Health Navigation
Applications for the Indigenous Health Navigation Funds are now open!
Step one: Below is a guide to the Health Navigation application. Please read and gather any questions you have about the program and application process.
Step two: Attend the Health Navigation webinar and Q&A happening on Wednesday, May 24th at 1:00pm EST. You can skip step two if you have no questions.
Step three: Complete the application form:
Important application information
- Please note that funding is limited and not every application is guaranteed funding. Friendship Centres and Provincial/Territorial Associations are eligible to apply for up to $200,000 to support existing Health Navigator projects.
Program Overview
The NAFC was recently awarded with 2.5 million for the Health Navigation Program to help support anti-Indigenous racism pilot projects in health care. This funding can be used to fund positions in health navigation or upscale existing projects and positions for health navigation. Through the Friendship Centre Movement, we intend for the program to help increase the safety and accessibility of health services, facilitate equitable access to healthcare services for Indigenous people, and ensure that Indigenous people can access hospitals and healthcare systems in a culturally safer manner.
Webinar
- Save the date! Join the NAFC Programs Team for a Webinar and Q&A on Wednesday, May 24th at 1:00pm EST!
- Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86072268848?pwd=WFZoV2FDRTgvcWVZZUZRRk1sc09Cdz09
There is important work that needs to be done to address racism in healthcare and ensure that Indigenous people can access their right to healthcare with dignity and respect. The goals of the Urban Indigenous Health Navigation Program are:
- To enhance health support capacity in Friendship Centres
- Fund health navigators placed in Friendship Centres and other urban Indigenous organizations as a harm reduction measure while continuing to work on systemic change.
- Support existing Health Navigation policy work at Friendship Centres such as urban Indigenous health frameworks.
- All NAFC-member Friendship Centres and Provincial / Territorial Associations are eligible to apply for a health navigator project.
- Project activities support patient advocates, health system navigators and cultural safety training for medical professionals.
- Must be able to show how the project will work towards achieving the following outcomes:
- Increasing the safety and accessibility of health services for Indigenous people
- Helping to facilitate equitable access to healthcare services for Indigenous people; and/or
- Ensuring that Indigenous people can access hospitals and healthcare systems in a culturally safer manner.
- Friendship Centres and Territorial Associations are eligible to apply for up to $200,000 to support an existing Health Navigator project.
- PTAs can apply on behalf of a Friendship Centre or a group of Friendship Centres in their region. For example, a PTA can submit a proposal on behalf of a Friendship Centre that is looking to expand a health navigation project. Alternatively, a PTA can submit a proposal for a wider-scale project on behalf of a group of Friendship Centres in the same region.
Eligible expenses include but are not limited to:
- Overhead costs: including costs related to central administrative functions of the recipient organization that are drawn upon to support agreement activities (such as shared postage, telephones, information technology maintenance and head office support).
- Materials & supplies: the cost of materials and supplies such as printing and communication costs
- Staff capacity and training: wages and mandatory employment-related costs: staff training and professional development
- Professional fees: such as research, audit, legal, assessment and evaluation, consultants, IT technical expertise, facilitation.
- Other costs: costs necessary to support project implementation such as events and stakeholder meetings, and activities related to community engagement and donor cultivation.
- Capital costs for the construction of a building or the purchase of land or buildings are not eligible.
From Wednesday, May 24th to Wednesday, June 7th, the NAFC will hold a call for proposals to release Health Navigator Program funds to Friendship Centres. Health Navigator projects can run until March 2024 with possible flexibility.
Applications will be open from Wednesday, May 24th until Wednesday, June 7th, 2023, at 11:59PM EST.
Applicants should expect to receive a decision two weeks after the application deadline.
- Projects should start no later than July 1st, 2023, and should be complete by the end of fiscal 2023-24. There may be some flexibility in carrying over funding into the next fiscal year, but this is not guaranteed.