Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

As Canada begins to address the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's (TRC) Calls to Action, mandatory cultural safety education programs have emerged as a key priority in health services, organizations, and in health professional education. Despite this, rigorous evaluation of these programs is lacking. To date, there is little research on how various curricular and pedagogical approaches act on the acquisition of skills, attitudes and personal growth related to cultural competency and safety. The lack of research around such programs could, in fact, make the problem worse. We propose to create a Community of Practice, a site of knowledge exchange between different stakeholders committed to advancing cultural safety education in Northern Ontario, to develop a regionally-orientated CIHR Project grant application for 2019. The project will provide researchers, health care providers, and knowledge users with the opportunity to learn from each other and gain a stronger collective understanding for effective cultural safety education that will lead to more equitable health delivery systems in Northern Ontario.