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SACYHN Working Groups are task-oriented groups or committees that undertake specific projects or strategies that have been identified as priority actions. Working Groups are comprised of Steering Committee members, Network member organization staff, and parents or youth with specific expertise or interest in a topic. Support for the Working Groups is provided by SACYHN staff.
Advancing the vision and mission of the Network is in many ways about communication. Changing the culture of working relationships, embracing new ways of working, and improving connections and linkages across child serving sectors and regions requires consistent messages delivered in all sectors. Supporting the broader community's role in child health and well being and encouraging parent/youth participation requires communication activities that extend beyond the service systems to the public at large.
The Communication Working Group provides direction and guidance for SACYHN communication activities and has developed an initial communication plan for the Network. The Communication Working Group:
| • | provides communication expertise to the Network |
| • | assists with development of consistent key messages |
| • | guides implementation of the Network communication plan |
| • | establishes and recommends initial and/or annual communication priorities |
| • | identifies key stakeholder groups |
| • | identifies potential communication opportunities and vehicles |
| • | determines resources required to undertake communication activities |
| • | identifies potential partnerships to facilitate communication activities |
| • | develops/receives, approves, and disseminates communication materials |
| • | provides communications support and/or consultation to other SACYHN Working Groups or specific projects/activities |
| • | provides a communication linkage to providers within their own sectors |
| • | assists with ad hoc communication opportunities. |
For more information, please contact Catherine Morrison at (403) 955-2297 or catherine.morrison@albertahealthservices.ca
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SACYHN recognizes education or knowledge exchange as a strategy that can:
| • | support and value service providers in all child-serving sectors |
| • | strengthen community capacity |
| • | increase collaboration |
| • | improve coordination, continuity, and quality of care across regions and child-serving sectors |
The Education Working Group’s mandate is to explore opportunities to foster meaningful, shared health and related education for professionals and families across sectors, organizations, and regions. To achieve this mandate they will look to: create opportunities for cross-sector information exchange and capacity building; develop strategies to leverage access to existing educational opportunities across the Network; and facilitate access to education as close to home as possible, using an array of delivery options.
Two sets of complementary objectives for professionals and for families have been developed.
For professionals, the Education Working Group will:
| • | create opportunities to build common knowledge and professional capacity to address broad child health issues across sectors and regions |
| • | develop strategies to share expertise, experience, and evidence-based practice across the Network |
| • | foster professional-to-professional, and professional-to-family connections through shared education |
For families, the Education Working Group will:
| • | support the Family and Community Resource Centre in relation to family education |
| • | identify activities or strategies to build on the individual family’s capacity to address their own child health issue |
| • | identify opportunities to increase family knowledge of varied health-related issues |
| • | foster family-to-family and family-to-professional connections through shared education |
For more information, please contact Marc Leduc at (403) 358-4363 or mleduc@dthr.ab.ca
For current SACYHN supported educational opportunities, see our Education Calendar.
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The SACYHN Steering Committee is committed to evaluating the Network's functioning, impact and outcomes to provide an evidence-based foundation for decisions regarding the direction of the Network.
One of the first working groups to be established, the Evaluation Working Group currently includes a multidisciplinary combination of researchers and evaluation experts from the University of Calgary, Alberta Health Services, and the Children’s Services Ministry.
A number of comprehensive evaluation reports have been produced (see SACYHN publications), as well as a groundbreaking review of network literature Network Literature Review: Conceptualizing and Evaluating Networks 2002 which continues to guide the Network's thinking about both evaluation and Network sustainability.
The Evaluation Working Group:
| • | provides academic evaluation expertise |
| • | develops and evolves the evaluation framework for SACYHN |
| • | establishes research priorities |
| • | provides research and evaluation advice to SACYHN projects |
| • | identifies key stakeholder groups for inclusion in Network evaluation activities |
| • | consults parents and youth or other stakeholders as necessary in developing evaluation processes for SACYHN |
| • | determines resources required to undertake evaluation |
| • | identifies potential funding sources for evaluation activities |
| • | assists with development of evaluation funding proposals |
| • | guides implementation of Network evaluation processes |
| • | guides development of evaluation reports and assists with identification of dissemination strategies |
| • | contributes, as interested, to publications arising from evaluation activities |
| • | liaises with other initiatives (internal and external) with a view to identifying potential opportunities for collaboration, research, or funding. |
For more information, please contact Catherine Morrison at (403) 955-2297 or catherine.morrison@albertahealthservices.ca
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Family Youth Participation Working Group
Parents form the core of the Family Youth Participation Working Group, which promotes the involvement of families in the planning, development, ongoing operation, and evaluation of the Southern Alberta Child & Youth Health Network. Their role is to:
| • | assist in building supportive parent to parent connections within regions and across sectors |
| • | create opportunities for the collective voices of families to be heard by service providers and policy makers |
| • | promote and support the involvement of families in all Network activities or projects |
| • | assist in tracking, evaluating and reporting on opportunities for family inclusion in the Network with a view to improving processes for parent/youth participation. |
A Process for Initial Parent/Youth Consultations was developed to assist agencies and organizations to obtain input from families.
For more information, please contact Catherine Morrison at (403) 955-2297 or catherine.morrison@albertahealthservices.ca
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Inter-regional Childhood Obesity Working Group
Childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions across Canada. In Alberta, over 20% of children and adolescents are considered overweight or obese. This is an alarming trend since research shows that compared to children of healthy weight, overweight children are at increased risk for developing serious life threatening chronic health problems at a younger age.
At the direction of the SACYHN Steering Committee the Inter-regional Childhood Obesity Working Group was established to identify inter-regional priorities, develop an action plan to address the priorities and identify opportunities for collaboration and sharing. Membership is voluntary and includes health representatives from central and southern Alberta.
For more information please contact Catherine Morrison at (403) 955-2297 or catherine.morrison@albertahealthservices.ca
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