About

John McCready, Ph.D. of Healthy Horizons Consulting is a Senior Consultant and Project Manager, specializing in planning and community development, policy and program development and research and evaluation services in the human services field.  John has over thirty years of consultation experience and he has held a series of progressively responsible positions, ranging from direct service to senior management.  He has provided leadership to strategic and operational planning and addressed policy and program planning at the local, regional, provincial and national levels.  Among the areas within which John can make contributions are the following.

  • Proposal and Report Writing
  • Strategic and Operational Planning
  • Program and Policy Development
  • Project Development and Management
  • Community Development and Organization
  • Process and Event Facilitation
  • Consultation and Training
  • Needs Assessment and Priority Setting
  • Program and Project Evaluation
  • Research and Development
  • Product Design and Development

John’s unique qualifications include having worked directly in health recovery (treatment) and health promotion (prevention); project development and project management; and, evidenced-based programming and program-based research.  He has worked on a number of innovative projects that have included policy, program and education components.  John is particularly proud to have been directly involved with the design, development and evaluation of the original Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere (RIDE) Program, a province-wide prevention program of education and roadside stops.

In the past ten years, John has worked with First Nations and Inuit programs and communities.  John served as the Principal Author of a successful funding proposal for one of the first eleven, specialized Healing Centres to be funded by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, an organization with the responsibility of funding community healing initiatives to address the legacy of abuse from residential schools.

John has excellent project management skills and has provided leadership to the development of project management systems within both program and research settings.  John has designed and managed a number of national initiatives and a large number of provincial program initiatives, provincial policy initiatives, media interventions, program evaluations, consultation processes, needs assessments, social surveys and other interactive processes, including contributions to a variety of strategic public health planning initiatives.

John worked for a research organization and, therefore, he has vast knowledge and skills in collecting data, compiling data, analyzing data, reporting findings, identifying best practices, formulating practical recommendations and developing planning frameworks, strategies.  And policies.  Moreover, John has been responsible for the development and delivery of many practical program applications and technologies that were designed and based on research findings.  In reference to experiences directly related to community development and consultation, John has:

  • Served as the Program Committee Chair for the first two national conferences sponsored by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse
  • Conducted four comprehensive reviews of Aboriginal service organizations and provided full reports and practical recommendations
  • Based on a provincial survey of key informants, developed a comprehensive problem gambling prevention strategy for supporting ethno-cultural communities
  • Based on a review of strategies in Canada and other countries, developed a framework for the developing a population health promotion, responsible gambling strategy
  • Conducted Participatory Action Research gambling projects with a variety of groups, including five urban Aboriginal communities and the Afghan, Filipino, Greek, Indo-Caribbean, Iraqi, Jewish, Somali and South Asian communities
  • Developed a provincial health promotion framework to address the problems associated with the use of alcohol and other drugs
  • Addressed the complexities of assessing needs, planning and implementing service for different priority target groups, communities and geographical areas
  • Consulted and developed system-wide restructuring, redistributing and reconfiguring recommendations for the provincially-funded addiction services in the South West Region of Ontario
  • Played a central role in the development of the Ontario Substance Abuse Strategy for approximately three years, a comprehensive, provincial population health strategy
  • Designed and managed a variety of high profile, innovative projects, involving needs assessment, education, training, prevention, treatment, community development, research and evaluation
  • In conjunction with district health councils, expanded and improved community-based addiction treatment services (assessment, referral, case management, detoxification, out-patient counselling, day treatment and short and long term residential care) in thirteen districts throughout south-western Ontario
  • Facilitated numerous group processes and developed and implemented numerous professional training and public education programs
  • Served as an expert member of a number of program evaluation initiatives and conducted numerous needs assessments, including working with a national committee on a national survey of 750 Aboriginal communities in Canada

As a highly motivated, independent-working professional, John’s communication, interpersonal, consultation, negotiation, problem-solving, decision-making and team-building skills have been critical to his success in the community development field.