Dr. George Berrigan is the physician at St. John’s Clinic, the primary care clinic located within St. John’s Kitchen in Downtown Kitchener. Together with longtime Registered Nurse, Evelyn Gurney, and a dedicated team of healthcare and outreach workers, they care for the over 2,000 people in the clinic.
Dr. Chris and Michelle Steingart have matching T-shirts. One says ‘Harm Reduction Works.” The other, “I <3 people who <3 drugs”. It’s a long way from their past lives as a middle school science teacher and the Head of Infectious Disease at Grand River Hospital. It may seem surprising, but it shouldn’t be. Chris and Michelle are people who embrace change.
Before she took her first breath, Margaret Brockett was fleeing war. Her family was living in the British colony of Singapore during World War Two. When it was invaded early in 1942, Margaret’s newly pregnant mother and her two young sons were on one of the last ships evacuating British women and children. “As I began to realize what she went through…” Margaret paused, then said quietly, “I gained a huge respect for my mother.”
The Guests of Honour at the 2019 Mayors’ Dinner are all people who did not wait for permission to do the right thing. As healthcare professionals, they saw a need in our community and took the initiative. They tackle Hepatitis C, refugee health, and primary care for those experiencing homelessness. They return day after day to do it again. Their efforts are chipping away at the major health issues in our community from the ground up, rather than the all-too-familiar route of top-down healthcare.
The Integrated Circle of Care is a fluid and collaborative approach followed by workers from different agencies weaving through St. John’s Kitchen. Within this approach, staff members from each agency are aware of their specific personal roles. However, the high level of collaboration between workers means that people can approach any worker, without knowing their agency association or specific role, and still receive support – either that worker will support the person directly, or they will introduce the person to another worker who can support the person more appropriately.
This approach makes relationships more natural and support more accessible. Workers from different agencies are easily approachable, meaning that people build relationships with multiple workers. Having relationships with different workers is important to a person’s support – it makes support from a trusted source easy to find, and means that people have a choice of worker to approach in any given situation.
In order to maintain a circle of care around a person, workers from different agencies ask for consent from the person for information to be shared between workers. Continuous communication between workers helps to ensure that people do not fall into gaps between services, and also that services are not duplicated.
