8. Health promotion activities and outreach - II
Health promotion tasks
Other events
LAZO's regular events also were used to recruit more women into the project, and to provide health information. For example, every year LAZO organizes a mother's day event, a summer picnic, a day to commemorate violence against women, a children's Hallowe'en party, and a Christmas celebration, as well as crafts sessions and workshops on dealing with abusive relationships. Since the LHP/PRs also were LAZO members, they took the opportunity of talking about up-coming workshops and other activities of Mujer Sana-Comunidad Sana at all LAZO events. For more information on LAZO events, go to What's New.
Workshops
Lay Health Promoters/Participatory Researchers (LHP/PRs) conducted workshops and gave presentations in different public locations across the city, for example at community health centres, community resource centres, churches, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, and an embassy. Childcare was provided on-site when needed. Small workshops were also organized in the homes of LHP/PRs and in the homes of other community women, with great success. The workshops addressed cancer screening issues, focusing on breast self and clinical examination, mammography, and the importance of regular pap tests. The videos "A Touch of Prevention" and "Por su salud y la Familia" (For your Health and your Family), from the Cancer Research Foundation of America, were frequently shown. "A Touch of Prevention" is a well-known educational tool developed by the Ontario Breast Screening Program. It was translated and voiced-over in Spanish by one of the LHP/PRs, to meet the needs of the Hispanic women participating in sessions held for this project.
Shopping Centre displays
The Lay Health Promoters/Participatory Researchers developed a display and information table, which was set up during various week-ends at shopping centres throughout the Ottawa region. Information was available in Spanish and in English. Although over one hundred Hispanic women were contacted at these shopping centre displays, they were discontinued after the first few months, since fewer 'new' women were being reached using this method.
Home visits
Home visits were the cornerstone of the lay health promotion program. They provided a way for Lay Health Promoters/Participatory Researchers (LHP/PRs) to speak with women in a more private setting, permitting a more intensive and personal educational session. LHP/PRs used the home visits to demonstrate and teach breast self-examination, and provide information about mammography and pap tests. Some of these visits required follow-up, including accompaniment to appointments, referrals to other services and resources, and provision of additional health information. LHP/PRs realized that these visits often led to uncovering many other issues that women had been struggling with, sometimes related to their own health, but frequently concerns they had about other family members and a range of situations. For example, a woman might seek advise about how to speak with her doctor about a pap test, and also wants to know how to get her husband in for a prostate exam, or how to deal with an adolescent's problems in school. The openness and warmth of the LHP/PRs, and their skills as trained listeners during these visits, coupled with communication in a common language, led to many referrals to community resources and service organizations that otherwise would not have happened.
English as a Second Language classes (ESL)
The Lay Health Promoters/Participatory Researchers (LHP/PRs) were invited to do workshops at ESL-classes. The workshops were done in English, and consisted of a short presentation on the project and on breast screening practices followed by small group discussions in which the messages were reinforced. Some of the women did not have family doctors. Being newcomers, others had not yet qualified for provincial health insurance. Information was given out about health centers and how to find a doctor. These workshops were directed at women from many linguistic backgrounds, thus beginning outreach to other ethnocultural communities as part of the transfer phase of the project.
Networking and presentations
Another goal of the project's overall health promotion strategy was to make the service providing community more aware of the needs of the Hispanic community; and, also, to make the Hispanic community be more active and more present among those who make decisions related to health services in our region. The Lay Health Promoters/Participatory Researchers (LHP/PRs), and other members of the project, also were encouraged to 'network' with other agencies and organizations, for example, to attend meetings of the Multicultural Health Coalition and of the Centretown Community Health Centre Board of Directors. They were also encouraged and supported to participate in community conferences such as the Social Planning Council's "Building the Ottawa Mosaic Conference on Issues regarding Ethno-cultural Minorities in Ottawa", and the Symposium on "Research and Evaluation in a Learning Community", organized by the Community-based Research Network of Ottawa. LHP/PRs made presentations and developed new contacts at provincial, national, and international meetings, such as the annual meeting of the Association of Ontario Community Health Centres. See Project chronology for more detail.
