IPF Partnership
Brief description of the CCC IPF Project
The project is designed to support the frontline health care providers to connect with the ethnic and heritage communities and facilitating them to perform their role as vaccinators and vaccine promotors. The project will build the cultural and language appropriate platform to convey the messages of vaccinations, countering misinformation, and lay out the route for the people to connect with the vaccinators. The project primary goal is to confront the challenges of vaccination hesitancy among the East and Southeast Asians in selected target areas in the GTA and provide the information and assistance for them to take the vaccination. The project will be flexible in determining the primary target population throughout the lifespan of the project in the next 17 months to be determined by the uptake trend, pattern, and challenges. The project will also keep adjusting its operation strategy to align with the developing policy of the government, such as the possibility of introducing the second booster shot in the future.
In order to support the health care providers, the project partnership group will maintain constant communication with the health care providers with the purpose of create synergy for the benefit of the target populations.
Beside working closely with the health care providers, the project will develop relevant education tools, participate in various cultural and heritage community events, delivering education workshops and hotline service to engage and motivate the ethnic peoples. With equal importance, the project will develop the human capital to work at the frontline. These local opinion leaders and specially trained volunteers will help to achieve the project objectives. They will also keep working it the community after the end of the project.
The “project beneficiaries” will be the East and South Asians residing in the ethnic and heritage communities in Toronto, Peel and York Region. The primary beneficiaries are people with vaccine hesitancy due to anxiety, lack of information, cultural and language barriers, and stigma, who needs support to connect with vaccinators, and mislead by misinformation. Among them are newcomers, people with no or very low social supports, homebound and isolated people.
About the Project
The “Building Trust for Action” is a project initiated and led by the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto with six other groups of ethnic, heritage, and culturally based organizations aiming at addressing the problem of COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy among specific ethnic and heritage groups residing in Toronto, York Region and Peel Region. The project will be using a “culturally competent” and “patient-centred” approach to address the problem of mistrust, risk perception and decision-making in vaccines and vaccination within the ethnic communities, with focus on the East and South Asian communities. The partnership group will serve as the educator, informer, supporter, and facilitator at the ground level to support the works of the health service providers and other institutions.
The CCC-IPF Partners :
- Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto (Lead)
- Canadian Multicultural Council – Asians in Ontario
- Korean Canadian Cultural Association
- South Asian Culture & Health Association
- The Cross-Cultural Community Services Association
- Toronto Hakka Heritage Alliance
Key project activities
This is a new project initiated by a group of ethnic, heritage, and culturally based organizations aiming at supplementing the works of the government and health service providers to address the problem of COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy among specific ethnic and heritage groups residing in Toronto, York Region and Peel Region. Lead by the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto, the collaboration will be composed of ethnic, heritage, and culturally based organizations, broad-based community service organizations and a medical advisory team formed by physicians and health practitioners and networks.
The project will be focusing on using a “culturally competent” and “patient-centred” approach to address the challenges of mistrust, risk perception and decision-making in vaccines and vaccination. The project will build culturally effective communication channels, interpersonal support networks, and educational activities and tools to:
- Reinforce and support people to take the proper actions of getting vaccinated.
- To modify the decision-making of the “doubters” within the East and South Asian communities to address the following key factors – attitudes, social norms, identity, culture and cultural norms, structural barriers, and habit.
- The project will establish networks and feedback channels to monitor public opinion. We shall listen to and monitoring public opinion of the specify ethnic communities within the targeted geographical areas before misconceptions and fears become widespread by responding to them in a cultural and language appropriate manner before they escalate.
- Project structure and activities will be developed according to 6 interventions strategies –
1) information and education provision;
2) behaviour-change support;
3) skills and competencies development;
4) personal support;
5) communication and decision-making facilitation;
6) system participation