Child Health Symposium

Abstract Proposal Submission (due March 8, 2024)

PPotential presenters are invited to submit an abstract of a description of their brief presentation via the electronic form posted below by March 8, 2024. Proposals should reflect one (or more) of the purposes of the symposium (i.e., present current research findings and best practices in child or youth health and well-being) and/or address the theme of the Child Health Symposium.

Brief Oral Presentations: Length of presentations should be 13-15 minutes (short presentations allow symposium attendees to be exposed to a variety of research studies and best practices).

Poster Presentations: CHS posters presentations will be on May 28th at TVCC. Poster presenters may also choose to present at the Joint Child Health Wine and Cheese Poster on the evening of May 28th. Poster presentations should use the accessible poster design format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=1RwJbhkCA58 

NOTE: All presentation abstracts will be included in materials for the symposium. Presentation and poster handouts will be made available for attendees to download.

Target Audience

The target audience for the Child Health Symposium includes: youth, families, researchers, educators, clinicians (e.g., behaviour therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech language pathologists, recreational therapists, social workers, nurses, physicians, etc.), service leaders, and undergraduate and graduate students.

Instructions for Preparing Submission

Using the online form located in the tab below, please prepare your submission in the following format:

• Text should be single-spaced
• Complete the Contact Information for the Contact Person
  • This will be the only person contacted about the proposal, and will be responsible for communicating with other presenters and co-authors involved in the proposal)
• List the names of all the presenting author(s) and other contributing authors and full name of each author’s affiliation/organization
  • Include broad organization name only, specific department/program name is not needed
  • Use an asterisk (*) to indicate presenting authors
  • For example: Jane Doe*, Western University; John Smith*, TVCC; Alison Betty, London Health Sciences Centre
• Choose the type of presentation format (oral, lightning round oral or poster)
  • Also indicate whether an alternative format would be acceptable
• Use up to five keywords that best describe your presentation (be specific)
  • For example: intervention and clinical practice, brain injury, measure development, youth, quality of life, play and participation, program evaluation
• Use a descriptive title
  • Titles will be used in the registration process for session selection
• Please do not exceed the 250-word limit for your abstract
  • The abstract should clearly describe the purpose of the presentation
  • Reports of research studies (completed or underway) may want to include details of the population studied; study purposes, objectives or hypothesis, method, results and conclusions of the study, implications for practice, and acknowledgement of source(s) of funding
  • It is not necessary to use subheadings to define each section
  • Ensure that the abstract is accessible to all audiences (e.g., expand acronyms, limit use of jargon or specialty/technical language
• Submissions from students, researchers and clinicians are encouraged and might focus on clinical observations, questions, case reports, or best practices in service delivery
• Ensure submitted information is complete, clearly communicated and spelled correctly
  • Presentation title, abstract, authors’ names, and affiliations will appear in materials for the symposium
• All proposals submitted will be acknowledged upon receipt

Proposal Selection Committee

The CHS Selection Committee will review all proposals submitted by the due date (March 8, 2024) by looking at the submission title and 250-word abstract. Preference will be given to those submissions that are clearly communicated and address one of the purposes of the CHS. Proposals will be selected to ensure a varied program. Note that some submitters may be offered an alternative presentation format (dependent on the total number of submissions received). The Selection Committee’s decisions will be final and there will be no appeal process. Selected presenters will be notified in early April and provided with specific details for formatting the presentations and posters.

Abstract proposals are due by March 8, 2024.

Registration opens April 15, 2024. You can register to participate in-person or virtually.

Note that only the main conference room sessions will be available virtually (using the Zoom platform).

Join us for the Joint Child Health Poster Session from 5-8 p.m. on May 28, 2024

We are collaborating with many different disciplines and programs to highlight some of the research and work that is being done in child and youth health and well-being in our community.

Make it a 2-Day Event:

Child Health Symposium (in-person at TVCC and Sumner Auditorium and virtual): May 28, 2024.

Child Health Research Day (in-person at Children's Hospital LHSC and virtual): May 29, 2024

Joint Poster Session (in-person): May 28, 2024 (evening)

• Registration for this session is available as an option when registering for either the Child Health Symposium or Child Health Research Day

Dr. Gillian King, PhD

Distinguished Senior Scientist, Bloorview Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada

Canada Research Chair in Optimal Care for Children with Disabilities (Tier 1)

Gillian King is a Distinguished Senior Scientist (Bloorview Research Institute), Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy (University of Toronto), and Canada Research Chair in Optimal Care for Children with Disabilities (Tier 1). She holds adjunct appointments in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders and the Arthur Labatt School of Nursing (both at Western University) and in the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University.

Gillian has held over 100 peer-reviewed grants, authored over 245 peer-reviewed articles, and has developed and published 22 measures for use in pediatric rehabilitation.

Her work focuses on psychosocial aspects of care, including client engagement, family-centred care, client and family resiliency, transition programming, and service delivery. Her current research focuses on client, parent, and therapist engagement in service delivery, the development of an up-to-date measure of family-centred care, the mental health and the participation of children and youth with disabilities, solution-focused coaching, and the role of resiliency in rehabilitation service delivery. 

Learn more about Dr. King. Pediatric Rehabilitation Intervention Measure of Engagement (PRIME).

Coming soon.

For more information about this event, contact: