Responses provided by Taylor Soroka, the Co-Founder | Vice President of Strategy and Engagement of Jasper Place Wellness Centre.

Q: Briefly tell us about your organization, where it is located, the services and programs provided, and the communities/population you serve?

A: The Jasper Place Wellness Centre is a community development organization and registered Community Health Centre in Edmonton, Alberta. We build strong communities and people by addressing social and health-based inequities facing low-income and/or vulnerable neighbourhoods. We prioritize engagement with those we serve to find intentional community and health-based solutions that enable autonomy.

Q: Over the last 2 years the COVID-19 pandemic presented unforeseen challenges in all sectors, and the vulnerable population has been one of the hardest hit groups. What has been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in your community, how have you been able to address it and how is your organization navigating providing care and services to your clients during this time?

A: Very difficult to narrow the impact of COVID-19 into a blog post! We are still unpacking new experiences daily in our community and encountering new difficulties created by the pandemic. Social isolation has significantly increased in our communities, we are hopeful that the summer months will bring opportunties to change that.

Q: Your CHC is one of the recipients of the CVP National Project funding from CACHC (funded by Public Health Agency of Canada). Could you tell us about your project and its goal? Include any activities and programs carried out and resources created.

A: Our project focused on creating opportunities for Indigenous Elders to function as community connectors and engage with community members around vaccine hesitancy and healthcare in general. We intended to consistently have the elders be available to chat, build trusting relationships and talk through fears from a cultural perspective while also connecting them to appropriate healthcare professionals at our CHC for questions out of their scope. We understand that all cultures and people groups have different ways of viewing and accessing healthcare on a personal and community level – our goal in this pilot was to decentralize and decolonize the access to information.

Q: A part of your project involved bringing on an Indigenous Elder functioning as a Community Connector. Tell us why this was important and the role the Community Connectors (Laura and Janice) play to improve COVID 19 vaccine confidence and uptake in the community.

A: We believe that representation matters when accessing and trusting information, especially around health and personal autonomy. From our engagement experience, we knew that this project created an opportunity to create space for a respected, locally known, indigenous Elder to connect with individuals accessing our sites and specifically have conversations about their vaccine fears, past experiences and concerns. When we hear information from someone who talks like us, looks like us, grew up like us, and may know someone from our family, we all lean in a little closer. I know most of the community members we serve, and having conversations around tough topics is not always easy. I think most people were welcoming to the project and were open to having conversations with me.

Janice, Jasper Place Wellness Centre Community Connector

Q: What, if any challenges have you experienced while carrying out your work as community connectors?

A: Not having all the answers for people was and is difficult but being relational means that we can meet again and revisit things I may have not had information on last time we spoke. I think that helped people understand that my role was not to force them to get vaccinated and ended up helping them see information in a different light.

Q: Do you have any words of advice for CHCs who would like to work with Community Connectors in their communities?

A: Ask questions to those you want to serve. They know what they need.

Q: What milestones (including uptake of the vaccine) have you achieved, and lessons learned during the project so far?

A: Our most prominent milestone would be the understanding that many of the individuals we serve are vaccine-hesitant not because they haven’t had access to the same information as others, but because the healthcare system has othered them. For example, access to support for a health issue they deal with daily may not be available due to transportation, income, or appropriate housing.

Q: Have you and your team experienced any challenges or barriers to vaccine promotion and uptake in your community? How have you managed these challenges?

A: There have been many challenges to vaccine promotion in our community! The two most prominent would be working around public health restrictions to be able to meet in person and not being able to promote the program and information online due to social media platform restrictions. We’ve worked through these by being consistent in scheduling, such as having Janice or Laura at our drop-in hours, and ensuring our videos are accesible to be played at our sites and partner sites.

Q: Did your project involve any partnerships or collaborations? If yes, please describe.

A: Yes we worked with Boyle McCauley Health Centre, another Community Health Centre in Edmonton. We had them bring their vaccine bus to our community-wide events, transitional housing sites, and supportive housing sites. The community outreach nurses played a considerable role in creating comfortable space and conversation for those who did get vaccinated.

Q: With new variants and the approval of booster doses, what effect have these had on the work your centre carries out as well as the CVP National Project, in other words how are you adapting to this ongoing public health issue?

A: We will continue to have open conversations and ask probing questions to community members about vaccinations, and we are also committed to tracking data around vaccines. We know that if another public health issue were to arise, we believe we would be better positioned to encourage community uptake because of the work of this project.

Q: What are the next steps for your centre after the CVP National project and your hope for the future?

A: We hope to continue to work with our community members to create solutions that encourage autonomy to health based inequities.