Social Paediatrics focuses on addressing the social determinants of health of children, including poverty, marginalization and racism through protecting vulnerable children from the cumulative negative effects of toxic stress and traumatic experiences on human development. Social Paediatrics focuses onbuilding and nurturing the network of support around the child – the Circle of the Child – founded on an appreciation of children’s inherent resiliency, and nurturing their capacity. It is a model based on science and evidence and promises to prepare children and adolescents for a successful and fulfilling adult life, in particular children and adolescents confronting the burden of stress and trauma. “Promoting Child and Youth Health and Rights in Vancouver through the RICHER Social Paediatrics Model”
For the past decade UBC has been engaged in a community, place-based partnership to enhance access to primary through specialist health care, to address inequities in health outcomes for some of Canada’s most socially vulnerable children and youth. The RICHER program provides Responsive, Intersectoral, interdisciplinary Child and Youth Health services with Education and Research opportunities, through a collaborative practice model based in multiple community sites in Vancouver’s Inner City. This relationship- centred, collaborative approach has allowed a diverse and disenfranchised community to develop shared vision and values, and to address inequities in access and ongoing violations of child/youth rights as set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Canada over 2 decades ago.
Children, youth and their families working with committed stakeholders from the community, Children’s & Women’s Hospital of BC,
Vancouver Coastal Health, and UBC have developed enduring and trusting relationships to work with government and non-government organizations, who are also tasked to up- hold the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This RICHER approach has facilitated an intersectoral service delivery model that is embedded and effective, allowing this com- munity and others to more fully address child and youth rights to access health, education, and safe spaces; and their rights to an identity, to participate, and to be heard.
Ardith Walkem: Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Indigenous communities and the child welfare system.
Presentation will explore the ways that Indigenous culture, community, land, and language form part of the identity and belonging for Indigenous children. Rather than looking at attachment and belonging from an impoverished view (seeing only parents or immediate family), equally, for Indigenous children, this broader network of belonging, and meaning, must be considered in planning to ensure their identity and connections over their lifetime. This presentation will explore the understanding that restoring the ability of our communities and Nation to become actively and meaningfully involved in caring for our children is necessary to break the cycle that keeps Indigenous children in disproportionate numbers entering into – and remaining within – the child welfare system.