Women's Health Circles Tools Launched

 

The Ontario Women's Health Network and project partners launched two new tools for conducting Women's Health Circles on March 31, 2009 at the Parliament Library, Toronto. 

 

These resources include the Women's Health Circles Handbook, which is based on the experiences of three pilot sites in Ottawa, downtown east Toronto and Sudbury and offers different approaches to coordinating and conducting Health Circles with women in their communities. The companion guide, Key to Women's Health: Stroke Resource Guide for Health Circles illustrates how to link discussions on the social determinants of health or other topics chosen by women attending Women's Health Circles to the risk factors, signs and symptoms of stroke. 

 

Launch attendees heard first hand about the experiences of the pilot sites in a presentation and discussion led by Inclusion Researchers; women who have experienced marginalization and who have been employed and trained to conduct Inclusion Research and who peer facilitated Health Circles. 

 

Health Circles are collective education forums that offer women the opportunity to explore a health topic in the context of the social determinants of health, share their thoughts and experiences with each other, ask questions of participating health and social service providers and learn about community resources. The Circles also offer health and social service providers the opportunity to learn about the lived experiences of women in order to create more appropriate and sensitive care. 

 

Women's Health Circles were developed in response to feedback from over 350 marginalized women in more than 50 focus groups throughout Ontario. Women have told us that:

 

* Coming together to address health concerns is a preferred way to receive health information for many women.

 

* Focus groups created a sense of belonging and of being heard for the first time. 

 

* They wished to talk about many other health issues in the small group format.

 

* The safety and security of peer-led groups is an ideal place to learn and share about health issues in the very broad way they understand them.

 

The Women's Health Circles resources are available online at www.owhn.on.ca and in hard copy from OWHN. These resources are part of a series of discussion tools to facilitate the inclusion of women's voices in health and health care. 

 

These projects were coordinated by Ontario Women Health Network and our project partners include:

 

Women's Health Circles: Asset Mapping Research Project (AMRP) of the Toronto Christian Resource Centre, Immigrant Women Services Ottawa, Sudbury Women's Centre (SWC)

 

Key to Women's Health: AMRP, SWC, Region of Peel, Public Health Department, Heart & Stroke Foundation of Ontario, Southeast Toronto Stroke Network

 

The Women's Health Circles Handbook and Key to Women's Health projects have been generously funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion, respectively. The views expressed in the projects and at the launch are not necessarily those of the funders.

 

For more information: OWHN at [log in to unmask] or 416-408-4840 
 
 
 

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Christina Lessels
Communications & Research Officer
Ontario Women's Health Network
416-408-4840
1-877-860-4545
www.owhn.on.ca

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