Dan Offord (1934-2004)

.	. Dan Offord (1934-2004) .
	.

Dan Offord, Canada's most distinguished child psychiatrist passed away on Saturday, April 10 2004. His contributions to the institutions he was associated with were truly outstanding. The Offord Centre at McMaster University is an important institute that came from his work with children at risk. He greatly helped The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research in its program in Human Development and the development of the new program Experienced-Based Brain and Biological Development.

Dan's ability to integrate knowledge from the natural sciences and the social sciences made it easy for him to understand the processes in brain and biological development, which in turn led him to children who had difficulty coping with learning and their work in adult life. He always emphasized that while treatment of children with problems was important, the highest priority area should be in providing support for early child development to reduce the risks that all children can face from poor early child development.

One of his key themes was that we needed to have outcome measures that allowed us to assess the quality of early child development in communities. With the help of the Founders' Network and Dan's Centre, it was possible to recruit Magdalena Janus who developed an outcome measure for early child development that has been widely used across Canada. It is also being used in Australia. Dan was of great help on the Advisory Committee for the Early Years Study for the Government of Ontario which influenced the development of the national children's program.

Dan's outstanding work in child development and child psychiatry led to his extensive involvement with the children's mental health programs of the National Institutes of Health in Washington, and he was a member of the MacArthur Foundation Network on Psycho-pathology.

As a practising child psychiatrist, Dan gave many families and their children sympathy, understanding and help when the children had behavioural problems.

Perhaps one of his most outstanding non-academic initiatives was his building and operation of the Christie Lake Camp south of Ottawa. This camp was designed to take children from disadvantaged backgrounds and give them an opportunity in the summer to develop skills in basic things like swimming, canoeing and crafts to develop in them a sense of accomplishment and self-esteem. Dr. Dan, as the children called him, led this camp for close to 45 years with enthusiasm and understanding and developed each year a group of teenage counsellors who worked with these children.

On 4 December 2000, Dan received the Order of Canada in recognition of his dedication as a psychiatrist and camp counsellor.

Dan's family, recognizing his extraordinary leadership and contribution to the Christie Lake Camp, have asked that donations be made in his memory to the Christie Lake Camp. Donations can be made online at CanadaHelps.org

Christie Lake Kids
400 Coventry Road, Ottawa, Ontario K1K 2C7
(phone) 613-742-6922 (fax) 613-742-6944
clk@christielakekids.com
http://www.christielakekids.com/

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