Group will assist families navigating health care
Workshops aim to help Black, racialized and low-income people access resources
A new organization that helps Black, racialized and low-income families access the health-care system has secured enough funding to operate for the next three years.
For those who founded Windsor-essex Families Matter, which will receive $255,000, it is a deeply personal endeavour.
“We were all racialized,” said co-founder Holly Dao. “Most of the group is Black. We all grew up in households with low income or language barriers or we came from different countries. We witnessed it ourselves as children, and now as parents, too. There is a lack of support for parents that look like us, or people that look like us, or even speak our language.”
Windsor-essex Families Matter will receive the funding over three years from the Ontario Trillium Foundation's Youth Opportunities Fund.
The goal is to help at least 90 families by offering workshops, one-on-support, community partnerships and other resources.
The monthly workshops will include lunch or dinner, information booklets and free transportation if required. There will also be a celebration at the end of the year.
The first seminar is planned for June 24. Participants can take part virtually or in-person.
The workshops are meant to “empower” parents and caregivers, and teach them how to navigate the health care system.
“We know exactly what the issues are because we share the same experiences navigating the systems as other Black and racialized families,” said co-founder Nathen Crowley. “As parents, we face inequalities of access to information supports and discrimination in decision making and health outcomes in our own households and in the homes of other parents. It is our goal to provide education, support, and promote confidence and empowerment in order to successfully navigate the health care system to better support their children.”
Even when supports exist, Dao said they are difficult to access for many people.
“There is a systematic racism within the health-care system,” she said. “Even when it comes to health-care providers, there's not a lot of health-care providers that are racialized or black. So it's really hard for us to navigate these systems when we don't have the resources or supports as our non-racialized counterparts. They kind of have the networking and the connections that we wouldn't have.
“It comes to either just racism, our language barrier, or even not having the best income and not having the best resources to find these health-care providers that we would need.”