Supporting Home Visiting as a Key to the Health of Aboriginal Children Home visiting of newborns and caregivers by nurses and family visitors has been linked with improved parenting skills and quality of the home environment. It is also a vital opportunity to help break the cycle of persistent gaps in life chances between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children.
The 2008 pan-Canadian Early Child Development Forum: Exploring Public Health Home Visiting event in Saskatoon was co-hosted by the NCCAH and the National Collaborating Centre for the Determinants of Health and drew more than 120 delegates. Together, they shared ideas and current knowledge around effective strategies for home visiting.
This event helped the NCCAH extend its reach to community-based public health practitioners from across Canada who work in programs like
Aboriginal Head Start, the
Canadian Pre-Natal Nutrition Program and the federal
Maternal Child Health Program, which features home visiting to First Nations women on reserve. (For more information on the Maternal Child Health program, please view the
Assembly of First Nations website).
The purpose of the forum was to explore effective strategies for home visiting and the contribution of home visiting to early child development as a determinant of health. The NCCAH role was to help adapt overall forum objectives to Aboriginal perspectives and identify information sources on home visiting in Aboriginal on-reserve communities.
Co-hosted with the National Collaborating Centre for the Determinants of Health, the event helped strengthen links with the
National Indian and Inuit Community Health Representatives Organization, which represents more than 900 community health representatives in 577 First Nations bands, and Inuit communities in Labrador. CHRs perform a broad range of functions including health delivery (immunizations, screening clinics, emergency treatment), counseling and home visits (elderly, handicated, and pre- and post-natal care), education and community development, and mental health.
The forum was geared to provincial and territorial senior public health representatives, representatives of front-line public health practice, and medical officers of health.
An evaluation of the event, completed March 2010, found that 84% of participants indicated that the event had a strong, positive impact on themselves and/or their organization. The two most frequently cited positive impacts of the forum were an increased understanding and awareness of the issues raised and about the various organizations attending, and a strengthening of networks and alliances. The event also facilitated the uptake and integration of new knowledge among participants. For example, 97% of participants felt they had acquired new knowledge as a result of attending the forum with approximately 75% noting that they had integrated this new knowledge in their work.