Realize Staff Profiles can be found here
Jordan Lewis
Jordan has worked for over 17 years as the social worker in the HIV team at St. Michael’s Hospital. He has experience working with marginalized populations, including those living with mental health, palliative care, addictions, HIV and bleeding disorder related concerns. He has taught at university and college, teaches annual workshops and has lectured at national conferences. He has recently traveled across Canada providing education on HIV and Depression. Jordan has won the “Education Excellence Award” at St. Michael’s Hospital twice in the last seven years.
Yvette Perrault
Currently Director of the AIDS Bereavement and Resiliency Program of Ontario. Recent written works include: When Grief Comes to Work: Managing Grief and Loss in the Workplace (2011);
Yvette has been a front-line community organizer and counsellor for nearly four decades. She served as AIDSupport Program Director at the AIDS Committee of Toronto for 8 years and prior to that, worked in the area of violence against women and children. She has Prairie roots and trained as a Psychiatric Nurse in Brandon, Manitoba. In addition to her work in HIV/AIDS, Yvette serves as a consultant within the community-based sector. Her interest is in building teams with heart.
Colleen Price
Colleen Price resides in Ottawa and is trained in Psychology, Sociology and as a Social Service Worker. Colleen is a committed advocate for testing, access to treatment, care and support for people living with HIV and/or Hepatitis C. She advocates that harm reduction, mental health and peer support services become part of integrated wholistic health care. Colleen encourages community, frontline, researchers, clinicians and government to work together to improve the mental health and health related quality of life for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and/or Hepatitis C. Currently serving on OACHA, OHTN OCS Governance Committee and various research teams.
Scott Bowler
Scott is a social worker at the Clinic for HIV-related Concerns in the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto where he provides psychotherapy for individuals living with HIV. Scott began his social work career as the Program Coordinator/Counsellor for the newly funded AIDS Community Counselling Program at the Toronto Counselling Centre for Lesbians and Gays in 1990. He has worked in hospital-based HIV Medical and Psychiatric clinics since 1991. Throughout his career he has been a facilitator of collaborations in service delivery aimed at responding to the evolving needs of individuals living with HIV, bringing together individuals living with HIV, community-based clinicians and hospital-based clinicians to develop and deliver innovative clinical services. Scott is also an Adjunct Lecturer in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, where he has been providing Field Practicum learning opportunities since 1993.
Susan Clancy
Currently Director of Mental Health Services for recently integrated Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre in Toronto.
She has worked in the HIV sector at local and provincial level. For the past 38 years she has worked with marginalized folks in VAW, supportive housing, drop in sector, and in recent years community health.
Susan has a strong commitment to community development, harm reduction and AR/ AO principles.
She continues to design and facilitate workshops in community for front line and middle managers, and is currently finishing a psychotherapy program.
Clem Fong
Clem is a Clinical Counsellor in the Day Health Program at the Dr. Peter Centre. He graduated from City University of Seattle with a Masters in Counselling Psychology in 2012. Clem has worked as an outpatient concurrent disorders counsellor for youth and adults as well as an inpatient detox counsellor. Prior to completing his Masters, Clem worked several years as both a housing outreach worker for as well as a HIV outreach worker in Vancouver’s DTES. In addition to his responsibilities to the Day Health Program, Clem facilitates trainings for staff in Harm Reduction and Trauma Informed Practice.
Maureen Mahan
Maureen is the Education Development Coordinator at Casey House a sub-acute HIV/AIDS hospital in Toronto with a Day Health Program. A graduate of the University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), her focus is creating accessible and innovative community education programs for health care and support service providers caring for people living with HIV.
Maureen has developed education programs where training gaps have been identified, and is the program lead for the Casey House HIV/AIDS mental health series and symposiums and the program co-lead for the collaboratively designed educational resource, Compassionate Care in a Changing Landscape: The HIV and Long Term Care Video Series; a cost free educational program addressing the long-term care needs of people living with HIV as they age.
Maureen has been working in health care for over 25 years and has presented educational abstracts and posters, at local, national and international conferences.
Kelly O’Brien
Kelly is a physical therapist and Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto. She holds a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and works in collaboration with researchers and community members on research related to HIV, disability and rehabilitation. Some of her research includes examining the episodic nature of disability, developing an HIV Disability Questionnaire (HDQ), and examining the impact of exercise for adults living with HIV. Currently, Kelly is collaborating with the Toronto YMCA to assess the impact of a community-based exercise program with adults living with HIV. Kelly is a current Board member of the Toronto People With AIDS (PWA) Foundation and a previous Board member of realize. Kelly is also a founding member of the Canada-UK (now International) HIV and Rehabilitation Research Collaborative (CIHRRC) which is an international network of researchers, clinicians and community members interested in HIV and rehabilitation research (http://cihrrc.hivandrehab.ca/
Paul Curwin
Paul is a certified group fitness instructor living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but is originally from New Brunswick. Paul was involved with BCPWA (Vancouver) and ACCM (Montreal) and was on the board of directors for SIDA/AIDS Moncton.
Paul first became involved with realize in 2006 through the work of the Episodic Disabilities Network. He was heavily involved in realize’s development of a network devoted to work issues important to HIV+ people, a network that ultimately became the Episodic Disabilities Employment Network (EDEN) social networking website.
Paul is currently a member of the realize Board of Directors, and is excited to be involved with an organization that helps make better lives for people living with all sorts of chronic, episodic disability; especially people living with HIV.