Meet the 2018 Innovation in Teaching Nominees

Nominated by: Mozhgan Peiravi, with letters of recommendation from Joan Fernandez, Lorrie Simunovic and Athina Perivolaris

Ann has been nominated because of her accessibility as a mentor, for providing a research environment and the opportunity for students’ professional growth, and for the recognition of students' capabilities in contributions to research. Her expertise in helping students finding and articulating their interest is remarkable and differentiates from other mentors as is her focus on inclusivity engagement in order to inspire a common vision.

As her nominator shared:

“Ann has shown me how to mobilize supports and integrate within the inter-professional team. She thought me to utilize dynamic teaching styles such as study stations to foster active participation and encouraged me to note the effects of different teaching styles on teaching behaviours which directly influence motivational climate and staff cognitive and affective responses. Her innovation in teaching inspires me. Compiling her nomination has made me realize the reach and depth of her impact given the diverse individuals that wanted to contribute and support her nomination.”

Nominated by: CAMH Simulation Centre team, with letters of recommendation from Stephanie Sliekers, Amy Dionne and Tucker Gordon

Latika is a trusted mentor to many. She has a unique ability to understand the evolving educational needs of mentees. Leading by example, Latika takes time to co-develop, co-facilitate and co-debrief simulations and faculty development workshops with her team. She supports skills development so they can do this independently, often allowing mentees to take the lead while she steps back and guides from the periphery.

One of Latika’s mentees shared:

“Latika’s ‘just do it’ approach… has encouraged me to push my own limits and uncover my competence as a facilitator and teacher. In a pivotal coaching session, Latika emphasized to me that that our newly established simulation team should strive to embody the principles of simulation education and feel comfortable to just try something out, which inevitably means being open to making—and learning from—mistakes.”

The Simulation Centre has grown under Latika’s leadership. She is committed to developing and enhancing best practices in mental health simulation through research, evaluation and translating this knowledge to others. She seeks out partnerships to advance teaching and encourages the development of mentorship skills in others.

Team members: Andrew Johnson, Alexxa Abi-Jaoude, David Wiljer, Elisa Hollenberg, Annie Hart, Genevieve Ferguson, Jenny Shia and Daryl Boshart

Nominated by: Asha Maharaj, with letters of recommendation from Lisa Metselaar, Aristotle Voineskos, Nicole VanHeerwaarden and Gloria Chaim

The Patient and Family Education team has consistently mentored post-secondary students, most notably through the development of Thought Spot. Thought Spot is a digital platform designed to foster greater access to health, mental health and addictions resources for post-secondary students within the GTA. Co-creation and co-design brings together the expertise of CAMH staff with the expertise of students in their own lived experience. The team has worked with more than 200 students in the Thought Spot Student Group, an innovative Hackathought event, and through crowdsourcing workshops. At each point, the goal was to listen and learn from the students, and to send them off as advocates for good mental health.

In an innovative approach, students are treated as equal team members from the beginning of their placement and allow students opportunities to develop leadership, communication and facilitation skills in a supportive-yet-challenging environment. The team mentors them on best practices of co-designed workshop development, facilitation and participatory action research and fully take part in the execution of the program with all the stops, starts, frustrations and accomplishments related to such an ambitious study.

The practicum coordinator involved shared that:

“the mentoring that the students received and the skills that they acquired…have and will continue to contribute to their employment successes….It is clear that this team values the mutual learning that occurs during these placements and is a wonderful example of how to mentor students while honouring their unique insights and expertise.”

Team members: Mayce Al-Sukhni, Roshina Babaei-Rad, Albert Chaiet, Terri Chan, Thomas Chan, Tianna Costa, Lindsay Coyne, Erin Fedoruk, Elnaz Haddadi, Aman Hansra, Noreen Jamal, Juno Kim, Young Kim, Abir Khoury, Alysha Prata, Colette Raphael, Sandra Spadarob Beth Sproule, Sonia Thomas, Patrick Wong and Maria Zhang

Nominated by: Maria Zhang and Tiana Costa (separately)

CAMH Pharmacists play an integral role patient care, supporting teaching and learning within and external to CAMH. All pharmacists at CAMH are expected to supervise one fourth year pharmacy student for 10 weeks annually. Many pharmacists go above and beyond this requirement by offering 1-day observerships for students who do not get matched to CAMH and has a robust Residency Program where one pharmacist spends 52 weeks at CAMH rotating through multiple inpatient and outpatient services, along with non-direct patient care rotations such as drug information, management, and drug distribution. Our pharmacists frequently receive feedback from students regarding how they've role modelled excellent clinical practice, empathy, non-judgmental support for clients, and a teaching style that they will use upon graduation.

Staff at CAMH regularly receive medication-related information from the Pharmacy staff. In July 2017, the Opioid Overdose Prevention Initiative was launched at CAMH. Pharmacy staff have been leaders in this initiative and they have trained over 480 clients and caregivers on opioid overdose prevention and management, along with over 200 staff within Acute Care, Complex Care and Recovery, and Child, Youth and Emerging Adults. Surveys indicate that these training sessions improve staff comfort with discussing harm reduction with clients, and their confidence in providing opioid overdose education to clients.

Nominated by: Ann Pottinger, with letters of recommendation from Janet Mawhinney, Terry Gardiner and Gillian Strudwick

Under Rani’s leadership, the role of nurse educators at CAMH was developed and implemented. This this group has grown and evolved into an essential resource for point of care staff. Rani and her Professional Practice Office (PPO) team have supported the academic development of the Advanced Practice Clinical Leaders (APCLs) who are extremely active in knowledge exchange, publishing, presenting at academic conferences and teaching. Her innovative approach resulted in the development of a communications course in the nursing program at University of Toronto. She was instrumental in establishing scholarships and internships to support the education and practice of nurses at CAMH and in the establishment of a Chair in Mental Health Nursing.

Rani embodies consistent dedication and commitment to the growth and professional development of others. Her willingness and authenticity have contributed to achievements, growth and trajectory of many staff at CAMH and beyond. Rani aims to understand the learners’ experiences within their context. She inspires in each learner the courage to use innovative approaches that considers the needs of their learners. She leverages her knowledge and executive privilege to elevate others toward success. As a tireless advocate for interprofessional collaboration and health equity, her impact is significant and through her work and that of those she has taught and mentored, she has earned national presence. Rani's contributions are in constant demand and highly valued at CAMH and across diverse communities. Her most outstanding outcome is the hundreds of mentees who succeed as educators, leaders, researchers and mentors and positively impact others.

Nominated by: Dr. Gary Remington, with letters of recommendation from Csilla Kalocsai and Rachel Cooper

Sacha Agrawal has led several collaborations that disrupt traditional models for health professional education and the relationship between service provider and service user by positioning service users as teachers and educators. The basis of this work is to enable service users to embody educator roles, create opportunities for learners to reflect on their biases and assumptions, and critically examine professional knowledge and practice to enable transformational learning. His first and flagship project, From Surviving to Advising, pairs service users as advisors to fourth year psychiatry residents over a period of 6 months. As the co-founder and co-lead of the course, Sacha has been an educational mentor to 41 service user educators since its inception in July 2013. He facilitates monthly supervision meetings for the service user advisors, wherein the principles of effective teaching are taught and modelled.

Sacha also leads a participatory action research team that since 2015. This work has led to new collaborations that involve service users in the selection of new residents to the University of Toronto residency program, in pre-clerkship medical student teaching and in CAMH’s TIDES program. This work has also led to the development of a novel series of training workshops for service user educators, which Sacha co-designed and co-led in 2016 and 2017 with a total of 31 service user educators.

Read Sacha's reaction to winning here.

Nominated by: Priya Watson, with letters of recommendation from Anupam Thakur, Mitesh Patel, Andrea C. Tricco and Komal Bhasin

Dr. Soklaridis has skillfully mentored scholars across Canada and internationally and across a number of different disciplines and at varying levels of career development. In her role as head of RISE she provided training and mentorship and shaped the career development of faculty and residents. She had national impact as a Knowledge Translation Expert/Mentor for MHCC SPARK Training Program, mentoring participants, including program managers and policy makers. She is able to successfully mentor across disciplines due to the breadth and depth of her expertise in education scholarship, including innovation and research.

Sophie is an outstanding and flexible teacher and mentor, receiving excellent evaluations for both her one-to-one supervision and her presentations to large groups. She has supervised and mentored many students in graduate education, postgraduate education, residents, faculty and fellows. In addition to direct mentoring activities, she also contributes to scholarship on mentorship and to building capacity for mentorship at CAMH. She has developed courses in educational scholarship, created and chaired innovative rounds, and developed curricula for teaching residents and faculty to teach, including a separate module dedicated to mentorship. Sophie demonstrates commitment to both the practice and the scholarship of mentoring, infusing her mentorship with a critical lens, bringing sophisticated analyses to questions of power and equity in research. Sophie’s efforts have situated our research efforts within a broader mandate for equity, stigma-reduction and the empowerment of mental health service users. She is an unfailingly generous mentor without over-emphasis on her own academic gain. Her mentorship has had direct impact on our successes as Education Scholars at CAMH.

Team members: Paul Martin Demers, Katie Hodgson, Steven Hughes and Graham Vardy

Nominated by: Asha Maharaj, with letters of recommendation from Conseulo Garcia-Andrade, Emmanuel Bratsalis and Frances Abela-Dimech

The TIDES team is part of a coaching and facilitation program that supports Safe and Well CAMH, building capacity for debriefing, handling conflict scenarios, physical interventions and creating safety and care plans for complex client cases. Initiated in 2004 as Prevention and Management of Aggressive Behavior (PMAB), with six coaches in what was then the Dual Diagnosis program, this program was a response to high numbers of assaults and staff injuries and highlighted a need for capacity building in preventing and managing aggressive behaviour. The program formalized into a process to recruit, train and maintain a cadre of certified coaches. The TIDES team has implemented a mentorship program for point-of-care staff focused on adult education, facilitation and trauma-informed de-escalation skill.

The TIDES team consistently develops this interdisciplinary group’s skills by providing training sessions, Code White simulations and unit/program-specific interventions aimed at keeping staff and patients safe. They work to integrate coaches on all interventions in their specific program/units, leading to reductions in the use of restraints and seclusion. The team’s expertise and advice is sought out on complex cases.

The team follows a graduated approach to mentorship, training new coaches and supporting existing coaches through team feedback and training, leading the way in presenting new educational approaches that model CAMH values. They work to further develop themselves and others, and will seek external expertise where needed to ensure the best outcomes.