The Healthy Family Program Renewal Project is a two-year project to review and renew the Healthy Family Program. The Healthy Family Program is run by the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Hotıì ts'eeda has been asked by the Department of Health and Social Services to take on the work necessary to renew the program. Hotıì ts'eeda is doing engagements and discussion with community members and will make recommendations for how the program should be renewed.

What We Are Doing

The goals of the project are to

• Gather information to better understand parenting in the NWT; and,
• Ground a new Healthy Family Program in features unique to NWT communities and their population.

The project is currently in the research and evaluation phase. The project team is visiting nine communities across the NWT.

The purpose of the visits are to have engagements and discussion to learn about the experiences of parents, the needs of families of young children, and specifically what kind of parenting activity or service is needed in the community.

We are learning from community members in different ways

• Parent/caregiver survey – to ask parents about what kind of parenting activity or service they would like to see;
• Sharing circles/engagements- to talk about experiences of parenting, the needs of families with young children, and priorities for programming;
• Staff workshops - with community level staff who work with young children/families every day; and,
• Interviews and site visits with Healthy Family Program staff.

Community Visits: Schedule

• Délı̨nę – January 11-12, 2019
• Inuvik – January 21-23, 2019
• Tsiigehtchic – January 24, 2019
• Hay River – February 4, 2019
• Kátł’odeeche First Nation – February 5, 2019
• Fort Providence – February 18, 2019
• Yellowknife – January 31 and February 21-22 2019
• N'Dilo - February 21, 2019
• Behchokǫ̀ and Whatì  – February 27, 2019
• Tuktoyaktuk – March 4, 2019

Next steps:

Hotıì ts'eeda will write a report based on what we learned in the research and evaluation phase, and use this to make recommendations to pilot a new program design (Spring 2019-Spring 2020)