Authored by:
Michael Allen
President and CEO, United Way East Ontario
Alex Munter
President and CEO, CHEO
Cathy Taylor
Executive Director, Ontario Non-Profit Network
Kelli Tonner
Executive Director, South-East Ottawa Community Health Centre
Healthcare leaders from across eastern Ontario recently participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by United Way East Ontario, in a virtual room packed with non-profit social and community service providers, to talk about new ways the two sectors can collaborate to better the overall health of our communities.
The pandemic no longer feels like an urgent crisis, but that doesn’t mean the response is over. Poverty, social isolation, housing insecurity and mental health are much worse than three years ago.
As leaders in our sectors, we know that it is possible to find upstream solutions that improve the health of our communities. It starts by recognizing that non-profit, community-based social services are a critical part of our healthcare system.
Inflation, supply chain issues, high cost of living, and human resource constraints have strained food banks, shelters, hospitals, and other community and social services. We know that these non-medical issues greatly impact our health system. The result is the hospital backlogs, long wait lists and staff burnout we see in the health and community sectors today.
The social determinants of health – things like income level, early childhood development, access to education, housing, and basic needs – are life conditions shaped over time by inequitable systems and policies. When a person doesn’t have access to nutritious food, their health suffers. When a person is without sustainable shelter, they end up in the emergency room.
The non-profit sector is extensive but under-resourced, which makes it difficult to collaborate with the highly-regulated and urgency-driven health care system – even when both sides have an interest in working together. That said, there are strong examples of models that bring us both together for a common purpose, like Kids Come First, Ottawa Child and Youth Initiative, and project step.
In many cases, the infrastructure to minimize strain on our health system was built during the pandemic. But many of these projects are not short-term solutions: they are the keys to making critical services more accessible and inclusive. Take, for example, Counselling Connect: a partnership of 30 mental health organizations that immediately connects people with culturally sensitive remote counselling services in the Ottawa area.
Similarly, 1Call1Click is a one-stop shop that matches children, youth, and their families with the right mental health and addiction services for their needs. 1Call1Click is an example of organizations working outside of their own mission, sharing resources, and ensuring people get the help they need.
When community and healthcare services work together, people benefit from quicker access to care, less confusing interactions with services, and a more holistic approach to health and wellbeing. These approaches also prevent people from ending up in the emergency room before they get the help they need.
If properly supported, further innovation between healthcare and community services can relieve the strain we see on healthcare. With more investment and involvement in health policy planning, non-profit community and social services could have a greater tangible impact on community health.
Sometimes that impact is simply a matter of ensuring frontline non-profits have the resources they need to stabilize from the upheaval of the pandemic, and then expand.
This year, United Ways across Canada were called upon by the federal government, alongside the Canadian Red Cross and the Community Foundations of Canada, to invest its Community Services Recovery Fund (CSRF). This one-time fund of $400 million aims to strengthen the community services sector by helping charities and non-profits adapt and modernize in the wake of the pandemic. Locally, this fund will help organizations address staffing issues, adapt to a world where technology is affecting the way services are delivered, and manage rising demand.
COVID-19 has left social and health crises in its wake, but it has also shown that by working together we can create new approaches to care and improve upon what we have built. It will require a bold and courageous determination to match solutions with the scale of our collective problems.
We must continue with our willingness to take leaps, as we did when the pandemic forced us to, reimagine the way we think about health, and recognize the potential for solutions in unexpected places. Our community’s health and wellbeing depends on it.
