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# Theme

# The Future Is Community: Primary Health Care as the Foundation of the Health System

 

# Community Health and Wellbeing Week Month 2024 at a Glance

WHY A MONTH? Yes, you did read that correctly! This year during October, for the very first time, we’re expanding Community Health and Wellbeing Week to a whole MONTH! Believe it or not, back when Alliance members started it many years ago, it was a SINGLE DAY. Imagine. 

This expansion is to provide members and your partners more “runway” and flexibility to schedule events, celebrations, tours, exhibits, MPP visits and more over a longer stretch of time, maximizing impact across four key weeks in the fall, and overlapping with important provincial advocacy initiatives! The best way to think about it, and how we’re imagining it, is that we’re taking a week that is bursting from the seams and giving it some space to breathe over four weeks – so it’s not supposed to be more work, just more opportunities to share the work we already do to promote community health and wellbeing locally and all across Ontario. Having said that, we look forward to your feedback now, during and after Community Health and Wellbeing Month. 

WHAT: Community Health and Wellbeing Month (CHWM) is an annual autumn initiative for community health sector collective communications and advocacy, propelled by the actions, celebrations, gatherings, events, storytelling, and social media updates of Alliance members, supported by the Alliance team. CHWM is coordinated by the Communications and Stakeholder Relations team at the Alliance for Healthier Communities, who provide support and materials for members’ activities, communications and events. Every year, within the span of CHWM, Alliance members plan and execute a diverse array of communicative events and activities, to draw focus to issues impacting people, communities, and Alliance member organizations and their partners and projects. This occasion also presents opportunities to commemorate and amplify the efforts of Alliance members and their collaborators in the pursuit of equitable health and wellbeing for everyone living in Ontario. This is our month to shine together, talk about what we do, and why it matters in our communities (and beyond)!

WHEN: ALL of October 2024

THEME: The Future Is Community: Primary Health Care as the Foundation of the Health System

LOGO: Here it is in English and French! And we will also be providing graphics and sample email signatures to use during the month. Feel free to customize and add to your organizational logos and communication vehicles (letterheads, signatures, etc.)

# Social media banners:

  • Twitter/X / Facebook

  • Linkedin

# Goals of CHWM 2024

  • Advance and promote members’ work to decision=makers and community members
  • Amplify wage gap advocacy campaign in support of members’ being able to deliver care, retain and recruit key staff
  • Showcase members role as foundation of comprehensive primary health care
  • Highlight the better outcomes rooted in members work with community
  • Widely share made-in-the-sector innovations and solutions for health equity
  • Reinforce the importance of taking an upstream, health equity-based approach to preventative, population-tailored primary health care as a pillar of a sustainable health system
  • Celebrate members roles/work in making Ontario Health Teams and the Ontario government vision for access to primary health care a success – shine a light on what’s needed to get to the next level, in terms of funding to transform Ontario into a team-based primary health care jurisdiction, where everyone has access to a team.
  • Demonstrate that a comprehensive approach is one that takes into account both the social determinants of health and health inequities.
  • Highlight both the Health Equity Charter and the Model of Health and Wellbeing and the Model of Wholistic Health and Wellbeing as foundational tools available to help guide primary health care transformation towards a more accessible and sustainable system with better outcomes for all.

 

# CHWM 2024 Key Messages – The Future Is Community: Primary Health Care as the Foundation of the Health System

How to use these key messages: These key messages are designed to be elastic and flexible enough for all members, to use with all audiences, throughout CHWM 2024. 

  • The BOLDED part of the message is the MAIN or basic soundbite message, to build from. The text below each main message unpacks directions and suggestions for where members could take the message, and sub-points in support of, and finding new ways to get across, the main message. 
  • Our big ask to you is that you find as many examples, stories, data points, anecdotes, great quotes, snapshots or any other supporting content to help bring these messages to life. 
  • We have carefully selected these messages to reflect the needs of the communities you serve right now, the needs of our sector, and the best ways to intersect with other strategies we are engaged in. If you see any synergies with other advocacy or outward-facing engagement you’re doing with decision-makers, clients, partners or the public, run with it!

More than ever before, your stories, your experiences from the front lines in communities matter A LOT to the overall discussions happening in Canada and Ontario right now about the access to primary health care. We all have an opportunity during this month to be part of, to lead, to contribute to conversations about the future of primary health care where we live. The future IS community, and your stories will show what’s possible when we make strong, team-based primary health care the foundation of the health system.

 

THE KEY MESSAGES:

Primary health care – accessible, locally tailored and culturally appropriate – is essential to the current and future sustainability and effectiveness of our entire health system. 

The future of health and wellbeing in Ontario is in well-supported and resourced communities, with access to primary health care at the very centre of those supports. When community health providers have the resources to keep people well and living in their communities, we can reduce the pressure on our hospitals and long-term care systems while helping deliver better health outcomes and healthier populations. When Ontario supports its primary health care organizations and teams, other areas of the province’s health and social system are better supported too, including emergency and acute care, mental health organizations, refugee and settlement organizations, and more.

Ontario must invest today in the future of primary health care through increased funding to community health organizations and paying community health workers fairly. 

By funding universal access to primary health care teams and paying community health workers fairly, we can transform Ontario’s health system and end the crisis of hallway medicine. Access to teams means better outcomes for patients, better experiences for clinical providers, and more sustainable organizations and networks across our health system. To ensure primary health care organizations are the foundation of a strong health system, we must support those organizations to pay their staff fairly and competitively. To recruit and retain key staff, including doctors, nurses, social workers, mental health professionals and more, we must support community health organizations with new investments. Ontario must invest NOW in its community health workforce to build a health system that will sustain the province in the future.

Health equity approaches are central to improving health outcomes and reducing overall health system costs. 

Whether it’s accessible and tailored mental health care, refugee or newcomer care that helps prevent conditions from worsening, preventative strategies like social prescribing that help keep people well and aging at home, or the best chronic disease management available for diabetes, COPD and other conditions, embedding health equity ensures a health system that meets people where they’re at, and doesn’t leave people behind. Focusing on health equity means fewer dollars will be spent later on acute and emergency medicine. Health equity is the future for communities – and it’s also smart investing for governments and leaders today.

Your community primary health care organization does more than you think. 

Organizations and teams play MANY essential roles in our communities and our lives. This includes delivering mental health, primary health care outreach, dietitians, physiotherapy, support for other physicians and providers, and advocacy on behalf of your community. This also extends well beyond medical services and programs, into social prescription opportunities, cooking groups, community gardens, older adult activity clubs, youth mentorship programs, supports for young parents, connections to housing and employment resources, and many more areas that can impact health. Our organizations require adequate support and resources to do the work they do now, and as our populations grow in the future.

 

# How can we participate?

The overarching goal of CHWM this year is clear – we must secure commitments from the Government of Ontario to reinforce Ontario's community health sector through unprecedented investments, ensuring readiness to meet evolving and growing health needs in communities. To achieve equitable health and well-being for everyone in Ontario, we need the resources to enable workforce planning, commitments to health equity, and socioeconomic and race-based data-driven strategies, including comprehensive, team-based care with community programs. Ontario’s community health sector needs investments TODAY to do this work well now and into the future.

Join us in aligning your events with suggested themed days (or weeks), to better showcase your specific contributions to high-quality care and innovations that help to reduce disparities and increase system sustainability. These themes are suggested guiding structures for your messaging, from speeches to events to social media. Your involvement and efforts locally will help to reinforce the overall messages above, by providing concrete, real world examples of how you’re shaping a healthier future for all in Ontario. The important thing is to stick to themes that reinforce your strongest messages and program examples. Here are some suggested theme ideas:

  • Health equity
  • Black health
  • Indigenous health/programs
  • Francophone health
  • Rural and remote health and programs for overcoming barriers
  • Northern health
  • Race-based data collection
  • Social prescribing
  • Outreach/mobile care programs
  • Harm reduction
  • Community governance
  • Digital equity
  • Food security
  • Supportive housing
  • Newcomer supports
  • 2SLGBTQ+ programs
  • Celebrating community health workers

Please submit your planned events to celebrate CHWM 2024 to communications@allianceon.org.

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# Suggested Activities:

# “Bring your MPP to Work” Day – Invite your local leaders on a tour of your organization

Alliance members are encouraged to invite their local MPPs, city councillors, candidates for municipal government, and other elected officials to participate in CHWM activities, and to use events held during the Month as opportunities to showcase the work they do. 

Invite your local leaders outside to participate in a community walk, or ask them to give out volunteer awards. Consider including them in a forum about social determinants of health, or even just a tour of your centre. MPPs usually spend Fridays in their constituencies. 

Invitations to MPPs should go out four weeks prior to the event, so in early-September, ideally. We are providing a sample invitation letter for MPPs and city councillors. We suggest starting with this step!

# Community Primary Health Care Day at Queen’s Park 

Alliance is hosting a Lobby Day at the Ontario Legislature during Community Health and Wellbeing Month to remind the Ontario Government how our sector continues to be foundational to the community and the health and wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of people across towns, cities, and communities in our province. This Community Primary Health Care Day at Queen’s Park, Toronto will raise the importance of community-governed comprehensive primary healthcare organizations across the province and their impacts in the community. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Government Relations team of Marie-Lauren Gregoire Drummond marielauren.gregoiredrummond@allianceon.org and Zakaria Abdulle zakaria.abdulle@allianceon.org.

 

# Other event ideas: 

Celebrate the launch of a new program that promotes health and wellbeing 

  • Organize a health promotion event
  • Host a Social Prescribing Event
  • Host a lecture/seminar on homelessness and social determinants of health
  • Celebrate the launch of a new program or feature an ongoing program with a special focus on community participation in program design 
  • Hold an open house or create an information booth outside your centre
  • Organize a social or outdoor event
  • Organize a volunteer appreciation event
  • Webinar/Workshop/health fair
  • Host a community meal
  • Organize a community walk and invite community members to lead it
  • Organize a photo exhibition 
  • Invite decision-makers and opinion leaders to the launch of a new program or service 
  • Organize a forum on community leadership and invite media or officials to speak/cover the event
  • Organize a competition and ask decision-makers and opinion leaders to speak at the awards ceremony
  • Organize an awards ceremony for health champions in your community and invite 
  • MPPs to give the awards

 

Remember to send an event write-up, photos, and any media links to the Alliance team members so we can share widely.

 

# Resources to watch for in the coming weeks:

  • Invitation letter to MPP/other elected officials
  • Municipal Proclamation Template
  • Op-ed template
  • News advisory template
  • News release template
  • Social media messages, graphics and tips:
  • CHWM social media banners 
  • CHWM posters 
  • CHWM email signature