Join Judy Gargaro from Neurotrauma Care Pathways and Ryan Sutton and Seth Mendelson from the Headsup Concussion Advocacy Network as they discuss concussion impacts and essential care. Learn about evidence-based best practices, assessment tools, and key management strategies that can be used in the post-secondary community settings, along with tips to identify reliable resources. Hear inspiring stories from those who have transformed their concussion experiences into support for others. French closed captioning will be available.
Judy Gargaro is the Manager for the Neurotrauma Care Pathways Initiative and was previously the Program Director for the ABI programme at the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation (ONF). Judy has been working on the implementation and evaluation of the Neurotrauma Care Pathways with a focus on how best to support persons with a brain and/or spinal cord injury with comorbidities and who have traditionally been underserved by the healthcare system. Other initiatives include developing a Neurotrauma data strategy to assess quality of care, the Provincial TBI Report Card, and the implementation of the Standards and Clinical Practice Guidelines for Concussion/Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and for the Rehabilitation of Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury. In all this work, Judy collaborates with administrators, clinicians, and policy makers to improve the quality of care available to persons after all severities of neurotrauma.
Ryan Sutton is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Headsup Concussion Advocacy Network (HeadsupCAN), a lived experience-led non-profit advancing concussion awareness, education, and research across Canada. After experiencing eight concussions and being advised to stop playing contact sports at 18, he committed his career to supporting others affected by concussions. Ryan holds a Master’s degree from Brock University, where his research focused on the lived experience of sport-related concussion. He also completed the Knowledge Translation Professional Certificate through SickKids and the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. His work centers on translating research into practical, community-driven education programs. This fall, he will begin his PhD at the University of Toronto, focusing on designing and scaling concussion education initiatives.
Seth Mendelsohn is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of HeadsupCAN (Concussion Advocacy Network), a lived experience-led non-profit dedicated to advancing concussion awareness, education, and research across Canada. After sustaining a concussion during his senior year of high school football, Seth experienced firsthand how complex brain injury recovery can be, including the often-overlooked relationship between concussions and mental health. These experiences drove him to co-found HeadsupCAN to bring greater awareness to the vast intricacies associated with concussion and TBI. From producing the “Sharing Experiences with Concussion/TBI” podcast to growing HeadsupCAN’s education program, which has brought evidence-based concussion education to over 1,000 high school students across Ontario, Seth has dedicated his career to building collaborative networks that bridge lived experience with evidence-based education and empower others to better understand the holistic realities of brain injury.
