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How to Talk to Your Children About Vaccines

  • Nov 25
    7pm-8:15pm

Registration Now Open

Featuring Anna Taddio, Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Jean Wilson, Assistant Professor at the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Thursday, November 25, 2021
7:00 pm – 8:15 pm
YouTube link will be sent to registrants

Register Now

Parents, want to feel empowered with knowledge about what a vaccine is? And why it works? Preparing young children for vaccine experiences can be difficult. Join our experts, Anna Taddio, Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Jean Wilson, Assistant Professor at the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, while they share child friendly explanations on vaccines that you can use to support your children’s curiosity on the topic. As well as practical resources on how to prepare your child for a positive vaccine experience to increase their comfort and confidence.

Erin LeDrew, Manager, Vaccine Clinic from CAMH and Leslie Alderman, Manager Vaccine Preventative Diseases from Niagara Region Public Health, will also join the discussion to provide clinical examples and strategies to support children through vaccine experiences, especially children with disabilities or children that may face other challenges.

Anna Taddio is a recognized expert in improving pain mitigation during medical procedures, particularly in children. She led seminal studies documenting the long-term effects of unmitigated pain in children and the effectiveness of pain-relieving interventions that are now part of routine care. In recent years, she led the development and validation of the CARD (Comfort, Ask, Relax, Distract) system, a tool that incorporates evidence-based interventions in the delivery of vaccinations at schools, which has been adapted to help manage anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. Taddio’s expertise has become even more critical during the pandemic. Her research has helped in the development of communication tools to help reduce vaccine hesitancy, and she has been featured in a number of media stories about vaccine side effects and strategies to mitigate them.

Jean Wilson, Nurse Practitioner and Assistant Professor at the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, began her career as a nurse working in remote fly-in communities in the North where nurses are responsible for delivering both primary and public health care to many Indigenous communities. Wilson has also worked on outbreak surveillance and investigations in Canada on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada, and with the Canadian Armed Forces in Bosnia just after 9/11 when bioterrorism was considered a significant threat. Her experience in the zoonotic division, managing and understanding outbreaks that arise from animal to human transmission, has prepared her immensely for helping communities impacted by Covid-19. Wilson developed an educational module as part of the pathophysiology and pharmacology course she teaches that discusses the types of vaccines being used to protect against Covid-19 including those that use mRNA. Describing the pros and cons of each vaccine, Wilson’s course empowers nurse practitioners entering the field to be better able to communicate with patients around vaccine hesitancy.