Barb Willet
As manager of Best Start, Barb provides leadership, and oversees the planning and delivery of Best Start services across the province and the secretariat services for OHPRS. To do this Barb draws upon her health promotion, consultation and management experience acquired through her 20 years with organization.
Hiltrud Dawson
Hiltrud has extensive experience in the maternal newborn field
as a nurse, midwife as well as lactation consultant. She last
worked as coordinator of the Breastfeeding and Newborn Assessment
clinic at St Joseph's Healthcare, Hamilton. During that time Hiltrud
pulled together a multidisciplinary team that implemented the
Baby-Friendly Initiative. St Joseph's Healthcare became Ontario's
first Baby-Friendly Hospital in March 2003. Her passions include
breastfeeding and the adjustment of mothers and families after
the birth of their baby and the impact of mother's physical, social
and mental issues on infants.
Louise Choquette
Louise Choquette is the Bilingual Health Promotion Consultant.
Her formal education is in Communications and Educational Technology.
Over the past few years, she has been involved in a variety of
health promotion initiatives in public health and for not-for-profit
organizations in the areas of heart health, physical activity,
tobacco use prevention and substance abuse prevention.
Meghan Boston-McCracken
Meghan is the Bilingual Information Specialist
with the Best Start Resource Centre. She oversees the Maternal
Newborn and Child Health Promotion Network, writes the bi-weekly
bulletin, conducts research, shares information, supports the
team on special projects, and provides information, referrals,
and brief consultations to clients. Meghan completed her Honours
Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Masters of Social Work.
She has conducted research and managed information in the areas
of family support, child welfare, homelessness, psychology, child
development, social work, health promotion, learning disabilities,
and community economic and social development.
Sabrina Moella
Sabrina Moella is a bilingual administrative assistant. She comes
from Paris, France. She has a Masters degree in Marketing and
Communication and she has been working for three years as a communication
and administrative assistant in France before chosing to come
to Canada. She also worked as a volunteer for non-profit organizations.
She has now joined the Best Start Team to provide administrative
suppot both in Enlish and in French.
Wendy Burgoyne
Wendy has worked extensively on teen pregnancy, reproductive health
risks in the workplace, health before pregnancy and the effects
of tobacco smoke and alcohol during pregnancy. She assists communities
across the province by providing presentations, consultations
and designing new provincial resources. Wendy has presented at
many conferences including Missouri Healthy Start, Guelph Conference
on Human Sexuality, the Ontario Public Health Association Conference,
Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse Congress, Maternal Newborn Network
and has provided on-site consultations for over 30 Ontario Health
Units. Wendy will be leading the Best Start team till January
2009.
Roshni Juttun
Roshni Juttun integrated the Best Start team since beginning of January 2009 as Bilingual Administrative Assistant and will be providing full support in both English and French to the team, reporting directly to the Health Promotion Manager. Backed with 6 years experience in Administrative and Human Resources acquired through numerous and reputable French companies in Mauritius, she recently moved to Canada with her family.
Sylvie
Boulet
Sylvie
Boulet is a bilingual Health Promotion Consultant. Sylvie has
a Master in Health Sciences - Community Nutrition, two bachelor
degrees in food science and social work and a back ground in
adult education. Sylvie started her career
as a program coordinator, social worker, adult educator, researcher
and facilitator and then in the nutrition field as a dietitian
and professor of nutrition at 2 post secondary organizations.
Her experience encompasses the fields of non-profit organizations
as well as clinical institutions and a community health centres.
Strengths include strong skills in the area of group facilitation,
activity/group coordination.
Melanie Ferris
Melanie Ferris (Horse Clan) is our Aboriginal Health Promotion Consultant. An Anishnawbe woman originally from the Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, Melanie’s passion is in creating products that use plain language and clear design so that Aboriginal people have useful and enjoyable products to use in building healthier communities. Melanie is a published author and especially enjoys gathering information from Elders for her work. Through Health Nexus, Melanie is working closely with Aboriginal people in Ontario to create a toolkit and training for service providers to help them include culture in their approaches to preventing obesity in First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children.
Our Staff 