Board

Sooke and Juan de Fuca Health Foundation Board of Directors

Richard Robinson, Co-Chair

Rick’s healthcare career spans more than thirty-five years working in administrative roles in three provinces. He began as a medical technologist managing both private and hospital medical laboratories in BC. He embraced a mid-career change from laboratory medicine to senior healthcare administration working in both small rural and large urban healthcare organizations. Rick was the first regional healthcare CEO in BC.

Since retiring and moving to Sooke from Winnipeg in 2012 he has been active in the volunteer community. Rick is the vice-chair and past board chair of the Sooke Region Communities Health Network and is a founder and co-chair of the Sooke and Juan de Fuca Health Foundation. He sits on several South Island health care committees helping to coordinate and improve primary healthcare access for citizens of the Westshore and Sooke. Currently, he is also involved in the planning for a new seniors’ centre in Sooke.

In helping to create the Sooke and Juan de Fuca Health Foundation, Rick believes in the willing generosity of the people in the Sooke region to improve the health and well-being of the population.

Rick is the recipient of the Certificate of Honour for Community Services from the World Hope Foundation and the Award of Merit from the British Columbia Society of Medical Technologists. He is married to Linda and together they have three adult children.

Dr Chris Bryant, Co-Chair

Born and raised on Vancouver Island, Chris came to live and work in Sooke in 1991 and looks forward to living here for the rest of his life. A graduate of UBC Faculty of Dentistry, he has had the honor of lecturing to congresses of the Canadian Dental Association and the Federation Dentaire International on evidence based preventive primary intervention dental care.

He has served both professional associations and industry as a pioneer in the reduction of heavy metal contaminants from public waterways. His publications have appeared in peer reviewed journals and textbooks internationally.

Chris has enjoyed being an active volunteer within Sooke, and sees volunteerism as a tool for social change. His involvement in this foundation takes particular interest in the metrics required to make Sooke an economically and ecologically self-sustaining community.

Dr Ellen Anderson, Treasurer

Ellen Anderson is a family physician practicing in BC since 1980, and working in Sooke since 1992. Currently Ellen shares a remote rural practice on Cortes Island with 3 other family physicians and teaches at UBC as a clinical instructor in family medicine, and continues to provide holiday relief to GP’s in Sooke.

Ellen was involved with the Sooke Region Community Health Network from 2002-2010 and codeveloped the Sooke Youth Clinic in 2008. She has carried out community-based research in the fields of mental health and addictions services and the social determinants of health and has worked nationally on primary mental health care development and education with the College of Family Physicians of Canada. She has also been involved with the Doctors of BC Practice Support Program, as well as the VIHA and Child and Youth Mental Health Local Action Team.

Ellen has lived and worked in Sooke since 1992, and is a founding director of the Sooke and Juan de Fuca Health Foundation. She believes that local knowledge and understanding is key to ensuring that health care providers can meet community needs, and improve the overall health and wellbeing of community members of all ages, cultural backgrounds and income levels.

Ellen and her husband Warren Moore have raised their 3 children in Sooke, and now are delighted to be grandparents. They are founding members of and currently live in Harbourside Cohousing in Sooke, where they have an opportunity to co-create a supportive community, and re-vision and transform the ageing process an an active part of the larger community.

Sally McLean, Secretary

Sally has worked for many years in the field of Early Intervention with the families of young children with disabilities. This included fifteen years in the Lower Mainland with the Infant Development Programs in Vancouver, Richmond and Delta, as well as with the Squamish First Nation.

After moving to Vancouver Island, Sally was invited to create and mentor the Aboriginal Infant Development Program to serve all of the First Nations across Saanich, the Victoria region, and west as far as Beecher Bay, T'Sou-ke and Pacheedaht First Nations. This was followed by a period of several years living in the north of England and serving as Regional Parent Support Manager with the charity CEREBRA.

Sally has three adult children and is now retired and living in Shirley with her husband Iain. She volunteers as an Emergency Management caseworker with the Canadian Red Cross as well as Board Secretary of the Sooke Region Communities Health Network. She is honoured to be a founding Director and Secretary of the Sooke and Juan de Fuca Health Foundation, and believes in the vital role that local communities can make in identifying local health care and social priorities. These local priorities will inform and guide the Foundation as it grows over the coming years, helping create an important support to this community for the future.

Dr Roy Brown

Roy Brown is Emeritus Professor of the University of Calgary, and Emeritus Professor of Flinders University, Australia. He also holds the position of Adjunct Professor at the School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria.

As a psychologist he has had a career in teaching, research and practice in the field of disabilities and life span challenges in learning and cognitive disability. He has worked in clinical practice, and has directed support and intervention programs in the UK, Canada and Australia. He has authored a wide range of books, chapters and articles relating to the social impact and needs of families over the lifespan and has consulted in the areas of individual and family quality of life in Canada, Australia, Europe, China and Mexico.

Roy has chaired a range of agency boards and government scientific and review committees in Canada, Australia and the UK. On retirement he took became founding director of the Academy of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IASSIDD) to provide workshops around the world on intervention and support across the lifespan for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families. Honours include the Order of the University of Calgary and the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Gent, Belgium for scientific contributions to Disability Studies. Recently he was awarded “The Dr. Robert E. Cooke Lifetime Achievement Award” from the American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry.

Now retired, Roy is Vice-Chair of the Sooke Region Community Health Network and Chair of the Age Friendly Committee. He is a strong believer in a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach to health, one that will provide adequate services to people who face major life challenges, and will promote wellbeing and inclusion.

Margot Swinburnson

Margot Swinburnson has been a resident of British Columbia since 1979, the year she started working as a nurse in Port Alberni. With her husband Patrick and three daughters, Margot has lived in Port Alberni, Vancouver, Klemtu and Sooke. She has been a resident in Sooke and now Otter Point for the last 36 years.

As a long-time community volunteer, Margot has been involved with many organizations in Sooke, and was one of the founding members of SPLASH (Sooke Pool Lobby Association for Swimming Health) which was successful in lobbying for a referendum to build a swimming pool in Sooke (… and it passed!!) From this, she ran and was successful in being elected as a school trustee for School District 62, a position she has held since 1999. Margot is presently the District representative for Provincial Council (2005-present) and a representative on the BCSTA Working Group on Child and Youth Mental Health. She sits on the BC School Centered Mental Health Coalition (2012-present). As well, Margot sits on the Board of the West Shore Low Cost Housing Society (2015-present) and is a member of and President 2018-2019 of the Rotary Club of Sooke.

Recently retired from full time employment, Margot is still working as a Long Term and Residential Care Access Case Manager. Margot and Patrick own a 10-acre hobby farm west of Sooke, and she fills her spare time with being a very involved grandparent for four children aged six years to ten months.

Nan P. Hundere

Nan is an attorney licensed in Texas and Washington State with over 30 years experience representing public and private educational organizations. As a school district attorney, Nan advised and conducted training for boards of trustees and administrators concerning issues relating to governance, employer/employee relations, student discipline and special education law. Nan continues to serve as a mediator, facilitator, investigator and consultant for a variety of public entities and private clients.

Prior to entering the practice of law, Nan taught high school social studies and was an administrator for a federal program serving Native American students. She is the proud mother to four grown children and grandmother to seven fabulous grandchildren.

For the past 25 years, Nan and her husband, Michael, have split their time between Texas and East Sooke. Now that she lives in East Sooke full time, Nan is anxious to be involved with projects that positively impact all members of the community. As a Foundation Board member, Nan offers her energy and enthusiasm to this vital effort to enhance the health care needs in the growing Sooke region.

Grant Robinson

Grant Robinson is a member of the Lyackson First Nation, and an elected community member for the Huli’tun Health Society Board of Directors, which he currently co-chairs. He is a strong believer in the intersection of individual health and wellness with cultural and community vitality, nourishment, and growth.

Grant has been a passionate advocate for equitable access, care, services, and programs for the First Nations community throughout his various bedside nursing, clinical leadership, and management roles.

Grant received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Victoria in 2012 and has also served on Island Health’s Health Research Ethics Board since 2015.

Emily Percival-Paterson (she/they)

Emily grew up in Sooke and graduated from EMCS in 2012. From there she went on to the University of Victoria where she completed a BSc in Biology with a Minor in Applied Ethics. While at UVic Emily completed a research internship at Raincoast Education Society, started and managed a small non-profit, and co-created a science-based youth program at Beecher Bay First Nation. After graduation she moved to Ottawa to work for Actua, Canada's leading STEM outreach organization. She spent a year and a half travelling between Ottawa and the Arctic teaching science.

In 2019 she was the recipient of a Rotary International Global Grant Scholarship and moved to England to complete her MSc in International Public Health specializing in Sexual and Reproductive Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Her graduate research focused on the experiences of trans and gender diverse folks who have given birth within the Canadian healthcare system.

She now splits her time between Sooke and Victoria, and her work between LGBT2Q+ inclusion consulting and managing an overdose harm reduction project at the Vancouver Island Construction Association. When not at work Emily and her wife Clary are avid gardeners and potluck-winning chefs.