Conference celebrates, empowers PSWs Preferred Health Care Services annual event to be held May 5   Tuesday March 16, 2010 -- Lisa Bailey An upcoming Preferred Health Care Services conference serves to celebrate and empower personal support workers (PSWs), reinforcing their valuable contribution to the health-care sector. Set for May 5 at the Holiday Inn in Markham, the Sixth Annual PSW Conference will welcome about 200 participants from Ontario’s long-term care and home health-care sectors. Meagan Whitehorn, event planner with Preferred Health Care Services, says the conference is a way “to say thank you” to the largest segment of employees in community and long-term care who are an integral part of the health-care team. “These people really do a lot of the very difficult front-line work in health care. They provide direct care with clients or residents,” she says, noting the conference provides an opportunity for networking and professional and personal growth. The day-long conference features keynote and closing speakers as well as six educational sessions to choose from. Workshop topics touch on everything from oral health care to caregiver and compassion fatigue. Beverly Zangari , a staff educator at Preferred Health Care Services, will give a presentation on The Significance of the PSW’s Role in Palliative Care-End of Life Care. Keynote speaker Frank Wagner of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics will instruct on an ethical decision-making toolkit that Whitehorn says is very user friendly and applicable in many areas of work. Dietitian Denis Collier will close the conference with what Whitehorn describes as a “very powerful presentation” on Meaning at Work. “It makes you really appreciate what you do,” Whitehorn says. Past conferences have generated much positive feedback from participants. Last year, for example,Whitehorn says one PSW wrote a long thank-you note to one of the conference speakers. In it, she stated that the session on mental health helped her to communicate with and assist a family member who has a mental illness. To register for the conference, click here. If you have feedback on this article, please contact the newsroom at 800-294-0051, ext. 25, or e-mail lisa(at)axiomnews.ca.