Advancing Cultural Safety at Vancouver Coastal Health

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On June 21, 2016, the FNHA launched a provincial campaign to support the advancement of cultural safety and humility in the British Columbia health system. The #itstartswithme campaign is centered around personal change for better health services for Aboriginal people. Health care providers are encouraged to learn more about cultural safety and cultural humility in health care and to make personal pledges of commitment to change their everyday practices.

The VCH Population Health Executive Team recently made personal pledges as part of the #itstartswithme campaign. "Vancouver Coastal Health is committed to increasing the cultural safety of our health services," said Dr. Patty Daly, Chief Medical Health Officer and VP Population Health. "From the Sanyas Indigenous Cultural Safety online training to the VCH Cultural Competency policy to projects and services across the region jointly overseen by VCH and FNHA, we are working to hard-wire cultural safety into VCH at an organizational level. I strongly encourage everyone to join the #itstartswithme campaign and make a pledge of commitment to work toward improving the cultural safety of VCH." 


Cultural humility is a life-long process of self-reflection to understand personal and systemic biases and to develop and maintain mutually respectful relationships with clients. It involves humbly acknowledging oneself as a learner when it comes to understanding another person's experience. Cultural safety is an outcome based on respectful engagement that recognizes and strives to address power imbalances inherent in the healthcare system. 

In July 2015, all BC Health Authority CEOs signed a provincial declaration on cultural safety and humility. This Declaration of Commitment is a mandate for all health professionals to increase cultural safety and humility within their practice.

To learn more about cultural safety and Aboriginal Health, please visit:
http://www.sanyas.ca/ 
http://aboriginalhealth.vch.ca/
www.fnha.ca/culturalhumility/

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