Leading the way: 125 years later

Click the button to hear an audio version of the panel.

125 years ago, in 1899, 22 women gathered for tea one afternoon to discuss establishing a facility dedicated solely to the care of children with chronic illness and physical disability.

Today, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital is Canada’s largest pediatric rehabilitation hospital, an academic health science centre known for our national and international leadership in providing excellence in care, teaching and research.

Our state-of-the-art and fully accessible building has been recognized by the International Academy for Design and Health as “an inspirational building.” The historic expansion of our Bloorview Research Institute (BRI) features an 11,000-square-foot research tower, making Holland Bloorview home to the largest concentration of pediatric disability research in the world.

Furthering our reach and impact within the community, we have two nursery schools, the Holland Bloorview Nursery School-Play and Learn and Holland Bloorview Nursery School – Scarborough, as well our infant development service. In addition, our centralized equipment pool (CEP) supports 27 augmentative and alternative communication clinics, providing speech-generating devices and writing aids to kids and youth with disabilities across the province.

A group on the lawn – Home for Incurable Children Annual Report 1907 – 1908

When the hospital was established, our staff was comprised of a few nurses and visiting physicians. 125 years later, Holland Bloorview is an award-winning employer with over 1,000 staff members, representing a wide array of clinical expertise, from physicians, nurses and dentists, to speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, social workers, psychologists, behavioral analysts, music and art therapists, recreational therapists, engineers and so many more. Today we offer over 200 programs and services and are committed to advocating for accessible inclusive environments across schools, workplaces and community settings.

Through our Teaching and Learning Institute, we offer innovative, evidence-based learning opportunities to over 500 clinical learners each year, across all the health disciplines, train undergraduate, masters and PhD students and have the largest Developmental Pediatric Fellowship program in Canada. Our Bloorview Research Institute is the only university-affiliated research institute in Canada dedicated to pediatric disability. We conduct transformative, clinically relevant research focused on childhood onset disability, injury and developmental diversity.

We continue our journey to bring inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, social accountability and anti-racism to the forefront of everything we do. Across all of our work, we demand a world that values children and youth with disabilities and developmental differences.

An even brighter, more inclusive future

In partnership with children, youth and families, we continue to set bold and ambitious goals to evolve care and services to meet their needs today and well into the future. We are more inspired than ever to continue developing new programs, researching new areas and training the next generation of health care providers dedicated to pediatric disability.

“We are becoming a learning health system – the first that focuses exclusively on children’s disability and developmental differences. Care, research and data will interact to enable the rapid development of evidence-informed approaches designed to advance the health and well-being of children, youth and families. We are on track to become a global centre of excellence in pediatric disability.” – Julia Hanigsberg, president and CEO, Holland Bloorview.

Read the full interview with Julia here.

Today, on our 125th anniversary, we make a promise to the future:

We will continue to empower a thriving, diverse team of talented, dedicated and inspired professionals to bring their whole self to work each day.
We will advance care and services to meet the evolving and complex needs of children, youth and families inside and outside our walls through strengths-based, evidence-informed and personalized care that recognizes both biology and environment.
We will harness the power of internal and external data and artificial intelligence to understand individual variability and predict outcomes.
We will address health inequities and disparities in access, resources and care to ensure every child, youth and family has greater choice in when, where and how they receive the safe, quality care they deserve.
We will bring groundbreaking interventions, treatments and technologies into clinics, homes and to countries around the world to advance physical and mental health, participation and wellbeing across the lifespan.
We will train the next generations of health-care professionals and system leaders with the knowledge and tools to provide transformative, equitable and cutting-edge care and services.
And, we will not stop demanding a world that not only includes children and youth with disabilities and developmental differences, but values and empowers them to contribute all they have to offer.

To each and every future member of the Holland Bloorview community – from staff, children, youth and families: all of you have the power to meaningfully contribute to this promise and influence the next 125 years to transform and evolve what disability inclusion looks like within and beyond our walls. We look forward to being on the journey with you, together.

As you reflect on our 125-year history, we invite you to finish the following sentence, “Dear children and youth of the future, my greatest wish for you is…” Submit your wishes here.