Ophea Awards & Recognition

Ophea (Ontario Physical and Health Education Association) is dedicated to supporting Ontario school communities through advocacy, quality programs and services, and partnership building. Ophea is led by the vision that all kids will value, participate in, and make a lifelong commitment to active, healthy living.

Every year, Ophea presents a number of awards recognizing outstanding contributions to the fields of health, physical activity and H&PE. Ophea believes it is a priority to recognize excellence in the field by honouring distinguished individuals and organizations for their significant achievements.

*** 2008 Ophea Awards and Recognition ***

On Friday, October 17th, the 2008 Ophea Awards will be presented at the Ophea Kids' Health Conference. If you have someone you would like to nominate, please view the 2008 Ophea Awards and the 2008 Awards Nomination Packages. In order to download the nomination packages, you will require Adobe Reader. You can download your free copy of Adobe Reader here.

The 2008 Ophea Awards recipients were:

Ophea Award of Distinction

The Ophea Award of Distinction is presented to an individual who is a leader in the successful advancement of active, healthy living opportunities for children and youth in Ontario school communities.

Carol MacDougall

Ophea Award for Outstanding Contribution

The Ophea Award for Outstanding Contribution recognizes an individual, group, or organization for their exemplary contribution to the lives of children and youth in the areas of health and physical education, health and physical activity promotion, advocacy, and/or community development.

Ted Temertzoglou

School Community Award

The Ophea School Community Award is presented to a school community that has demonstrated leadership and excellence in successfully bringing together all members of the community (including parents, teachers, boards of education, public health, sport and recreation organizations, community coalitions, local businesses, and municipal governments).

Loughborough Public School - Limestone District School Board

Outstanding New Professional Award

The Outstanding New Professional Award is presented to an individual who has been working in the health and education sector for five years or less. Although new to the field, this recipient has already demonstrated a passion for, and made a notable contribution to, the advancement of active, healthy living for children and youth.

Erin Hobin

Bios

Ophea Award of Distinction ~ Carol MacDougall

Carol MacDougall has demonstrated ongoing commitment and dedication in her work both as a as a public health nurse and as an advocate for Healthy School Communities. Carol graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from McGill University in 1979 and completed a Masters of Arts from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in 2004. As an advocate and pioneer for Healthy School Communities and healthy active living, Carol, tirelessly works to strengthen health promotion at the provincial and national levels, in addition to being an advocate for mental health services for children and youth.

Carol was a founding member of the Ontario Healthy Schools Coalition and worked in partnership with Ophea to produce the “Healthy Schools Matter” discussion paper. She was also an active participant at the forum and continues to advocate for the need of public health nurses in supporting and promoting Healthy School Communities. Carol was later invited to provide input at The Working Table, providing the Minister of Education with input and recommendations for developing and supporting Healthy Schools. Her contributions to healthy school communities extends beyond Ontario as she is involved in numerous organizations and initiatives, and currently serves as Vice-President on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association for School Health. Carol is a part of the Editorial Team of the Health and Learning Newsletter in the Canadian Journal of Public Health. Her most recent work involved collaborating with Middlesex-London Health Unit and Professor Aniko Varpolotai at Althouse College to explore ways to evaluate the work of public health nurses in school communities.

Carol was awarded the Clinical Excellence in Public Heath Nursing Award in 2001 for her work in public health nursing practice and her contributions to the health of children and youth . Other contributions include being a member of the Expert Panel to develop the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario Best Practice Guidelines on Enhancing Healthy Adolescent Development; and securing a $15,000 grant from the Metro Toronto District Health Council “Healthy Communities Grants program” for “Runaway Lane: A Community-Based Theatre and Educational Project for 18 schools (3,200 students) from inception to evaluation/reporting phases.

When Carol is not working she enjoys spending time with her family and dog, Dolly.

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Ophea Award of Outstanding Contribution ~ Ted Temertzoglou

Ted Temertzoglou teaches Health and Physical Education (H&PE) at East York Collegiate and Birchmount Collegiate, where he also teaches the Elite Athlete Program. He was actively involved in the development of an elementary and secondary student/teacher course resource, as well as, the development of the Exercise Science course profile that resulted in an increase of student enrolment in the course. Ted has delivered hundreds of workshops provincially, nationally and internationally on the subjects of health and physical activity.

In his H&PE classes, Ted uses a variety of resources and teachings to ensure that all of his students are always actively learning and engaged. His dedication in his research to ensure his classes are filled with the most up-to-date information takes his courses and students to new levels. Ted passionately believes in the importance of healthy active living, and encourages his students and their families to lead healthy active lifestyles by being a role model himself. Often noted for his enthusiasm for teaching health and physical education, Ted has an ability to bring the H&PE curriculum to life by making his courses meaningful to his students, and making learning a relevant, real, and personal experience for all those around him.

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School Community Award ~ Loughborough Public School - Limestone District School Board

Loughborough Public School wanted to address the growing concern of decreased involvement among girls in physical activity and sports at their school, and in their community. To address this issues two teachers, Erik Vreeken and Mark Sonneman, created and led the Girls Active Living and Sport Conference (G.A.L.S.) five years ago. Since its conception, over 400 girls in Grades 6-8 from neighbouring Elementary Schools in the Limestone District School Board now come to take part at this conference held once a year.

“Organized by girls, for girls”, following their motto, a committee of girls in Grades 6-8 help to organize this one day conference. The purpose of the conference is to help inform and educate young girls on the benefits of physical activity and leading a healthy lifestyle. Exposing adolescent girls to new physical activities and sports to build confidence. At the conference participants partake in a variety of workshops which include discussions on: goal setting, leadership, nutrition, body awareness, coping with stress, and healthy friendships. In addition, there were a number of sessions devoted to physical skills development; Getting Started in Fitness, paddling, fencing, field hockey, ultimate frisbee, spin, dance, self-defense, and more. Female coaches led the activities and were living role models for the girls.

This conference successfully brings together all members of the community—parents, teachers, school boards, local business—each year to work together to provide time, expertise, supervision, and financial assistance to help execute the G.A.L.S. Conference, and to help address the issue of decreased participation among adolescent girls. The G.A.L.S. conference is an example of how a local school can bring together and mobilize an entire community to help address a growing issue.

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Outstanding New Professional Award ~ Erin Hobin

Erin Hobin is currently a doctoral candidate in Health Behaviour at the University of Waterloo, a sessional instructor in the Department of Kinesiology at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a occasional Health and Physical Education Teacher for the Waterloo Catholic School Board. From 2004 to 2006, Erin taught Health and Physical Education in the Toronto Catholic School Board and was an Instructor for the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto’s Additional Qualifications Course in 2006.

Erin has made significant contributions to the advancement of active healthy living for children and youth on both a national and international level. She was a key component in the development of two national programs: Physical Health & Education (PHE) Canada’s [formerly CAHPERD] Balance First program and Murray Alzheimer Research and Education Program’s Dementia Care Education Series Resource Manual. On an international level, Erin was actively involved in training students and teachers in El Salvador as part of the Salud Escolar Integral Program, helping to establish an infrastructure of physical education focused upon the development of life skills to solve conflict peacefully. Erin also played a lead role in training undergraduate students to plan and deliver the annual Unity Games, bringing together 1,000 primary school students, and worked with Dr. Andy Anderson to start the Scotiabank Champions for Health Promoting Schools, training over 100 student teachers from Canada teach health and physical education to 10,000 children and youth from the Caribbean Islands.

Her professional activities include being a member of: PHE Canada, the Association for Education Researchers of Ontario, the Ontario College of Teachers, and serving as an invited reviewer for the Canadian journal of Public Health. Erin is also a co-investigator on the Canadian Institute for Health Research grants, a consultant for the Canadian Centre for Knowledge Mobilization and for the Centre for Healthy Development at Brock University. Her current projects include a research program funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), where Erin is reviewing Manitoba’s new physical education curriculum.

Erin has been recognized as an innovative researcher and practitioner by the CIHR, and was awarded by CIHR with a doctoral CIHR Fellowship. Erin was also the recipient of the 2008 Physical Health & Education Canada’s Young Professional Award, given in honour of Dr. Andy Anderson.

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