TORONTO, Thursday, November 16, 2017- Change Day is a grassroots movement that is being adopted around the world to improve quality compassionate care and has been designed to empower people within the health system to make positive changes through making pledges and taking actions, big or small, to improve care.

Claire Mallette, associate professor at York University and the former director of the School of Nursing, has helped lead York University’s 4th-year Collaborative Nursing program students and 2nd Entry Nursing program course on leadership. This program has culminated into a Change Day Ontario initiative, on November 17.

The event is sponsored by Health Quality Ontario and Associated Medical Services Phoenix, in which health care professionals and students preparing to enter the health professions make a pledge to improve quality compassionate care.

Mallette, along with the School of Nursing, took up the challenge to impress upon students that one person can make an impact. Five hundred senior undergraduate nursing students at York University were given the assignment to take up the Change Day Ontario challenge which required them to identify a healthcare issue that they are passionate about, develop and implement a change initiative and create a social media strategy.

Mallette can speak about the importance of the Change Day Ontario initiative and specifically on:

• Why nurses, who are with their patients 24/7, find it difficult to incorporate quality compassionate care into their practice within the stressors of the changing, technological, healthcare environment.
• Why student nurses need to learn the power of creating change one person at a time before graduating to be future change agents within the healthcare system.
• How challenging students to create change initiatives resulted in over 80 pledges on the Change Day website, focusing on issues such as mental health.

York University is known for championing new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Meaningful and sometimes unexpected careers result from cross-discipline programming, innovative course design and diverse experiential learning opportunities. York students and graduates push limits, achieve goals and find solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges, empowered by a strong community that opens minds. York U is an internationally recognized research university – our 11 faculties and 26 research centres have partnerships with 200+ leading universities worldwide. Located in Toronto, York is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 295,000 alumni. York U's fully bilingual Glendon campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education.

Media Contact: for interviews with Professor Mallette please contact York University Media Relations, 416 736 5585 media@yorku.ca