Social Prescribing Webinar
Social prescribing is a care approach that involves collaborations between community and clinical care to improve health outcomes.
In this webinar, Sonia Hsiung (Director, Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing) as well as Caitlin Muhl, Le-Tien Bhaskar, and Niloufar Aran (Canadian Social Prescribing Student Collective) introduce the concept of social prescribing and discuss potential opportunities to apply this approach to post-secondary contexts to support student mental health and well-being.
Presenters
Sonia Hsiung
Sonia is the Director of the Canadian Institute of Social Prescribing, a new national hub to build, share and celebrate social prescribing practices. She led Canada’s first social prescribing research project, Rx: Community, which showed promising results in reduced loneliness, improved mental health, and increased integration between health and social care delivery. Sonia is keen to bring the strengths of diverse sectors together to build equitable, resilient and more connected communities.
Le-Tien Bhaskar
Le-Tien is a second year Health Policy PhD student at McMaster University. She first discovered her passion for Social Prescription in her final year of her undergraduate degree. She has since achieved her Master of Public Health from the University of Waterloo. Her passion for Social Prescription led her to pursue doctoral studies, specifically looking at how community-led initiatives, such as Social Prescription, can impact perceptions of health, and in turn, health care policies and systems. Her work includes collaborating with community organizations such as United Way Halton-Hamilton, to explore definitions and practices of Social Prescription over time.
Caitlin Muhl
Caitlin is a PhD Candidate in Health Quality at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Her doctoral research is focused on social prescribing. As one of the Co-Leads of the Canadian Social Prescribing Student Collective, Caitlin is involved in building the social prescribing student movement across Canada. She is also supporting the implementation and evaluation of social prescribing at Quest Community Health Centre in St. Catharines, Ontario.
Niloufar Aran
Niloufar is a Research Coordinator with an Honours BSc in Health Science, and a current MSc student at Simon Fraser University. Her work and passions are in population health and health equity, with an emphasis on mental health and social prescription. She is a co-founder of the Canadian Social Prescribing Student Collective.