Health & Wellness

Community Health Education Program (CHEP)

The CHEP supported vulnerable English-speaking communities to receive health education information in their language. We collaborated with local community organizations to help identify priorities, connected with local health professionals, and bring together English speakers to receive important information.

2018 – 2023

Enhancing access to English-language information through partnerships & education

The CHEP program served to enhance access to English-language health information, resources, services, and support. The participating local communities created important partnerships with many diverse organizations and institutions:

Local CLSCs, hospitals, clinics, CISSS, and CIUSSS
Schools, Community Learning Centres (CLCs), and community organizations
Non-profit organizations
Community radio stations

Examples of Health Education Topics:

Fall prevention
Diabetes prevention
Nutrition and physical exercise
Heart Health
Isolation
Mental Health

The 5 pillars that made CHEP

Community involvement

Community networks select a health priority topic based on their community’s needs and in collaboration with their public health partners. The aim is to raise awareness and provide information to individuals and their communities where there’s a void in English health and social services information.

Expertise that helps fill the gap

Dynamic, interactive experts in their respective fields, CHEP presenters come from various health and social services backgrounds: nursing, counseling, psychology, education and community medicine. Invited guest speakers from organizations representing chosen topics complement the presenters.

Providing resources

The CHEP promotes resources through partnered organizations on a national, regional, or local level. Networks participating in the CHEP also make use of virtual sessions via video conference to bring groups and partners together to further disseminate health promotion and disease prevention information.

Follow-up activities

Activities beyond our conferences provide ongoing education, information, resources, and support to our partnered organizations. For example, following a video conference, participants can join support groups or create resource centres themselves to support their communities.

Community partners

All of our partnered organizations support a community network within the context of our NPI program. Most of these community organizations participate in at least three video conference sessions annually, and/or use the CHEP DVDs for health education sessions.