Support is coming for Indigenous and local governments in B.C. who are striving to create equitable policies and processes. The PlanH Healthy Communities Grant Program is offering 30 grants for 2021 across two funding streams: Community Connectedness (20 grants of $5,000) and Healthy Public Policy (10 grants of $15,000). Both grants also include customized supports from BC Healthy Communities staff. Applications close June 1.
Learn more and apply at planh.ca/funding.

Friday, April 16 from 12:00–1:00pm PDT
Many community organizations and their members incorporate evaluation practices into their work without realizing it, highlighting that you don't need to be an “evaluator” to perform evaluation work and contribute to healthy, equitable policy development. Join BC Healthy Communities and the Canadian Evaluation Society - BC Chapter to learn about the application of feasible, equitable evaluation principles in B.C. community settings, and the significance of reciprocity when engaging in community partnerships to collaboratively learn together.

Thursday, April 8 from 11:00am–12:30pm PDT
Our current economic system prioritizes profit and growth, resulting in major inequities within our communities and putting our well-being at risk. How do we position the economy of the future as a tool for well-being? Join staff from BC Healthy Communities and SFU's Community Economic Development Program for Centring Well-being: Re-positioning the economy for resilient futures​. The presentation is the second part of the webinar, which kicks off with a talk covering Edmonton's Urban Well-being Framework. The webinar is part of BC Centre for Disease Control and National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health's Seminar Series. Participants are eligible to receive CIPHI Continuing Education Credits.

In the wake of closures and restrictions due to COVID, finding opportunities for school-age children to be active has never been more challenging. Thankfully, the commute between home and school offers an opportunity for many students across the province to build physical activity into their day. The B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, in partnership with BC Healthy Communities, has selected 11 schools to participate in a pilot project to increase the number of students using active transportation in the commute between home and school.

For communities across Canada, 2020 was an especially trying year. Though inequities existed in our communities prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, current challenges have amplified these differences. Given all we have learned through our past and present experiences, how can we put equity into action to create greater well-being for all? Staff from BC Healthy Communities and SFU’s Community Economic Development program recently convened to explore this topic alongside a group of local government and health professionals. Here are the top five key takeaways from that discussion. 

Community can mean different things on different scales, and at one of the smallest units of “community” are neighbourhoods and their residents. How can neighbourhoods and residents have an impact in developing Age-friendly communities?  In this blog post, we provide examples of actions from neighbourhoods in our province.

The Strengthening Communities’ Services Program aims to support unsheltered homeless populations and address related community impacts through an application-based program. The Province of BC and the Government of Canada are providing $100 million in funding through the Safe Restart Fund to support local and Indigenous governments as they work to meet people’s immediate health and safety needs on the ground, including temporary shelter spaces, outreach teams, and peer-based clean-up activities. Applications are being accepted until April 16.

Healthy Public Policy is one of the five pillars of the Healthy Communities Approach. But how does public policy impact the health and well-being of community members? And how do local and Indigenous governments design their policy development processes in order to mitigate and address unintended impacts? PlanH's new Healthy Public Policy page explores these issues, offering best practices and examples from communities in B.C.

Planning practices have played a central role in creating and perpetuating discrimination that has contributed to a growing divide in health equity, often along racial and economic lines. To become part of the solution, planners need a new set of practices and tools to equitably engage communities in developing plans that disrupt patterns of structural disadvantage. The Planner’s Playbook: A Community-Centered Approach to Improving Health & Equity offers guidance, providing resources, concrete steps, and examples for planners who wish to centre equity in their planning practice.

The Union of BC Municipalities is pleased to offer the guide, Stepping Stones: Child Care Planning Guides for BC’s Local Governments, which was developed with funding from the Government of BC. Stepping Stones offers local governments promising practices in five key areas: developing a child care strategy and plan; local government’s role in facilitating, securing and financing child care; local government’s role in designing and building child care spaces; local government regulations and provincial licensing processes; and working with child care operators. Download the guide or watch the on-demand webinar.

The latest instalment of the Let's Talk series from National Collaborating Centre for the Determinants of Health focuses on the intersection of two concepts central to Healthy Communities work: engagement and equity. Let's Talk: Community engagement for health equity  emphasizes that to achieve population health equity, it is essential that public health practitioners engage with communities who live with inequities. The resource encourages a shift in how community members who live with inequities are viewed: as partners in prioritization and decision-making. Access the resource here.