Community Wellness Program

Community Wellness continues to access funds from several federal programs including Brighter Futures, Canadian Prenatal Nutrition Program (CPNP) and the Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres (UMAYC) initiative.

Brighter Futures

Health Canada developed Brighter Futures cooperatively with First Nations and Inuit communities to improve the physical, mental and social well-being of aboriginal children, their families and communities. It is based upon the following principles:

• To strengthen and support the child, family and community.
• To be community based.
• To be community paced.
• To provide a complete range of care so that communities can create programs from health promotion to prevention and treatment to aftercare.
• To include the community in the development and delivery of programs.
• To coordinate and link all activities so Brighter Futures programs can be linked to existing programs in the community.

For consideration by Brighter Futures, projects must include one or more of the following elements:

1. Community Mental Health
2. Child Development
3. Injury Prevention
4. Healthy Babies
5. Parenting Skills

In the ISR, applications and guidelines for Brighter Futures are available through the community corporations in Aklavik, Inuvik, Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, Tuktoyaktuk and Ulukhaktok.

Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program

The Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program (CPNP) is funded by Health Canada with the following goals:

1. More babies will be born healthy and have healthy birth weights.
2. The health of pregnant women will be improved.
3. More mothers will breastfeed their babies and for longer periods of time.
4. There will be more partnerships and collaboration among pregnant women, families, community groups, nutritionists, health professionals and governments.

Through CPNP, programs were funded in all the ISR communities.

Youth Activities in the ISR

The Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres (UMAYC) initiative continues to provide significant amounts of funding for youth centres in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. Under federal guidelines, these are the only eligible communities in the ISR to date.