Christine Janus
Christine Janus has been the Executive Director of the Canadian Skin Patient Alliance (CSPA) since 2007. A skin patient herself, she has grown the ‘for patients, by patients’ organization to a nationwide support, education and advocacy organization serving affiliated patient organizations and the millions of Canadians living with skin conditions, diseases and traumas. Christine is an active patient advocate and works on a number of committees with the Best Medicines Coalition, has represented skin cancer patients on the Canadian Cancer Action Network and is currently involved in 2013 with the formation of a federal patient voice initiative. Christine represents skin patients in Canada here at home and globally, seeking to always pass on the message that skin disease is more than skin deep.
Under Christine’s leadership the CSPA has won 3 awards –for its excellent website, for its widely read national magazine ” Canadian Skin” (à propeau in French), and this last year for a very thorough analysis of access issues faced by dermatology patients in Canada called “ Skin Deep : A Report Card on Access to Dermatological Care and Treatment in Canada”. Under her watch the CSPA also offered skin, hair and nail patients their very own conference in 2012. Called SKIN MATTERS, it brought relief and hope to the many patients and family members who attended. In 2013, Christine helped the CSPA launch a subsidiary organization specifically to serve psoriasis patients, called the Canadian Association of Psoriasis Patients (CAPP).
Prior to her life in the non-profit patient support world, Christine was a marketing consultant with experience in the University, Training and Health care sectors in both Canada and the US. A former banker with global responsibility for marketing training worldwide, she has built a career that based on keenly understanding the needs and perspectives of the people she serves and is known to be an out-of-the-box thinker always on the lookout for win- win –win projects. She holds an MBA, and a BA/B.Ed, lives in Ottawa and is the fiercely proud mother of 3 fine young men.
Personal stories of CSPA members are online on Patient Commando.
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