Vitalité santé!

A Major Project for Manitoba’s Francophone Community

Réseau Compassion Network (RCN) and its community partners have obtained the support of Health Canada through the Société Santé en français to implement the Vitalité santé! initiative which aims to develope a comprehensive action plan to align and coordinate strategies and activities for the training and recruiting of bilingual health and social service workers. We’ll be exploring along the continuum of secondary education to professional settings.

A partnership between RCN, Shared Health, Université de Saint-Boniface (USB), Santé en français Manitoba, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Villa Youville (representing arural employer) and the Centre de santé Saint-Boniface (representing an urban employer), which make up the steering committee, as well as a large number of organizations called upon to contribute to the project through their participation in the partners’ table. The initial five-year project aims to adapt existing services to improve access, develop knowledge about the needs of Francophone communities, and facilitate the integration of human resources in the health and social services fields.

In the opinion of Réseau Compassion Network Board Chair Arlene Wilgosh, “RCN and the many community partners involved are proud to combine their respective efforts and expertise in an effort to develop a robust plan that identifies innovative projects to fill gaps and implement initiatives that will be sustainable and benefit all stakeholders.”

With this plan in hand, it will be possible to align and coordinate strategies and

activities for training, recruitment and retention of a bilingual workforce in order to promote equitable access to health and social services where they have been identified as a priority, particularly among the most vulnerable francophones.

“Université de Saint-Boniface remains committed to cultivating close ties with players in the health and francophone sectors to work together to train and recruit bilingual health professionals,” shares Peter Dorrington,

Vice-Rector, Teaching and Research. “Vitalité santé! will be a foundational project for the development of the healthcare system’s capacity to offer services in French. USB is proud to act as a catalyst for change with its partners.”

“This project will enable the network of partners to optimize existing strategies and activities, while creating favourable conditions for the development of potential new solutions to meet human resources needs in Manitoba’s health and social services sector,” emphasizes Joel Lafond, Provincial Manager (Francophone Health, Health System Integration and Planning) at Shared Health. As a partner, Shared Health is committed to supporting the development of new strategies and innovative initiatives and to implementing them by including them in the provincial health human resources plan to ensure that Manitoba can continue, and even increase, the offer of services in French.”

Réseau Compassion Network is proud to act as a leader in this project, which is closely aligned with its mission to identify unmet needs in the community and respond to them to the best of its ability. RCN is proud to be a signatory of the Ottawa Declaration, which includes thirteen (13) major principles, six values and seven commitments that serve to inspire health and social service establishments to prioritize their actions to improve the offer of services and programs serving the French-speaking population. Eleven (11) of our member organizations are designated bilingual or offer services in both official languages.