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Multi-sectoral collaborative teams
Act as neighbours
Abundant Community Edmonton offers some inspiration on 'Get Neighbouring' to foster neighbour-to-neighbour relationships. The goal is to cultivate a culture of care and connection, increase the sense of belonging and inclusion, and ultimately create a more healthy and livable community. Shelley, a mental health nurse in primary care, supported people from all socioeconomic backgrounds through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. We really are all in this together when it comes to creating healthy communities.
“We are all neighbours.”
- Shelley, Primary Care Mental Health Nurse
Know your community partners
"If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together." - African Proverb
"That means know your community partners, you know those people you can collaborate with and can help your patient. Gone are the days when we think of the primary care as just a clinic. Primary care is a local clinic working together within home care, EMS, community paramedics, RCMP, addictions and mental health, social services, victim services, employment services and all those community agents. A survey amongst hospital staff in Whitecourt asked how many of the services they know that they can navigate patients to. Only about four to six percent knew community services they currently can navigate patients to." - Dr. Ojedokun, Primary Care Physician
"No one reaches their goals alone"
Multi-sectoral collaborative community team
Primary care and community teams were amazed to discover new perspectives, supports, and a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities when they came together. Collaboration within the community provided relevance and sustainability to the solution-finding process.
"The pandemic was a challenge... every community agency was affected by that and it dramtically impacted what people were able to do, but it also sharpened the focus and made the conversations about financial strain more relative"
- Health Promotion Facilitator with RIFS
