Compassionate Communities

Compassionate Communities Provincial Strategy

Hospice palliative care is aimed at relieving suffering and improving the quality of life for persons
who are living with, or dying from, advanced illness or are bereaved. The goal is to provide comfort
and dignity for the person living with the illness and his or her family as well as the best quality of
life. The wholistic domains of issues often associated with illness and bereavement include disease
management, physical, psychological, social, spiritual, practical, end-of-life care and death
management, as well as loss and grief. Therefore, hospice palliative care is not just about dying, it is
about living well to the natural end of life.

In light of Canada’s rapidly aging population, Hospice Palliative Care Ontario leads the provincial strategy called “Compassionate Communities” to catalyze whole person care throughout the province of Ontario, to benefit patients, family caregivers, and the formal health care system. This enhances access to care and strengthens Ontario’s ability to connect, inform, and protect seniors as well as people with chronic and advanced disease and their caregivers.

Read more

 

Compassionate Community Landscape in Ontario 

Click here to access the Provincial Environmental Scan (October 2020).

We plan to continually update information in the scan regularly. If you are an initiative that is already listed and would like to update your information, or if you are a new initiative that would like to be included, please email nav.dhillon@hpco.ca

 

Compassionate Communities Community of Practice 

HPCO hosts a Community of Practice to connect individuals in Ontario that are actively involved in a Compassionate Community project and those interested in learning more to offer an infrastructure to support these individuals in sharing knowledge and information.

Click here for more information and to become a member.

 

Community Research Collaborative

HPCO hosts a Community Research Collaborative. This voluntary collaboration of like-minded researchers who are working together to explore and test a new theoretical paradigm that emphasizes the ecological, nested, and interactive relationship between health, social and economic environment of communities, along with integrated theories of community health change, in order to guide the development of multilevel program models and embedded measurement of public value and population-level impact. Research, evaluation and knowledge translation are important tools in shaping community development, action, and impact. Adopting a learning system approach to integrate research and evaluation methods in tandem with program development and delivery can help ensure the scalability and sustainability of new and existing Community initiatives.

If you are a researcher or academic and want more information and how to become a member, please email Nav Dhillon, Communities of Practice Coordinator at Nav.Dhillon@hpco.ca

Hospice Palliative Care Ontario, The BC Centre for Palliative Care and Pallium Canada have partnered on a joint project titled Pan-Canadian Compassionate Communities Evaluation Guide (Framework and Toolkit). Through this project, the Parties will work together to develop a user-friendly guide to help community-based organizations across Canada evaluate their compassionate community initiatives. The Parties are each bringing substantial expertise and their knowledge products to the development of the Evaluation Guide. (Under development)

 

Resources

 

  • Webinars 
  1. The Pearls and Pitfalls of Person Reported Outcome Measures: What Are They, Why Do I Need Them, How Do I Start? Part 1
  2. The Pearls and Pitfalls of Person Reported Outcome Measures: What Are They, Why Do I Need Them, How Do I Start? Part 2
  3. Understanding the Link Between Age-Friendly and Compassionate Communities

 

  • Videos
  1. What is a Compassionate Community?
  2. The Importance of Being Connected
  3. Bill’s Story Let’s Talk Series
  4. Compassionate Communities Kingston: Gini’s Story
  5. “This Changed My Practice” – Palliative Care and the Power of Community
  6. CARP Videos
  1. Pallium’s Compassionate Community Startup Kit 
  2. Healthy End of Life Project (HELP) Overview (La Trobe University – Melbourne, Australia)
  3. 101 Random Acts of Kindness 
  4. Action for Happiness – Monthly Calendars
  5. CHPCA Learning Institute 2020 Stream 4: Compassionate Communities Reading List
  6. CHPCA Canadian Compassion Companies