CORIN GREENBERG
Corin
Greenberg has been Executive Director of the Pediatric Oncology Group
of Ontario
(POGO) since 1988. This group champions the development and implementation
of childhood cancer care and control and additionally seeks to ensure
access, for all Ontario’s children, to state-of-the-art cancer
services.
Corin has facilitated and augmented POGO’s strategies, which were
developed in collaboration with health professionals from all disciplines,
parents and survivors of childhood cancer.
Originally from Port Elizabeth, Corin was acutely aware of the double standards
in South African health care and education and it was this influence that
led her to work in the field of health care.
She studied at the University
of Cape Town and University of the Witwatersrand and obtained Masters and
Doctoral degrees in Clinical and Social Psychology from York University
in Toronto.
Corin and her husband left South Africa where they had seen an adverse
impact on their daily living and working conditions due to the political
situation at that time.
After a year as a Psychological Consultant
in Chicago she moved to Toronto where she continued to teach, research
and consult to various government and private organizations.
During
her time in the US, Corin gained first hand experience of illness, suffering,
healing, resilience and tenacity – but more importantly, the necessity
of advocacy for parents and their families when dealing with the health
care system.
She,
through personal experience, became a firm believer in the role that
care givers and family play to offset helplessness and hopelessness
during such a difficult period.
In addition to Corin’s work in the mainstream mental health and medical
institutions, she has extended her skills into the communities in which she has
lived.
When in Johannesburg, she introduced Headstart learning enrichment
programs for pre-schoolers, taught at night schools and participated in
student political activities. In Chicago she participated in street clinics
of Black Panthers and the activities of the Coalition of the Poor.
Here in Toronto, she volunteers on diverse committees working to increase the
involvement of parents in the education of their children, enhance the care of
children with malignancies and boost community education and participation in
the democratic process.
But it is her work at POGO for which Corin will always be held in high regard
and which has reaped high praise from her peers, parents and survivors, government
ministers and related organizations.
POGO is creating a Foundation that will offer/adapt the work done in Ontario to other communities and countries whilst ensuring that unique research is continued and the results turned into policy.
This inter-disciplinary research covers all aspects of healing – from the quality of survival and coping to the social and financial impact of the disease, workplace challenges and survival and cancer control.
Corin holds Margaret Mead’s observation “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world – indeed it is the only thing that ever has” very close to her own values. Indeed, this quote could have been written about her