Appointee Biographies

BETTY-LOU KRISTY

Betty-Lou Kristy is a bereaved mother, in recovery for close to 25 years from alcohol/multi-drug addiction, substance use disorder, trauma and mental health issues. She lost Pete, her 25-year-old son with concurrent disorders, to an accidental opioid overdose in 2001. She has additional caregiver experience in supporting close family members with cancer, cardio, lung/COPD, diabetes and asthma. Humanizing the health care system, improving quality of life and reduction of harm are among Betty-Lou’s top priorities. She has spent almost 20 years working within the Ontario health care system as a lived experience and family advisor, educator and advocate. In this capacity she has helped to frame policy, governance and programming. Before this journey, her background was in corporate marketing. Betty-Lou has over 15 years of extensive board governance training and experience. She is the Director of Support House’s Centre for Innovation in Peer Support and has also received several awards such as the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Transforming Lives Award, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Achievement, Commitment and Excellence Award – Partner Relations for her work with the Expert Working Group on Narcotic Addiction and the Support House Employee of the Year Award. The Centre has been awarded the Ontario Peer Development Initiative Innovators Award, AMHO President Shield Award and the Association of General Hospital Psychiatric Services Celebrating Innovation Award.

KAREN SAMUELS

Karen Samuels is a Child Protection Worker with 23 years’ experience. She obtained a Bachelor of Social Work Degree from Ryerson University, currently known as Toronto Metropolitan University. Karen works with children, youth, and families of various cultural, social, and complex needs who have experienced trauma throughout their lives. She is well-versed in the areas of Addictions, Mental Health, Homelessness, Emotional Intelligence, Human Trafficking, Immigration, and Kinship services. Her current role is working on the Flex Team where she engages and collaborates with various departments within the Agency to support with service gaps. Additionally, Karen collaborates with various sectors consisting of children’s mental health, school boards, adult mental health and addictions, families in transition, court and medical. During her career, she has had a range of opportunities and experiences; first of which is mentoring interns and new workers while having a focus on Diversity Equity and Inclusion. She is also a member of the Peer Support team offering her support to fellow colleagues. Karen has collaborated with community partners both independently and in her extensive role as Supervisor of the Adolescents’ team, The Associated Youth Services of Peel and Everymind Mental Health Services formerly known as The Peel Children Centre.

TERRENCE HO

Meet Terrence, a strategist, facilitator, and community builder with experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. His biggest motivation comes from his younger brother, who lives with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and he's been his care advocate for over 30 years. Terrence's personal experiences caring for his brother and losing his mother to lung cancer have given him a unique perspective on the needs of patients and caregivers. Terrence is the Head of Global Sales Education & Operations at Braze Mobility, which developed the world's first patented blind spot sensors for wheelchairs. He's co-authored the book "Bold Spirit Caring for the Dying" and trained as an End of Life Care Doula. These experiences have made him a strong advocate for accessibility, end-of-life care, and mental well-being.

WENDY DE SOUZA

Wendy De Souza is a cis Latinx woman, first-generation Canadian with Indigenous ancestry in Brazil. With over nine years as an experienced public educator, prolific public speaker and community mobilizer, she is driven by her passion for community development and facilitating transformative spaces through decolonizing pedagogies. With a background in real estate, project management and popular education, her work is rooted in decolonizing institutional spaces and practices by working from an intersectional feminist lens and an anti-colonial/anti-oppression framework. In her intergenerational and cross-sectoral collaborations, she has been recognized for her extraordinary commitment to using arts-based practices to foster individual transformation and systems change. Wendy has served as a community educator, project manager and program developer. She has almost 10 years of direct community engagement experience designing and delivering high-impact community projects, trainings, consultations and educational initiatives. She has also worked at the intersections of gender-based violence and violence against women. Wendy has spearheaded projects that engage vulnerable and marginalized African/Caribbean/Black, 2SLGBTQIA+, Muslim, racialized and newcomer communities in violence prevention and community economic development initiatives advancing the social determinants of health. She has supported the development of accessible youth legal resources on cyber violence and human trafficking, community-based research and action initiatives for Two Spirit, nonbinary and trans communities, and training resources for senior leaders in organizational equity. Wendy has lived and family experience navigating complex birth issues, mental health, ADHD, PTSD and chronic pain. She has also supported others through health care issues like abortion and birth control, gender reassignment/affirmation surgery, addictions and health equity.

DON MAHLEKA

Don Mahleka was born and raised in Zimbabwe and fled to Canada as a refugee in Grade 9. He has living experience of chronic pain, trauma, depression and anxiety. He has used his experiences of facing barriers to accessing health and community services to seek insights from other people with diverse lived experiences on ways to address health care inequities. Don is experienced in health equity consulting, anti-racism and anti-oppression training and implementation. He also has experience collaborating with equity deserving groups in program development, change management, community-based participatory research and policy development to spark innovations in health equity. Don has experience co-hosting international, national and local mental health conferences. He co-founded Revolutionary Lives, a local youth mental health radio show that engaged and empowered youth voices from high schools and post-secondary institutions. The radio show team hosted city-wide youth mental health conferences and advocated for a city-wide youth mental health strategy. This strategy aimed to address barriers in accessing health/social services faced by racialized youth. Don has served as Strategic Advisor to the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada and has served on several non-profit boards. Don has also served as an advisor for the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s development of two national standards: a national mental health standard for post-secondary institutions and a national standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace. He's currently supporting the development of the Commission's Structural Stigma online training module. For the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Don has provided advisory support for the development of an online Harm Reduction Resource and Recovery College. Don has several years of experience in frontline peer support, mental health crisis intervention and counselling. He believes in collective impact and collective care that centres on restorative justice, cultural humility, mutual respect and accountability.

DEAN VALENTINE

Dean is a veteran of the Royal Canadian Navy. His experiences and professional competencies have been shaped through 25 years of service in the Canadian Forces Logistics Branch and more than 14 years of volunteer community service work. His work has taken place in a wide range of environments, both across Canada and internationally. Dean believes it is important to self-identify as a member of Toronto’s queer community who is HIV positive, living with complex medical and mental health challenges, and navigating mild to moderate cognitive impairment. Following complications related to his HIV/AIDS diagnosis, Dean was medically released from the Canadian Forces and found himself navigating a health-care system that was unfamiliar to him. The successes and challenges of his personal journey inspired his passion for advocating for collaborative, people-centred, holistic community health care. Dean has served as a board member of Casey House Hospital and the AIDS Committee of Toronto. He is an active Peer Educator for OHTN Health HIVe - HIV psychiatry ECHO. In addition, Dean serves on the Addictions & Mental Health Ontario Persons with Lived and Living Experience Advisory Panel and the OH OHT Community of Practice. He was also the inaugural Chair of the Downtown East Toronto Ontario Health Team Community Advisory Council and co-led Community/PFC Engagement Strategies. Dean is actively involved in community research projects with HQ Toronto (Innovative Approach to Treating Methamphetamine Use) and Sinai Health (Co-Author, Culturally Appropriate Care for Diverse Older Adults Living with HIV), and has participated in various peer support programs in mental health, addictions and Skills for Safer Living. Dean shares, “I want to acknowledge that I come from a place of privilege and that my story is unique to me. I recognize that I may have similar challenges to others, but that our access to services may vary significantly. I am committed to learning and to helping break down the barriers and oppression that impede equitable access to health care. I firmly believe that mental and physical health care span a lifetime, and that community health care should be equitable, easy to navigate, and provide seamless access to services when they are needed, without delay” - Dean Valentine

SANDRA HOLDSWORTH

Sandra Holdsworth is retired from a 30-year career in the banking industry. She received a liver transplant 29 years ago, after going undiagnosed with a rare liver disease, Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis and Crohn's. After years of treatment for her Crohn's, she required a permanent Ileostomy in 2012. Sandra is currently on home hemodialysis after losing kidney function in March 2024 due to sepsis. She now has Cirrhosis due to long term immunosuppressants. Sandra has been on the transplant list for 1 ½ years for combined kidney/liver transplant. Using her lived experience as a transplant patient and a benefactor of organ donation, she is an advocate/mentor for organ and tissue donation and is also very involved in organ donation and transplantation research. Sandra is very interested in the health-care system as a whole and how we can improve it with co-design, including patient, caregiver partners in system transformation, patient safety, research, and more. Sandra is in favour of including patients and their caregivers as active partners in their health care and treatment plan. For over a decade, Sandra has collaborated with the Canadian Donation Transplant Research Program as a patient partner co-lead on the Quality-of-Life Theme. She helps to determine and design research projects, and recruit and assist with knowledge translation. She is involved in several research projects including exercise, nutrition and mental health, Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) & Patient Experience Measures (PREMs), AI & machine learning, patient engagement evaluation, skin cancer, digital health and so many more. Sandra joined the Muskoka and Area Ontario Health Team in July 2019, serving on the Steering Committee and Alliance Council as well as several working groups and task forces. Along with her co-chair, she participated in the application submission and co-led the development and leadership of the Muskoka and Area OHT Patient Family Caregiver Partner Advisory Committee. Sandra stepped down from this role in December 2023 to focus on provincial engagement. Sandra is on the Board of Patient Advisors Network (PAN) and serves on their Executive Committee. Locally, she founded Muskoka Gift of Life Association to educate residents of Muskoka about organ & tissue donation and transplantation and leads the volunteers for the Gravenhurst Blood Clinic. Sandra is also a co-founder of Spark Muskoka and volunteers with Gravenhurst Against Poverty producing their monthly newsletter.

JOAN DUKE

Joan Duke moved back to Thunder Bay on retirement. She lived in small town rural Ontario working for many years in both the Hospital in Nipigon and in the High School Library in Red Rock. Her experience gives her insights into the needs of the different demographics in North Western Ontario. She joined the Patient Family Committee at The Thunder Bay Regional Hospital and developed an understanding of how the patient experience is critical to and can be completely embedded in the health system in both the hospital and the province. During Covid she developed a wide range of interests and joined the Noojmawing Sookatagaing Ontario Health Team (OHT) PFCC and recently ended her term as co-facilitator. Her interests include the Provincial Geriatrics Leadership Ontario, the National Insomnia Collaboration, various Community of Practice groups and various committees for Ontario Health provincially. She is particularly interested in the development of Health 811 and a provincial patient portal. She participates in the Bridge North West Executive Steering Committee who are working on a common electronic record for the North and the committee for the improvement of the Northern Health Travel Grant. She has joined other health organizations that help add to her education and understanding. Joan volunteers for many organizations in the community that advocate for the improvement of social conditions and population health for seniors. She is particularly interested in promoting the inclusion of the patient experience in every health organization. Listening to people’s stories is important and using those stories to promote change is her primary goal.

SANDI BELL

Sandi Bell is the President of EMPOWWORD Inc., a mediation and training & development firm. She has an extensive background dealing with interpersonal and organizational conflict, strategic planning, change management, human rights, social justice, anti-racism and anti-oppression, child welfare, education, youth matters, accessibility, disability issues and equity/diversity/access/inclusion. Ms. Bell is currently a part-time Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC). Throughout her terms as a Canadian Human Rights Commissioner (CHRC), Sandi has been proud to engage in various levels of the National Aboriginal Initiative. This is a multi-faceted set of strategies to help members of the Aboriginal community to use their rights under the CHRC. Sandi has advocated for and provided extensive consultation services and training around Ontario’s disability legislation and standards, as well as the Ontario Human Rights Code. She has been a coach with the Windsor Law School Mediation Program and a guest lecturer with many educational facilities, including Osgoode Hall Law School. Sandi taught a business program at Mohawk College and taught Community Development at Ryerson University’s Disability Studies Faculty. She proudly self-identifies as a Black Indigenous woman with a disability. Her passion to rid society of — and prevent — racism, discrimination and oppression is not a topic or research project — it is a way of life.

ABBEY HUNTER

Abbey was born and raised in beautiful Thunder Bay, Ontario and is currently a Master of Public Health student at Lakehead University. At 16 years old, she experienced the negative parts of our healthcare system, specifically the shortcomings in Northern Ontario, to which she has become an advocate for better access and support in the North. Following her diagnosis of Lupus and the struggles throughout the system in Northwestern Ontario, she became a Patient Family Advisor at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, advocating from a younger patient perspective. From there, she began doing talks with nursing students and health care professionals, sharing her story, and pushing for thorough and quality care for young people in the health care system. From there, she sat on the Women and Children’s Program and the Telemedicine Program, pushing for both younger advocacy and the importance of telemedicine in the North. She also sits on the Noojmawing Sookatagaing (Healing Working Together) Ontario Health Team for Thunder Bay and surrounding regions. In 2023, she was a coordinator for the first-ever Walk for Lupus in Thunder Bay, along with Lupus Ontario. Leveraging the connections she made through her role as a patient and family advisor, she curated a Northern cause after meeting with various professionals. Most recently, within her academic journey, while completing an MPH (Master of Public Health), Abbey works with individuals living with dementia and their families (Northwest Dementia Working Group), through research and community-based engagement at Lakehead University. Throughout Abbey’s journey, she has been able to share her struggles but also her silver linings as a young woman living with a chronic illness. Although it has brought much adversity, she has found healing through advocacy.

DAVID BELL

David Bell and his wife Andrea are proud parents of three boys: Etienne, who died in a tragic accident in 2011 at 16 months, Emanuel (age 14), who was diagnosed as a baby with a rare genetic condition, and Florian (age 11). His family’s experiences with child health services and close ties with other families with medically fragile children prompted him to volunteer as a family advisory committee member with several Ottawa-area organizations, including Roger Neilson Children’s Hospice and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. David co-chairs a multi-stakeholder working group under the Kid’s Come First Health Team aimed at improving access to and the quality of community and homecare services in Eastern Ontario. David is a self-described Francophile — he learned French as an adult and lives in a bilingual household. Originally from Burk’s Falls, David has worked for twenty-eight years in the federal public service.

SHANNON MCGAVIN

Shannon McGavin (she/her) is a system change leader dedicated to creating people-centred teams and facilitating community partnerships. Driven by a commitment to integrated care, diversity, inclusion, psychological safety, and the importance of including lived and living expertise, Shannon focuses on co-creating transformative change to improve youth and community wellness in rural communities across Canada. Having worked for more than 25 years to enhance outcomes in education for children, youth and their families, Shannon believes that working together with local, national and international contexts is instrumental in creating shared purpose and evidence-based integrated care. As a parent of young adults who have struggled with anxiety, depression and eating disorders, Shannon has experienced first-hand frustration with the lack of sustainable and supportive systems for youth struggling with mental wellness. As the CEO and Founder of The Well Community Collective, she is transforming youth wellness pathways to support youth in rural Huron, Perth, Grey and Bruce Counties with Integrated Youth Service Networks. Most recently, Shannon has used her lived expertise as a cancer survivor to continue advocating for transparent patient navigation, integrated care systems, and safe, welcoming care spaces and providers. Currently, Shannon is a member of the Family Advisory Council at the Knowledge Institute of Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions, and she supports several Knowledge Institute CIHR projects and Co-Chairs the Quality Standards Advisory Council. She is a member of her local Huron Perth and Area Ontario Health Team, sitting at the Patient Family Caregiver, Mental Health and Addictions Network and Planning and Priority setting tables. Shannon is a life-long learner who is finishing her Master of Youth Mental Health degree at Orygen in Australia.

AMANDEEP KAUR

Amandeep Kaur is the Chief Executive Officer of Punjabi Community Health Services (PCHS) in Ontario's Central Region. Under her dynamic leadership, PCHS has garnered acclaim for its culturally responsive services in mental health, addiction support, geriatric care, newcomer settlement, and social services. With over three decades of experience in the non-profit sector, Amandeep has been a trailblazer and co-founder of the Integrated Holistic Service Delivery Model. This model, tailored to address health challenges within the South Asian community, is a testament to her deep-rooted passion and commitment. Amandeep's career trajectory reflects her commitment. Starting as a frontline staff, she progressed through continuous education, volunteerism, and collaboration with mainstream and community-based organizations. She has earned numerous awards for her work in family violence prevention and contributed to research studies. Her resilience and commitment drive innovation, aiming to uplift community well-being. Amandeep is an inspiring advocate for change, dedicated to advancing equity and inclusivity in healthcare and social services to shape a brighter future for marginalized groups. Beyond her professional achievements, Amandeep brings personal insight as a caregiver to a child with chronic mental health challenges. Her advocacy for innovation and inclusivity is unwavering, as she eagerly anticipates further collaboration with the Council.