Connectedness, Purpose, and Belonging: Role of Social Prescribing in Integrating Health Care and Social Supports

Date: April 29 2020

Presenters:

• Sonia Hsuing, Social Prescribing Lead, Alliance for Healthier Communities. She is experienced in managing projects and partnerships across corporate and non-profit sectors, and coordinates Ontario’s first social prescribing project, implemented in Community Health Centres across diverse urban, rural, Francophone, and Northern regions in the province.

As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that we all recognize how essential social and community supports are in times of self-isolation and quarantines, and in the aftermath of emergencies. Studies from the 2003 SARS outbreak and other emergencies show that after isolation, those with denser social networks were much less likely to subsequently suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Learn how social prescribing is an intentional pathway that deepens the integration between health care and social supports, how it relates to your work, and how we can build a more connected, co-created, equitable, and resilient community together.

The Alliance for Healthier Communities has implemented a social prescribing pilot project called Rx: Community – Social Prescribing in Ontario in 11 Community Health Centres (CHCs) across Ontario. These CHCs represent a diverse mix of urban, rural, Northern, and Francophone communities. This initiative aims to improve health outcomes for marginalized and socially isolated people and to reduce health systems utilization by creating a clinical pathway between mainstream health systems and community and voluntary supports, which has shown promising results and galvanized wide interest nationally.