Every person has adopted a different strategy in how they support the people in their community. Some focus on reaching out to their loved ones, some focus on giving their time to others by offering services and others focus on making sure they stay healthy so they can rejoin their loved ones.

Join YWiB Vancouver on May 28th at 6:30pm for our webinar, Frontline Perspectives: How Essential Workers are Experiencing COVID-19 and How we can Help.

Get inspired by healthcare practitioners, Downtown Eastside workers and other essential workers as they share their own and their communities' experience these past few months.

We'll discuss the changes that have been made and the challenges and opportunities they have presented to the people they serve. Please note that this event will be recorded!

We have amazing panelists for this webinar!

Jessica Briggs, Resident Doctor in Family Medicine with Fraser Health

Jessica is originally from Vancouver Island and earned her BSc(Dist) in Linguistics from the University of Victoria before starting medical school at UBC. She completed her MD last year and became a Family Medicine resident with the UBC Vancouver-Fraser Program, based largely at the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. Jessica was this year's recipient of the BC College of Family Physicians' Dr. Manoo and Jean Gurjar Award, which recognizes one male and one female physician who have demonstrated excellence throughout their Family Medicine training. She has a particular interest in rural medicine and plans to locum in small communities across BC after completing her residency next year.

Martyna Kamela, Occupational Therapist with Vancouver Coastal Health

 Martyna is an Occupational Therapist (OT) working both in the community and in hospital. As an OT, her goal is to optimize the abilities of her clients to achieve positive performance in their activities of daily living - which can range from self-care, productivity and leisure pursuits. She works to collaborate with clients to build on their capacities and strengths so that they can participate in their meaningful areas of life, even in the face of adversity.

Emma McFarlane, Outreach Worker with City of Vancouver's Homelessness Services

In her role with the City of Vancouver's Homelessness Services team as an Outreach Worker, Emma works mainly in our outreach office that serves folks who are homeless or precariously housed. We help clients to access more secure housing, health care services, sources of income, identification, and act in an advocacy role wherever else possible. She studied Public Health at SFU although she didn’t think she would end up working in this community, accepting those who call it home and encouraging others to do the same was always important to her. 

Lucia Woolgar, Leadership Development Coordinator with Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House

Lucia is  passionate about working with people and social justice. She currently works at the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House as the Leadership Development Coordinator. She coordinates a project called Let's Speak Up! that aims to shift the power dynamics that exist in decision making spaces in the Downtown Eastside. She works with community leaders and partner organizations to build capacity in the neighbourhood surrounding community governance. However, her role has changed drastically during this pandemic. Her focus is now on food security in the neighbourhood so her days involve cooking and serving food. She loves the human interactions that she has in her role.

Laura Gibbins, Occupational Safety Officer with WorkSafeBC

Laura has worked in the health and safety profession for 35 years for a variety of employers and in different roles within the scope of health and safety. She started off as an occupational health nurse with Canada Post Office and the City of Vancouver doing both occ. health and safety when understanding of safety was quite minimal. In the 1990s, she worked in the health care sector for the Providence Health Authority and then decided to go back to school and get her diploma in occupational health and safety. She then went on to work with the Vancouver Aquarium. That was one of the most rewarding and interesting positions she has had in her career. She spent 7 years with them along with opening up her own consulting company. Through her own company then with a partnership in another company, she expanded their scope of health and safety to include construction, disability management, industrial hygiene and teaching both to employers and at BCIT. And now she has been working as a prevention officer (occupational safety officer) for WorkSafeBC for the past 10 years. Her day is unpredictable but it’s a very rewarding job due to the variety of employers and industries she works with and the opportunity to continuously learn about subjects she would never have thought she would need to know.

Not a member yet? No worries, sign up for the event here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/frontline-perspectives-how-we-can-help-with-frontline-workers-tickets-104509755492

Already a member? Sign up for the event here: https://ywib.wildapricot.org/event-3834382