After a focused, three-year effort, the Sts'ailes First Nation's health services team is proud and happy to have achieved accreditation of the services they deliver to their community. Accreditation is a voluntary and structured process that provides community organizations with an opportunity to continually assess and improve the quality of their health and treatment services and ensure they meet internationally certified standards. (Funding for accreditation is available through the First Nation Health Authority's Community Accreditation & Quality Improvement (CAQI) Program.)

 Sts'ailes, a progressive and independent First Nation located in the Upper Fraser Valley, is one of the pioneer First Nations communities in BC to have an accredited health services department. Led by Director of Health & Family Services Virginia Peters, the department chose to begin the process in 2012 with the full support of Chief Harvey Paul and Council, including Health Portfolio Manager Boyd Peters.

 Virginia says that achieving accreditation was a "glorious moment, and a great accomplishment for the team."

 "It was quite a process, and we are delighted to be successful. One thing that drove us is that we really wanted to provide the highest level of care possible to our community. And, going through the accreditation process has not only raised the quality of our health care services, it has raised the organization as a whole -- our integrity, our strength, our standards. It has furthered and built up our entire organization. For example, occupational health and safety is more supported now."

 Virginia, who has served as health director for the past 15 years, has lived in Sts'ailes her whole life -- since 1942. She says that when she was growing up, all services, including health services, were horrifically inadequate. A nurse would come in once a month for immunizations, x-rays, and other things. Virginia is very pleased to see all the progress Sts'ailes has made, including reaching its latest goal of achieving accreditation.

 She attributes the community's success to the fact that they consider the cultural and spiritual components of anything before proceeding. She says they believe in the Creator / Chichel Siyam ("Great Spirit, held in high esteem"), and incorporate Sts'ailes culture and spirituality into everything they do, including their health and family services and programs.

 "We want to help community members from before birth -- prenatal care -- to the end of their lives, the spirit life. We would really like the community to know that this department's programs and services are built on their heath needs. We include all components of our life cycle and values, we recognize the strength of the spiritual. We need to combine the spiritual parts with the clinical parts. And we need to work together as a team; we need each other. As we would often say to encourage each other throughout the accreditation process, 'Teamwork makes a dream work.'"

 Another team member is Sts'ailes Health Program Manager Marg Hamilton, a Registered Nurse who has worked in the community for almost 16 years. When she first started, she worked from a tiny trailer serving 11 communities. For the past 12 years, she has worked from the Sts'ailes Health Services Centre, which is attached to the band administration office. Marg served as Accreditation Coordinator for both the primary stage in 2012-13 and the second stage in 2013-14. Each stage took one and half years to complete, with the whole process concluded in November 2014.

 Marg says that each of the 15 team members took a role in the effort, and that achieving accreditation is a "dream come true" for them.

"We see it as a wonderful gift from all of the staff to the community – a gift that guarantees their service providers are totally committed to them. We are all grassroots people, so we had to believe we could do this – we were nervous when we started in 2012, but by the time we made it through the first stage, we had grown into it and learned we could do it. Everyone was so committed – we encouraged and pushed each other to be on the same page, to respect each other, to work together, and to move at the same pace. Our faith and confidence grew through this major effort."

 The team is very proud of the fact that accreditation shows the community and others that they meet international standards with regard to best practices and health care, Marg says. "We are so excited to be really making a difference that will push people further into the future. It's for their children, families and themselves."

 Accreditation is a continual process of quality improvement, so the Sts'ailes Health Services Department will be working to maintaining their standards of excellence and accreditation status. Their next assessment is in 2018.