Board of Directors
The Board of Directors is comprised of a minimum of three (3) to a maximum of eleven (11) Directors. The role of the Board is to provide leadership and oversight of the activities of the Association. In both areas, it will strive to represent the interests of members and the broader community. The work of the Board requires a balance of asking big questions, exploring possibilities, engaging in real dialogue, solving problems, and offering direction.
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In providing leadership, the Board will ensure broad organizational accountability, transparency, and active and meaningful external communications.
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In providing leadership the Board will work with the Senior Staff Officer in engaging external stakeholders in looking towards the future, reviewing the organization’s mission and objectives, identifying the outcomes the organization is seeking and the strategies it will use to achieve them.
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In providing oversight, the Board will rely on assessing organizational performance in relation to goals and adherence to budget. The Board will ensure, through the creation of policies, that the Association adheres to sound financial management, personnel and service practices. The Board will rely on the systematic review of organizational activities through the implementation of policies, rather than by examining or advising on day-to-day decisions.
The Board will take responsibility for its own management, continuity, and renewal. It will ensure effective Board meeting practices, appropriate Director conduct, ongoing Board education, and continual attention to the recruitment of new members.
Board Policies
Good non-profit governance is all about focusing on the processes for making and implementing decisions that will continue to advance an organization’s principles and mission, thereby providing strategic leadership to the non-profit organization. Policies are the statements that provide the framework for decision-making and desired action. They provide guidance for how to respond to situations in a manner that supports the organization’s values.
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Board of Directors Code of Ethics
Board of Directors Code of Conduct
Board of Directors Job Description
Are you interested in serving on the AOHNA Board of Directors?
The History of OHNs in Alberta
Early industrial nurses were a resourceful breed of women. Lacking budget, authority, and support staff, they surmounted health and safety problems without the specialized training today's occupational health nurses (OHNs) enjoy. The appalling injuries and debilitating diseases that challenged them daily, reinforced their need for additional education, but specialized training in occupational health eluded them for 50 years. ln fact, the barriers they overcame while winning their fight for professional training were almost as daunting as the health and safety problems they encountered on the job.
But these single-minded women did overcome! So intense was their need for continuing education that it prompted them to organize industrial nurse support groups, push for certification, and create the Alberta Occupational Health Nurses' Association (AOHNA). Well before the date of "May 6, 1977" was officially recorded in the history books as the beginning of the Alberta Occupational Health Nurses Association (as a special interest group of the AARN), the roots of the field of occupational health nursing had taken hold in the Province of Alberta.
Historical data about occupational health nursing can be found in the pages of the AOHNA booklet entitled AOHNA: 50 Years ln The Making (published in 1987), in the book A History of The Alberta Occupational Health Society (by Reg Ferguson, 1994) and some references to occupational health nursing history are incorporated into Heritage of Service, a book written in 1966 by Tony Gashman.
Four individuals - Dr. Rodney May, Elizabeth Butler, Joyce Cusack and Sophie Mandryk - are considered 'pioneers' of not only the field of occupational health nursing but part of the roots of OHN education and certification. They were all actively involved in some capacity or another
with groups such as The Alberta Industrial Nurses' Association, The Alberta Occupational Health Society and the Alberta Occupational Health Nurses Association.
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