Lead Partner: Sharing Strengths
Description
The goal of Sharing Strengths was to build on community strengths to promote the health of children and youth in Western Nova Scotia.
It worked in eleven communities and helped to initiate several systemic supports that are now in place for communities and the health system to use (e.g., the Child and Youth Intersectoral Working Group, the Integrated Database for Children and Youth, the Measuring Community Capacity Resource Kit, and the Youth Resiliency Measure). Most importantly, we supported people of all ages coming together to identify the strengths in their communities, and think about how to mobilize these strengths to accomplish their goals.
Lessons learnt (based on a comprehensive evaluation) that could be
helpful for other communities include:
Context
- Roles and responsibilities for Community Health Boards (or
other legislated voluntary health bodies) need to be clarified to ensureconsistent participation in legislated community health planning processes. - Core funding for community development strategies like Sharing
Strengths must be provided for organizations to sustain their work of building community capacity.
Infrastructure
- Financial supports and subsidies for community members facilitate their participation in community health planning processes (e.g. funds for transportation, child care, elder care, accommodation, lost wages).
- Regular opportunities for networking and sharing information
need to be provided for CHB members, service providers, and community members, as these opportunities are essential for deepening individual and collective understandings of community health planning. - Educational resource materials must be developed in userfriendly formats and provided and built upon at ongoing learning events.
- Community members need supports for working with research
information, and making it relevant for their work. - Systemic supports for applying new knowledge and skills are
needed in communities.
What advice would you give to people starting a project like yours?
The ability to respect and appreciate the uniqueness of each community, and the ability to channel resources appropriately
according to that uniqueness, is one of the things that made this initiative successful.
More on this project:
An in-depth interview with staff on this project will be available on this site soon.
Contact Details
Horizons Community Development Associates Inc.,
PO Box 2404
Wolfville, NS
B4P 2S3
Canada
Cari Patterson : cari@horizonscda.ca
Doug Crossman: dcrossman@ssdha.nshealth.ca
Website: http://www.horizonscda.ca