John McCullagh
John McCullagh honoured for decades of leadership in social justice and volunteer service for the HIV/AIDS community
John McCullagh is being recognized with a Casey Award for leadership in social justice and volunteer service for the HIV/AIDS community. He has been working as part of the HIV+ and LGBTQ2S+ communities since immigrating to Canada from England in 1975, and his decades of activism and community organizing have made a tremendously positive impact.
In 1981, he co-founded David Kelley Services (formerly known as the Toronto Counselling Centre for Lesbians and Gays), a counselling and support service for the queer community and those living with HIV. This was the start of the AIDS epidemic, and these services were essential for people diagnosed with HIV to find comfort, care, and community. Forty years on, the program continues.
As a social worker with the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto in the early ‘90s, John founded the Out and Proud program, which ensured that youth in child welfare services could be provided inclusive and identity-affirming care. At that time, John carried a lone but adamant voice in advocating for queer youth in the child welfare sector, and his unfaltering determination successfully brought the initiative into reality.
Throughout the years, John continued to participate in HIV-related endeavours. He facilitated groups at the AIDS Committee Toronto (ACT) where he provided social support for people living with HIV, particularly long-term survivors. He would often use these findings to draft strategies for interventions to prevent further HIV transmissions in the population and share them with his networks.
In the 2010s he was the volunteer publisher of the PositiveLite, a Canadian online HIV magazine run by community members who shared their lived experiences with the diagnosis, stigma, and health care system. This platform was an early and vocal supporter of social concepts ‘Undetectable=Untransmittable’, ‘Prevention as Treatment’, and ‘Treatment as Prevention’.
His next landmark project was as co-chair of the gay men’s health hub task group in the Toronto to Zero initiative in 2019. This group of professionals in the health and social services sectors joined together to discuss the creation of an integrated health hub in Toronto for gay, two-spirit, transgender, and nonbinary folks. This led to the opening of HQ Toronto in 2021, which provides mental, social, and sexual health services. As founding co-chair, John remains as a board member for the organization.
He has participated in multiple research projects for the well-being of people living with HIV. Noteworthy highlights include the CHESS Study, designed to address COVID-19 hardships for people living with HIV in Ontario; the CHANGE HIV study, a five-year cohort study on the complexities of aging and HIV; and A Prescription for a Renewed HIV Sector, a series of recommendations to positively transform the sector created alongside fellow advocates Ron Rosenes, Tony Di Pede, and Darien Taylor. The latter served as a contributing resource for the HIV Action Plan of 2030 for the Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS.
In case that wasn’t enough, John has also held leadership and board roles with CATIE, ACT, the Ontario AIDS Network, Central Toronto Youth Services, and the Queen West Community Health Centre. He demonstrates incredible leadership, and has undoubtedly inspired many with his decades of commitment to the HIV and LGBTQ2S+ communities. Casey House extends warm congratulations to John McCullagh with a Casey Award.