AHPA Extraordinary Service Award

2025 Extraordinary Service Award Winner

Julie Herrington

This award recognizes the contributions an AHPA member has made in advancing the mission, vision, and goals of our organization. This year’s awardee is Julie Herrington. Julie has demonstrated exceptional leadership, dedication, and a profound impact on our organization and the broader rheumatology community.  

Julie is an Advanced Clinician Practitioner in Arthritis Care (ACPAC) trained physiotherapist who spent almost 15 years working for Arthritis Society Canada before moving into an Advanced Practice role in 2020 at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario.  She has been working with both the pediatric and young adult rheumatology teams developing and advocating for this important role as an ACPAC clinician or extended scope physiotherapist.  

She recognized that fully embracing the advanced practice role would require her to take on greater leadership in the areas of Advocacy, Research, and Education.  She decided to return to school and completed her Master’s of Science (Rehabilitation Science) from McMaster University in 2023.  Armed with this new knowledge, she has embraced the research world participating in many team projects at her center and with the CAPRI network that primarily focused on JIA care or Transition Care for young adults with rheumatic diseases.  This has led to her collaborating as one of three co-leads on the CRA Transition Guidelines - planned to be released this year!

Understanding the importance of demonstrating value of the ACPAC role, she has also started to lead some of her own research projects focused on the Extended Scope role in pediatric rheumatology and has now completed three individual studies that characterize her role, demonstrate safety in the role, and explore adolescent and parent satisfaction with the role.  

As the timing was right, she stepped up into the ACPAC Special Interest Group (SIG) Chair position in 2023, under the governance of AHPA.  She has grown into the role, leading from a position of passion and strong belief that ACPAC clinicians play an important role in the healthcare system that benefits patients and rheumatologists, as well as the ACPAC clinician.  She believes in celebrating each ACPAC alumni and supporting them in their journey to establish their roles, encouraging them to have a voice to let the community understand and appreciate the value they bring to the system.

Under Julie’s guidance, the ACPAC SIG has achieved remarkable milestones including:

• Membership Growth
• Creation and Strengthening of Sub-Committees
• Educational Excellence coordinating high-impact sessions
• Advocacy Success: Julie has worked tirelessly with multiple professional organizations to drive recognition for ACPAC-trained clinicians. She spearheaded the creation of valuable advocacy tools, including slides and infographics.  She is working on a passion project with a vision to get an ACPAC-trained clinician in every Pediatric Rheumatology site across Canada! 
• And let’s not forget her Research Contributions: Under her direction, the ACPAC SIG completed a scoping review.  Julie also orchestrated a research lecture series providing members with critical research skills.

Julie leads with passion and purpose.  Through her visionary leadership, unwavering dedication, and extraordinary service, Julie has set a benchmark that reflects the very essence of our mission: to build and sustain a community of professionals who provide the best possible care to Canadians with arthritis through knowledge translation, engagement, and inter-professional collaboration.  Congratulations Julie, on receiving this well-deserved 2025 AHPA Extraordinary Service Award!

View Past Award Winners