Since time immemorial, the many Indigenous communities on whose traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands we live and work together have built relationships, communities, and sustainable community health practices; this knowledge has been passed and practiced through generations. Learn more about the health and history of local Indigenous communities through work of the First Nations' Health Authority on "Our History, Our Health" and the Canadian Museum of History exhibit First Peoples of Canada.
Local First Nations peoples have connected and collaborated with community here on their lands since time immemorial. This practice has continued alongside Indigenous people who live on these lands that originate from their own respective territories outside of these lands, the Chartered Communities of the Métis Nation B.C., Inuit, and diverse communities of settlers navigating life in what is now colonially known as British Columbia. Despite colonization, structural racism, and white supremacy, these relationships continue to empower communities to overcome.
Throughout the history of our communities, people experiencing housing insecurity, financial limitations, stigma, racism, sexism, violence, and socially complex situations have repeatedly shown up for each other through relationships, peer networks, and organized community services, leading work on crucial public health issues.
In the wake of such community efforts, the concept for the BC Collaboration Center formed relationally on the territories of the W̱SÁNEĆ, Xwsepsum, and Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples, growing in conversations around the Cool Aid Health Center's waiting room art table. People living and experiencing inner-city marginalization through housing insecurity, a toxic drug supply, and barriers to health care access, and people who have lived through gender- and race-based discrimination and racism, shared their voices emphasizing the need for more accessible channels for community voice and relational approaches to empowering communities building equitable community health. These communities brought a wealth of knowledge from supporting each other through these experiences with powerful connection and insightful lived experience. Conversations with community organizations and health system navigators on how to make our systems more collaborative and accessible grew through the experience and relationships built over many years by the Victoria Native Friendship Center, Victoria S.A.F.E.R. Initiative, Aids Vancouver Island, Peers Victoria Resources Society, S.O.L.I.D. Outreach Victoria, Umbrella Society, and other community organizations in the region. A collaborative resource sharing database was developed to facilitate accessible community-based asset mapping and service communications. Learning from the work of the Professionals for the Ethical Engagement of Peers and other peer-led groups, the collaboration continued to grow in the lower mainland beginning to develop community communication networks with communities and organizations living on the lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-wathuth First Nations. Recognizing the need to serve interior and northern regions, these networks became channels to reach organizations in the rest of the province.
As community-based conversations continued, both in circles we know and the many we don't, people working within and alongside Public Health in the Vancouver Coastal, Fraser, Island, Northern, Providence, and Provincial Health Services Authorities looked to improve how we collaborate with those living and working in our communities. Fraser Health's climate change team heard the importance of connecting community networks in extreme weather response, and began working to find ways to co-benefit people and planet through leveraging our health authorities as anchor institutions. Vancouver Coastal began to redefine how they communicate and collaborate with both teams working in public health and community partners, developing a new Community Wellbeing Collaboration Framework, software to unite communications, and strategies to empower community in leveraging healthy public policy. Forming a new Planetary Health strategic team, Vancouver Coastal worked alongside community climate leads to shift how we approach the inseparable health of our people, communities, and environment. The BCCDC looked to shift their model towards increasing community collaboration, with work continuing to delve beneath disease to the underlying determinants. Island Health developed Community Health Networks.
Connecting with these efforts, the BC Collaboration Center became a partnership with community networks, organizations, and Public Health with the vision of embedding equitable consultation pathways in our systems for meaningful community-based consultation and power-building, collaborating on behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental determinants of health towards health equity.
Together, we continue to listen to experiences, share learnings, and practice change with open hearts and open minds.
Find local resources. Where do we go when we need resources or support? How can we make every door the right door, for those who aren't sure where to go? What assets and potential partners exist in our local communities? How do we add value to
Connect with networks. How can we increase our reach? How do we know what networks are in our communities? How can we expand our networks, and create connections with other community networks?
Work Inclusively. How can we work in an inclusive, collaborative, and participatory way? How do we highlight equity-deserving networks to promote collaborative approaches?
Strategize Together. How can diverse perspectives support each other in understanding and navigating the complexity of the communities and environments we live in? How do we know who has the access to influence leverage points for change? Who is excluded? How can we gain and create access to the things that effect change? How can we empower ourselves and our communities to navigate complexity?
Build Capacity. How can we build skills to support ourselves? How can we support others in building skills to support themselves? How can organizations include and empower community capacity building programs.
Identify Co-Benefits. How does our work help each other? How can we focus on work that will help everyone it effects, rather than work in silos and compete for resources?
Use Evidence. How do we understand what's happening in our community? How do we evaluate our work, improve it, and demonstrate impact? How do we understand the many types of evidence and take a Two Eyed Seeing approach to valuing, respecting, sharing, and applying information?
Leverage Anchor Institutions. What parts of our systems have wide-reaching, significant impacts in our communities and environments?
Cultivate Planetary Health. How do we understand ourselves as part of an ecosystem, and care for both ourselves and the environment that maintains us, in all our work?
