HAZELTON, British Columbia – Two Northwest Community College students enrolled in a community-delivered program in the First Nations Village of Gitsegukla have finished working with a team from the Hazelton area on a project called “Improving Health Literacy in Communities.”

Essential Skills for Work students Gordon Howard and Evan Brown were part of an eight-person team that included Program Coordinator Casey Forslund, two former NWCC students now at University of Northern British Columbia, plus two health care professionals and a literacy advocate from the Storytellers Foundation in Old Hazelton.

The group was flown to Vancouver three times over the last eight months for “learning sessions” then back to the communities for “action periods” to implement its ideas and plans. The goal was to get literacy and health workers collaborating as it has been proven that literacy has a direct and powerful effect on personal health outcomes.

“In the organizers words, the aim of the Health Literacy Collaborative is to work together to improve how health care professionals and patients access, understand, evaluate and communicate information in an office practice within a community,” Forslund said. “The project revolved around three main goals – building relationships, increasing understanding and partnering.”

After community and student consultation, the group produced a DVD that is now a tool for health practitioners new to the Hazelton area – a “cultural primer” or “Gitxsan 101” as the students put it, that gives them tools, techniques, knowledge etc. to help make them more effective health care workers in the culturally distinct area.

Forslund said the group had a chance to present its work to a crowd of British Columbia government ministers, health authority officials and international health care executives, among others and the students came away from the project for the better.

“It empowered the students, we were able to provide meaningful input to the collaborative, the project brought about an awareness of health literacy issues and changed the way patients and practitioners approach their relationship in and outside the clinic,” Forslund said. “Evan and Gordon had amazing opportunities to meet officials from different organizations and give powerful and candid input from a literacy learner’s perspective – their suggestions greatly helped shape the ideas that came out of the sessions.” He added NWCC grads Orie Shiga and Claire Wiebe showcased their professionalism, knowledge and skill by jumping in on the project midway and excelling at all the tasks they were given.

Practitioners who come to the community will now have the DVD as a guide that Forslund thinks will positively affect health care in the area over the long term.

The team is hosting a release party for the community in Gitsegukla in late February and there is a follow-up teleconference in four months where teams can reconnect and share where they have taken health literacy initiatives after the collaborative ended. More about the project can be seen online.