Over a decade ago, for deeply personal reasons, Michael and Marilena Latifi committed their support to the launch of the visionary Women & Babies Program at Sunnybrook. Then, years later, the family was blindsided when their son came home partway through his semester at university and revealed some troubling news.

It led them down a path that was sometimes uncertain and overwhelming, and inspired the couple to once again throw their support behind a new state-of-the-art Sunnybrook program, this time in mental health care.

This summer marks the 11th annual Sofina & Amici Golf Classic, a family-friendly golf tournament that was founded by the Latifis and has raised more than $3.7-million. The success of the event stems from their “grab-life-by-the-horns” philosophy, and they have used their own challenging experiences in health care to inspire their philanthropy.

Each year, the tournament has grown, with 2017’s event raising another record high amount. “When we started, it was unthinkable that a one day-event of 18 holes of golf could generate half a million dollars,” says Michael, Founder, Chairman and CEO of the Markham, Ont.-based Sofina Foods Inc.

The event has become so popular that there’s a waitlist of golfers (the event accommodates 144 players). From celebrity chefs to the nightly entertainment and signature cocktails, the planning for every indulgent detail of the event begins a whole year in advance. As Michael says, “it was never just about the golf.”

In 2008, Michael and Marilena launched the tournament in support of Sunnybrook’s Women & Babies Program. The Latifi family shared Sunnybrook’s vision on how to promote baby-parent bonding when babies require incubators.

When Michael Jr. was born in Montreal, the stress of the long and difficult labour meant he needed to stay in an incubator for a couple of days immediately after the birth.

The Latifis had to view him through glass in a room with 20 other babies in incubators. Four children later, the Latifis toured the Aubrey & Marla Dan Centre for Women & Babies, which offered comfortable rooms, each with its own incubator. “It made me want to have another one,” jokes Marilena.

Then, five years ago, Michael Jr. inspired a new cause for the Latifis’ drive to give back. Partway through his semester, he came home unexpectedly, overwhelmed with anxiety and depression. He was afraid to be alone. He could barely muster up the energy to go upstairs to his bedroom. He was afraid to drive somewhere unfamiliar to him.

“He thought the worst thing in the world could happen to him if he got lost,” recalls his father. “Mental health issues prevent people from doing normal everyday things. They’re as debilitating as severe physical diseases.”

The Latifis contacted their family doctor and were referred to different specialists but were given conflicting advice. “There are so many aspects to navigate,” explains Michael. “How do you guide [patients]? How do you help them learn when there may be learning difficulties involved?”

The Latifi family’s experience inspired them to support Sunnybrook’s Family Navigation Project. The program connects families with trained health professionals who navigate them to the most appropriate counselling groups, health-care options and social and educational services in the mental health and addictions system for youth.

Thanks to the all-in support from his family and community and a customized treatment plan provided by his medical team at Sunnybrook, Michael Jr. made an inspiring recovery.

Just how inspiring? Well, when Michael Jr. was invited to take part in the 2014 RBC Race for the Kids, a signature annual event that raises money for the Family Navigation Project, he set a goal of not only raising the most money, but also winning the 25k race, which was only a couple of months away. Though overweight at the time and not a runner, he accomplished both goals. Fellow competitors asked him how many years he’d been running. “He said, ‘I just started.’ They were floored,” recalls Marilena. Michael Sr. was so inspired he ran the 25k in solidarity.

The challenge was so affirming for the young Michael that he moved on to Tough Mudder obstacle mud races, and then to the Ironman triathlon, considered the most difficult one-day endurance competition in the world. Having won the Ironman for his age group in Panama City, Florida, Michael Jr. will compete in the prestigious Ironman World Championship in Hawaii this October.

It would be easy for the Latifis to put their son’s mental health struggle behind them, but they want to use their family’s experience to help others.

“Mental health is something you have to nourish all the time,” notes Marilena. While the Latifis initially reacted with disbelief and confusion at their son’s outpouring of his inner struggles, they quickly understood how serious mental illness is and how little it’s understood, even by parents.

“When a child is sleeping all day, most parents think, My kid is lazy,” says Michael. “[But maybe] the kid is depressed.”

Michael Jr. now speaks at schools and fundraisers and, in doing so, inspires others to reach out. When the Latifis hosted a fundraising event in their home for the Family Navigation Project, they were stunned at the number of high-profile executives coming to them afterward to speak about family members struggling with depression, addiction and homelessness.

“We say that it shouldn’t be taboo, but to actually take that leap of faith and speak personally takes tremendous courage,” says Umeeda Madhany, a family friend of the Latifis. She is the head of the Sofina Foundation, which is the charitable arm of Sofina Foods Inc.

But facing situations head on and then going all in is typical of the Latifi family.

Michael credits his personal and professional determination to his upbringing as a refugee. He fled Iran with his three other siblings when he was 15.

“We all got jobs at McDonald’s,” he says.

He went on to complete a degree in electrical engineering and an MBA at McGill University and built Sofina Foods into the third-largest food company in Canada.

Michael and Marilena are strongly committed to their community, and so are their children, who help with the long days of preparation that go into the Golf Classic. It was natural for the family to direct their passion toward the challenges of difficult births and mental health struggles that are common to so many, and that they experienced firsthand.

Choosing Sunnybrook, which is leading scientific discovery and teaching health providers across Canada in improved obstetrical and mental health care, was an easy decision.

“We’re blessed that we can give back,” says Michael, “and we want to do more.”

The post The inspiration behind the Latifi’s philanthropy appeared first on Your Health Matters.

For years, physiotherapist Anisha Rehmtulla took the conventional approach with her stroke patients. She would set goals for them, assess their mobility and give them exercises to strengthen an arm or help them walk unassisted. She’d direct them through their tasks – “Try to keep your feet apart. Now lift your leg.”

She has recently taken a completely different approach with her patients at St. John’s Rehab at Sunnybrook. It starts by asking patients what their own goals are. Depending on the patient’s particular situation, the goal may be as simple as getting in and out of bed on their own, or as complex as returning to play golf.

An elderly patient, for example, recently mentioned he wanted to get back to woodworking. And there was that young father who said the most important thing to him was to be able to take care of his toddler again. “Okay,” Anisha would then say. “So how do you think you can do that?”

Rather than being therapist- driven, that new approach – cognitive orientation to daily occupational performance, or CO-OP for short – “puts the patient in the driver’s seat,” explains Beth Linkewich, director of the Regional Stroke Centre and North and East GTA Stroke Network at Sunnybrook.

CO-OP was first developed in the late ’90s for children with skills learning challenges. A decade ago, Sara McEwen, scientist with a physiotherapy background, began to adapt the approach for stroke patients. After conducting several studies to show that CO-OP works theoretically, Sara and Beth have teamed up to assess how it can be applied in a real-world rehab setting, where time is more limited.

In October 2016, Sara, Beth and their colleagues secured a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support training of occupational therapists, physiotherapists, nurses, speech therapists and other therapy assistants at St. John’s Rehab in the COOP approach. Patients are now being helped with CO-OP, and the goal is to train enough staff to be able to offer it to everyone.

The CO-OP approach uses a problem-solving strategy that has four steps: Goal, Plan, Do, Check. Therapists also use guided discovery, rather than telling patients what to do.

First, stroke patients set goals and are then guided to create their own plans to achieve those goals.

For example, the father who wanted to take care of his toddler recognized that he would need to carry the child, this despite reduced control and weakness on one side of his body. In physiotherapy, he practised carrying a sandbag up stairways. In occupational therapy, he would practise drawing with his finger across an iPad, so he’d be able to play games with his son.

Since CO-OP was introduced, patients are much more engaged in therapy, as they work together with therapists to better develop the best learning strategies.

With CO-OP, not only do patients define what they want to work on, they’re also defining how they want to do it. They have to write down or verbalize the steps in their plan. For patients who want to dress themselves and put a foot into a pant leg, for instance, Catherine Chuang, an occupational therapist at St. John’s Rehab, might ask, “What do you think you can do to achieve that?” The patient might suggest bringing her foot to her lap, which will then be added to the plan. It’s an approach that’s analogous to the ancient saying about teaching someone to fish instead of just giving the fish.

When patients leave rehab and go back home, their therapists are not there to coach them through each step. With CO-OP, however, earlier studies conducted by Sara showed that patients tend to continue making gains post-therapy, likely because they have been shown how to solve problems on their own.

“It builds confidence,” explains Sara. “If I can’t do something, it doesn’t mean that I should give up. It means I have to go back to my plan and change something. Maybe I need to put my hand in a different place or maybe I need some adaptive equipment.” Eventually, patients start breaking down all tasks with an open-minded, can-do approach.

But that’s not to say implementing CO-OP has been easy. “As physiotherapists, we’re so used to telling patients what to do,” says Anisha. “It’s hard for us to stand back and let them try to figure it out for themselves.”

Sara remembers feeling trepidation years ago, when she first used the CO-OP approach. Asked what his goals were, her patient, a man in his 40s, talked about helping his wife around the yard, but when he mentioned his personal goal to bike again, his eyes really lit up.

“He wanted to have that sense of speed again,” recalls Sara. “I was terrified. Here’s someone who was walking at a snail’s space, with a cane, wanting to get on a bike.”

Incredibly, after five hour-long sessions, she watched as her patient pedalled down the street, turning corners and managing inclines.

“He had to take a leap of faith and I had to take a leap of faith,” says Sara. “And the result was amazing.”

The multidisciplinary stroke rehabilitation team at St. John’s Rehab work together to help patients and their families get back to life after a stroke. (Photograph by Kevin Van Paassen)

Team effort

After a stroke, patients are learning how to move with major weakness or partial paralysis. They may have memory loss and cognitive issues.

During their stay at the rehab centre, patients experience a holistic approach. They will have access to a health-care team that includes:

• an occupational therapist to enable patients to return to their daily tasks such as dressing, bathing and cooking
• a physiotherapist to help patients maximize their physical functions such as getting in and out of bed, walking and climbing stairs
• a speech-language pathologist to address communication changes and swallowing concerns
• nurses available to patients around the clock to help manage all activities, medications and appointments
• a psychiatrist to talk about mental health challenges including feelings of anxiety or depression
• a dietitian to educate patients regarding healthy eating after a stroke
• a social worker to provide support and coordinate the care that patients will need after they leave rehab
• a physiatrist to provide medical support for the patient’s rehabilitation and recovery

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