How a language protocol turns into winning strategies
The project Winning strategies to serve francophones was born in 2022 out of an initiative of the Francophone working group at the Kids Come First Ontario Health Team (OHT). Initially called Linguistic Protocol, the project was aiming at systematically offering patients the option of receiving services in French, from the outset. This was a recommendation from the report Portrait of Health Service Needs for Francophone Children and Youth and Their Families .
The project is a model of collaboration and engagement, bringing together all service-providing organizations around a set of actions that promote active offer. And these actions constitute what we now call “winning strategies”.
The needs study revealed the importance of French-language services for young Francophones. These young people said that these services enabled them to express themselves more clearly, to feel understood and to have greater confidence in support and health services. And their parents said that obtaining services in French is critical to family and children’s understanding and communication of needs.
Recommendations and strategies
The strategies were developed in response to several of the report’s recommendations.
- Prioritize the provision of a continuum of services in French.
- Develop the ability to refer clients to services offered in French.
- Develop a regional strategy to implement best practices rooted in the principles of active offer of health services in French.
- Include care and service providers who offer all or most of their services in English in the project.
Project funding
The Société Santé en français provides funding to the Kids Come First OHT to implement the project within the nine Ontario Health Teams that signed up.
