Category: Practice skills

…”the role that health and justice partnerships can play in a strong public health care system and in improving health outcomes for community members”

A panel discussion from the Community Legal Education Ontario

“Partnerships between health care and the legal sector in Ontario: What’s next”

… Complex social factors such as precarious housing, poverty, discrimination, precarious immigration status, and intimate partner violence can often lead to legal issues that have a significant impact on health. Health and justice partnerships involve health care and legal practitioners working together to find solutions to address factors that can contribute to poor health.

In Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this interdisciplinary model has been successful at promoting individual and community health as well as at addressing health inequities.

Join our expert panelists to hear about the role that health and justice partnerships can play in a strong public health care system and in improving health outcomes for community members. Panelists include Lee Ann Chapman, Michele Leering, and Dr. Rami Shoucri. ”

When –December 7th, 2023 10:00 AM through 11:30 AM
Location –Online Webinar ON Canada

Register here: Partnerships between health care and the legal sector in Ontario: What’s next – CLEO Outreach

Linking codes of ethics to Anti-Indigenous racism practice

What ever is your ethics guideline, this discussion of application to help us think of our everyday practice – is useful for reflection. Its refreshing in its approach to have a dialogue, rather than pulling out a grid, though guided by ethics principles. As Cheryl McPherson https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheryl-mcpherson-632b0539/?originalSubdomain=ca says:

“The oral traditions and storytelling are important to me. I believe using this format helps decolonize the College’s practice resources.”

The Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers framing of the term “Anti Indigenous Racism” helps us to move out of simply talking about individual troubles to bring us to taking a social stance, for the individuals we support in practice.

See the talk here: https://www.ocswssw.org/ocswssw-resources/ethical-and-competent-responses-to-anti-indigenous-racism-1/

series

Call for public comments: mental health and addiction service organizational standards

This consultation by Health Standards Organization (HSO) https://healthstandards.org/ on standards for mental health and addiction services seems, rather important if the weaving of: care system change, organizational accreditation and practice change are in play, NOW.

• Population health, service planning, and design
• Prepared and competent teams
• Access to services
• Client rights and ethical considerations
• Timely, comprehensive, and coordinated services
• Medication and prescribing practices
• Quality improvement …

(image: cover of report stating a draft for review and TM “people powered health”)

About the standards

… CAN/HSO 22004:2021(E) Mental Health and Addiction addresses the provision of high-quality and safe mental health and addiction care and services. The standard is applicable to all health and social service organizations providing mental health and/or addiction services.

The standard is intended to be used as a tool to improve the quality, effectiveness and outcomes related to programs and services for people who experience mental health illnesses and addictions. This standard also aims to address barriers to care that people with mental health illnesses and/or addictions often face when trying to access services such as lack of timely, relevant support; stigma; and difficulty navigating multiple intersecting systems and sectors.

The standard follows the client’s health and wellness journey through the health and social service system, including in-patient and community-based settings.

Divided into seven sub-sections, CAN/HSO 22004:2021(E) Mental Health and Addiction will provide criteria and guidelines to assess the quality and safety of health and social service organizations providing mental health and/or addiction services. The sub-sections are:
• Population health, service planning, and design
• Prepared and competent teams
• Access to services
• Client rights and ethical considerations
• Timely, comprehensive, and coordinated services
• Medication and prescribing practices
• Quality improvement …

Go to the Review site here: https://healthstandards.org/public-reviews/

About The Health Standards Organization (HSO) 

What is HSO?

HSO stands for Health Standards Organization. Formed in February 2017, our goal is to unleash the power and potential of people around the world who share our passion for achieving quality health services for all. We are a registered non-profit headquartered in Ottawa, Canada.

What does that mean?

Our focus is on developing standards, assessment programs and other tools to help care providers do what they do best: save and improve lives. Recognized by the Standards Council of Canada, we are the only Standards Development Organization solely dedicated to health and social services.

Where did HSO come from?

HSO is building on the strength of nearly 60 years of experience by Accreditation Canada, Canada’s leading health care accreditation body.

In 2016, we consulted more than 700 stakeholders across Canada and around the world to understand how best to put our collective learnings to work. Key takeaways from this review included:

  • Standards development must be separate from conducting assessments in order to be the best-in-class at both

  • The accreditation process must be more accountable and transparent, with a stronger focus on outcomes and consistency

  • Standards and assessments need to be easily actionable, clinically relevant, and tailored to local contexts

  • Patients (and their families), practitioners and policy-makers all play critical roles in improving health globally

Go to their site here: https://healthstandards.org/about/

hso-logo-red

Community Navigation of Eastern Ontario, aka 211: a critical ingredient to connecting people/community/services

Community Navigation of Eastern Ontario is an anchoring ingredient that can contribute to our efforts to articulate our community based systems of health and social care. Beyond information being nestled, somewhere.

Mission Our purpose is to make lives better by connecting the community to the resources they need. Every day.

Vision To be the primary source of information to access social and community services in Eastern Ontario.

Who We Serve While we serve anyone looking to access community services and information, our primary focus remains on vulnerable populations. We also serve social and community organizations in Eastern Ontario.

How We listen, we search, we guide, we connect. We empower.

Our Values We are compassionate, empathetic, respectful and try to be helpful at all times. We also guard personal information with great care.

Go to the website here: https://cneo-nceo.ca/about-us/mission-vision-values/

cneo-nceo_b

(image: bilingual logo of Community Navigation of Eastern Ontario)

The data base itself, community bulletins, and the opportunity for live interchange via 211 provides the opportunity for building a dynamic structure for information sharing across our organizations and systems. I think this means we all need to prioritize our approaches to information sharing and connecting, beyond a unidirectional approach. Instead a two way street, each day.

(image of 211 telephone number)

Community Navigation of Eastern Ontario (CNEO), formerly Community Information Centre of Ottawa, has been offering information and referral services since 1964. A little over ten years ago, we were offered the license to operate the 211 information and referral line for eastern Ontario (United Counties of Prescott & Russell, United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, City of Ottawa, Lanark County, United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, City of Kingston and County of Frontenac, County of Lennox & Addington, County of Hastings, Prince Edward County, and Renfrew County). 

CNEO currently offers the 211 service (which we are the most well-known for), the community bulletin, seasonal lists, and database maintenance services. 

For agencies looking to create a record with us: https://211ontario.ca/new-listing/

For information on our community bulletin: https://cneo-nceo.ca/info/bulletin/

City of Ottawa Anti-Racism Secretariat: Action Planning Survey

This survey notes that the secretariat is seeking linkages with people and groups.  A useful step for integrating our community and systems.

Action Planning Survey

The focus of this survey and other ARS public engagements is less on identifying needs and consulting with residents, as that has been thoroughly undertaken through past City efforts. The focus instead is upon engaging with communities to identify actions to address and challenge systemic racism in the City.

Link to the survey and Secretariat outreach: https://engage.ottawa.ca/anti-racism-and-ethnocultural-relations-initiatives

Everyday health care practice in law, policy, research and governance: bridging to practice change

The University of Ottawa Centre for Health Care Law, Policy and Ethics is working to open the dialogue on health care and practice change, which may well help us with system level change.  One effort is to have open presentations that bridge and explain the dynamics between our laws, policy and practice, shared and recorded via virtual presentations. 

I think the law is a much more dynamic and evolving guide to practice than most of us realize.  When I say realize, I know we know, about the rule of law, but seldom do many of us on the frontlines, even directors and CEO’s have a sense we are able to enter this level of our systems of society and nudge or influence it.  The centre aims to demonstrate to us how evolving court cases, research can be bridged to our regulatory colleges, policy guidelines that land at our organizations.

… Innovation in medicine offers tremendous hope. But it requires similar innovation in governance—in law, policy, and ethics—for society to fully realize the fruits and avoid the pitfalls. For example, how can we incorporate tomorrow’s AI technology into healthcare while avoiding accidental bias and discrimination? Can we apply insights from neuroscience to improve our criminal justice system for cases where mental illness is a factor? And as long as the list of tomorrow’s challenges is, there are as many gaps and shortfalls in what we already have: Many Canadians die waiting for organ transplants each year yet most people are not registered donors. Pathogens will inevitably out-evolve our current antibiotics and we aren’t developing new ones fast enough. The list goes on…

Please check out some of their presentations here: https://www.ottawahealthlaw.ca/pastevents

Bridging to on the ground care and organizational practice

I as many of you, struggle each day with how we communicate within and between organizational systems.  These researchers take an important step to address this in the context of homelessness services in this article: Legal, geographic and organizational contexts that shape knowledge sharing in the hospital discharge process for people experiencing homelessness in Toronto, Canada Jesse I. R. Jenkinson Carol Strike Stephen W. Hwang Erica Di Ruggiero https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13206

…  We find that within the legal context of health information protection, the concept of “circle of care” has created barriers to knowledge sharing between hospitals and shelters by excluding shelter workers from discharge planning. We note, however, that the degree to which hospital workers have navigated these barriers and brought shelter workers into the discharge process varies across hospitals. …

I’m going to pitch this to the Centre and the article researchers and see what might evolve as it would be useful to bring in more of a law interpretation and at least get a greater sense of the evolving law on circle of care.  I say evolve because for sure law and care is in “process.” I also realize I may well be simply wishing or dreaming that this ongoing struggle of communications in health care can be effectively addressed, given the… mixed success track record. 

Intervening in “Society,” … moving beyond the resilience model of care

This article in https://policyoptions.irpp.org/ by Michael Orsini Professor in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies and the School of Political Studies helped me as a clinician taking the strength’s approach to step beyond the theory of client’s individual resilience into a broader, systems view on how to approach interventions.   It’s the eternal challenge, of how to integrate the: micro, mezzo, macro in care as we sit with the person. 

… What if resilience is just another way of saying “get over it”? What if a positive attitude is not enough to pull you out of poverty? What if dealing with hatred and racism is not made better by just not letting it get to you? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? It might not kill you, but it can harm you in ways that might make you feel like you would be better off dead. …

… The resilience industry is rooted in an individual model of change, one that leaves untouched the structures and systems that are responsible for the trauma in the first place. Children growing up in under-served communities would not have to “overcome” their environments if their schools and neighbourhoods had the resources they deserved. Indigenous people would not need to become resilient in the face of colonial dispossession had they not been forced into residential schools or had their land occupied. …

Please see the article: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2020/stop-asking-us-to-be-resilient/

Applying Presence in a digital world, “experiences that create the person,” Presentation by Stephen Downes

At a time when “virtual” is landing as a major direction of human care and action, Stephen Downes https://www.downes.ca/ lays out some theory and constuctivist philosophy which I found helpful to wake up, pause and reflect on as clinicians and organizations embrace virtual technology.  The talk is framed for educators, but it got me thinking we are all advancing a form of: “experiences that create the person.”

Being There: What Presence Means in a Digital World

To the extent that learning is a social activity it depends on presence, that is, it depends on the interaction and sense of commonality we have with other people. But presence doesn’t need to be direct and personal; it can be mediated through objects and technologies. An author can speak to us through a book, a friend can speak to us through a telephone, an actor can convey meaning through cinema. But with each medium, the character of presence changes, as some affordances are amplified and others diminished. Which leads us to the question: what is the character of presence in digital media? Unedited Text Transcript (produced by Pixel 4 AI).

See the presentation Here: https://www.downes.ca/presentation/526

Help for open clinical discussions on “Covid”

The first resource is a very practical clinical talking script to discuss COVID issues with clients, shared by Simon Landry EENet Connect Co-Manager.  See the explanation by Simon Landry here: https://www.eenetconnect.ca/topic/non-stigmatizing-language-related-to-covid-19

I found it is a rehearsal device for client discussions on COVID.  They call it a “play book”  for COVID and that’s a dammed good title.

What is in this guide?

We’ve crowdsourced this playbook to provide some practical advice on how to talk about some difficult topics related to COVID-19. Building on our experience studying and teaching communication for two decades, we’ve drawn on our networks to crowdsource the challenges and match them with advice from some of the best clinicians we know. If you know our work, you’ll recognize some familiar themes and also find new material.

See the guide here: https://www.vitaltalk.org/guides/covid-19-communication-skills/

This screening scale can help engagement in discussion with people having a hard time talking about it… All.  Here is the the link to eenetconnect post by Rossana Coriandoli of eenetconnect which also includes the scale itself, as pictured below.  https://www.eenetconnect.ca/topic/research-snapshot-new-screening-tool-the-fear-of-covid-19-scale

The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has become a significant global challenge. With its extremely high infection rate and relatively high mortality rate, it has caused widespread fear around the world. Previously, researchers showed that fear of COVID-19 leads to considerable psychological and social harms, including stigmatization, discrimination, and feelings of loss.