Health Educator

Posted on Posted in Employment, Health Care

Maria’s job search

“What else can Maria do?”

Introduction
In this article, you will read the story of Maria, a registered nurse from overseas who is now looking for employment in Toronto.

Maria’s story

Background
Maria worked as a registered nurse in her home country for 12 years. She started out working in a private hospital in a very clinically-oriented setting. After a few years, Maria wanted to have more contact with the general public and found a new job as a nurse in a community clinic.

For almost nine years Maria enjoyed seeing patients at the clinic as well as working in the community. She decided to specialize in young children and took a few additional night school courses in childhood development. She began visiting nursery schools and daycares as part of her job in order to educate the workers about infection control. Soon, she became more involved in working with the community to lobby for more government support for public daycares.

In Ontario
Maria came to Canada a year ago and has spent her time getting settled and improving her English language skills. She now feels ready to work but has learned that re-qualifying as a nurse in Ontario is going to be costlier and more time-consuming than she had anticipated.

Maria has been thinking a lot lately about what else she can do with her skills and knowledge. She has also been thinking about her personality and what kind of alternative employment she is best suited for. Maria began doing some research.

Job Posting
A friend told Maria about looking on the Internet for job postings and this is one that came up today:

Rosy Cheeks Community Health Centre
Health Promoter/Early Childhood DevelopmentJob Posting
Health Promoter – Early Childhood Development
Salary Range: $42,350 – $49,096

The Rosy Cheeks Community Health Centre is looking for a qualified Health Promoter/Educator, experienced in early childhood development, to join its multi-disciplinary health care team.

The Health Promoter/Educator will work with existing program staff to enhance our childhood development services/programs, as well as enhance access to services for our clients and community by strengthening partnerships with community agencies/services providing child development supports. University degree in related field with 3 – 5 years experience.

STRONG CLINICAL ASSESSMENT SKILLS A MUST.

Key Accountabilities

  1. Assist staff in assessing and identifying children at risk between the ages of 2 – 6 for the purpose of referring children to appropriate childhood development resources.
  2. Assist in connecting current and new clients (children and parents) with all appropriate health center programs and services.
  3. Develop strong relationships with community partners and networking groups in an effort to identify and eliminate barriers for OCHC clients to access child development services.
  4. Advocate for children and their parents to access appropriate child development services and community supports.
  5. Act as a resource to empower parent groups to take action on issues related to healthy child development.
  6. Ensure internal information systems, and other data sources, produce statistical data needed for planning and evaluation regarding healthy child development issues.
  7. Develop and implement health promotion/educational programs pertaining to healthy child development as needed.

If you are excited by this opportunity and have a proven track record as a professional Health Promoter with early childhood development expertise, please submit your resume with letter of intent

In preparation . . .
Even though she has never held the position of Health promoter, Maria was very interested in this position. She found many common things between the requirements in the job posting, and her previous experience. She decided to apply for the position. Maria made a list of all the requirements stated in the ad and matched her skills and experience to them.

Mainly because of her previous work experience, Maria realized that the employers expected more than what was stated in the ad so she made a list of these “hidden” or “implied” requirements and, again, matched her skills and experience to them as well.

Maria’s close reading of the job posting helped her to realize that she would need to learn more about the health system in Ontario, especially community health.

Good luck!
After a lot of preparation Maria submitted her resume and cover letter by the stated deadline and hoped for the best. She knew that if this job did not work out there would be others because she had a lot of skills and experience that she could use in a new career.

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