New executive director for Epilepsy Durham Region

By Courtney Bachar/The Oshawa Express/LJI Reporter

Epilepsy Durham Region has appointed Chelsea Kerstens as its new executive director.

Kerstens joined Epilepsy Durham in 2014 as the community outreach associate “bringing along significant experience in all client services, including epilepsy programming, advocacy, system navigation and client relations to the role of executive director,” reads a statement from the board of directors.

“She is incredibly passionate about our agency’s cause, mission and values as well as the individuals and the families that we serve.”

Speaking with The Oshawa Express, Kerstens says like many other organizations, Epilepsy Durham Region was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We essentially lost all our primary revenue streams because we haven’t been able to carry out any in-person events,” she says, noting the pandemic also impacted how they deliver their services.

“We’ve had to make a lot of adjustments and adapt to the current norms to be able to still provide our services to our clientele,” says Kerstens, adding changes included taking on virtual and telephone appointments.

Since the pandemic, Kerstens says clients are experiencing an increase in anxiety, depression and isolation and the organization is working to try and combat these new pieces.

“They’re not new pieces to epilepsy, but everything definitely feels heightened, especially with the fear of COVID, so making sure we’re making different things available to them to be able to deal with issues like that is important,” she says.

While virtual appointments are “satisfying the need” in terms of being able to provide information, education and resources, Kerstens says the one-on-one connection gets lost.

“If and when we have the opportunity to meet in person again, that is the best case scenario because I believe in the human connection that comes along with that and I think our clients respond very well to that,” she says, noting there’s also a natural connection clients make with one another, which is also beneficial.

However, Kerstens says virtual appointments will continue to be made available as some people prefer them, especially from accessibility standpoint.

“Some people prefer the virtual appointments because it becomes more accessible to them. Maybe they can’t drive or they can’t find a family member to get them to our physical office location, so we’re certainly going to continue some virtual appointments, and possibly some virtual webinars and educational resources to make sure that we remain as accessible as we’ve found that this can be,” she says.

According to Kerstens, one in 100 people are living with epilepsy, adding many of them feel alone.

“There’s still a lot of stigma associated with the disease so it’s still something people live with privately quite often,” she explains. “Being able to connect with others who have gone through similar things, who have experienced similar challenges and are at different points in their journey… that can be really helpful to someone, especially newly diagnosed, to understand what their pathway might look like.”

Kerstens says the organization was already looking at doing some digital transformation prior to the pandemic and ways in which to keep their clients engaged.

“We are definitely looking at implementing some new, fun, engaging fundraisers to diversify what we’re already doing and engage more of our clientele,” she says, noting they’re also looking at amplifying its support network.
“We have a really great peer to peer network that falls within the clinic to community program and we want to harness those and amplify them to have a larger support network so potentially some virtual support group that caregivers, parents, people living with epilepsy can attend on a regular basis and also continue to work with our clinic to community epilepsy program.”

The clinic to community program operates out of the Oshawa Clinic, however currently in a virtual setting, and Kerstens says the organization is continuing to actively look at ways in which to adapt and expand the program to be able to serve more people in a timely manner.