VON Canada is proud of the partnerships and good working relationships that we enjoy with First Nation, Inuit, and Métis communities throughout Canada, and were honoured to participate in this most recent collaboration. The National Aboriginal Health Initiative brought together VON expertise with local First Nations experience and knowledge to develop three important and useful resources for Aboriginal health workers and health service providers. In that same spirit of cooperation and collaboration, we share these tools with you. Please read on; we would be delighted to receive your feedback and comments.
From 2008 – 2010 VON Canada undertook the VON Canada National Aboriginal Health Initiative (NAHI) whereby three culturally relevant resources were developed. Although these resources are targeted to Aboriginal health workers and service providers working on-reserve, many users have confirmed that they are relevant to a number of organizations and services providing programs to Aboriginal clients.
The overall vision of the National Aboriginal Health Initiative (NAHI) is to support program and service providers in First Nations communities to develop useful and reliable frameworks; resources, and expertise to enhance core competencies, standards of practice, knowledge base, integration of evidence-informed practice and alignment with national and provincial level approaches.
The three projects provided a good basis for building positive relations between VON Canada and Aboriginal health workers by collaborating with health representatives from ten different and diverse First Nations communities in seven different provinces.