social justice and public policy.
Christine Carbotte (c.carbotte@healthnexus.ca) brings excellent organizational and technical support skills to the team. Christine has worked in the I.T. field for 20 years, from computer operations to technical support, most recently providing hardware and software support. She has broad experience with Microsoft applications and hardware and system knowledge. She contributes both in the Website and database building as well administrative support for the team.
