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BC Summit to Prevent
Needless Work Disability
Summit Background
Every year, many Canadian workers develop health problems that may temporarily or permanently prevent them from re-entering the workforce. In too many cases, work disability is unnecessarily prolonged or even permanent. A collaboration of concerned US and Canadian physicians at the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine has created a state-of-the-art guideline for Preventing Needless Work Disability by Helping People Stay Employed. Their report contains 16
common-sense Recommendations to improve the stay-at-work and return-to-work process that will reduce needless work absence, job loss, and associated negative consequences for employers, workers, and society.
The 60 Summits Project was conceived as a strategy to increase awareness of the new work disability prevention guideline and catalyze the implementation of evidence-based disability prevention practices across North America.
The BC Summit is the first in Canada:
The Summit created an opportunity for key stakeholders to:
- participate in a needs assessment to determine disability prevention and management priorities in BC
- discuss the implications of the Guideline’s 16 recommendations for BC
- identify priorities and strategies for achieving widespread improvements in disability prevention and management practices
- develop concrete action plans for change in BC, and
- form action coalitions to carry out summit plans
The BC Summit was held at the Morris
J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver on November 25, 2008.
The extraordinary environment and technological support offered by the Wosk
Centre for Dialogue made it the perfect venue for the inaugural Canadian Summit,
where a select, multi-stakeholder group of delegates focused their attention
on practical strategies to improve the prevention of both work related and non-work
related disability in the private and public sectors of our province.
The timing of the BC Summit could not be better since it provides a tangible
demonstration of the philosophy underlying the provincial Legacies 2010 Now
strategy - to engage BC organizations and other key stakeholders in the adoption
and application of healthy workplace strategies.
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