Grant: Health System Impact Fellowships - PostDoc Western Canada 2-year

In many First Nations, women are clan mothers, carry medicines and provide midwifery care. Colonialism has targeted Indigenous women and Indigenous family structures. In 2018, Saskatchewan's rate of newly diagnosed HIV infections was higher than the national average. Among people newly diagnosed with HIV in Saskatchewan, approximately 75% are Indigenous and 42% are female. Conventional models of care often do not meet the needs of Indigenous pregnant and parenting women living with HIV, or at risk of HIV infection. Sanctum 1.5 is the first HIV prenatal care home in Canada. A high proportion of women using Sanctum 1.5's services are Indigenous. Sanctum 1.5 provides stable, supportive housing to pregnant and post-partum women living with, or at risk for, HIV. Sanctum 1.5 aims to prevent HIV transmission from mother to infant, and foster care system removal of infants. To date, 97% of children born to mothers at Sanctum 1.5 have stayed with their mothers or been placed with family members. Yet, the need for Sanctum 1.5's services is greater than their current capacity. This proposed project will use Indigenous and Two-eyed seeing approaches to adapt a Social Return on Investment framework and explore the value produced through investing in Sanctum 1.5's services. This Social Return on Investment analysis will draw on data collected through sharing circles, conversational interviews, cultural/land-based activities and art-based activities, team members' witnessing and reflections, quantitative pre-test and post-test measures of mother and infant health, and a retrospective chart review. Study findings will support Sanctum 1.5 to determine the further development and sustainable scale up of this model of care and communicate the value of investing in Sanctum 1.5's services to various stakeholders. Sanctum 1.5 will direct how study's findings are shared, for instance: research feasts, land-based activities, fact sheets, infographics, policy briefs and journal articles.