Evaluation of the Aboriginal Health Human Resources Initiative and the Aboriginal Health Transition Fund

Last Updated: February 3, 2014

Bonnie Jeffery, PhD (Principal Investigator)
Tom McIntosh, PhD (Principal Investigator)
Sylvia Abonyi, PhD (Co-Investigator)
  (Co-Investigator)
  (Co-Investigator)

SPHERU was contracted to provide an evaluation of two First Nations-related health programs. The Aboriginal Health Human Resources Initiative (AHHRI) is a project designed to provide conditions for optimizing the future supply, mix and distribution of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis health workforce in ways that are responsive to the unique and diverse health needs of First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Its goal is to achieve and maintain an adequate supply of qualified First Nations, Inuit and Métis health care providers, appropriately educated and supported to ensure culturally competent and safe health care, as well as facilitate the adaptation of health care educational curricula to improve the cultural competence of graduates providing health care services.

Another project, the Aboriginal Health Transition Fund (AHTF), was created to support First Nations and Inuit communities and organizations in implementing the integration of existing federally funded health systems within First Nations and Inuit communities with provincial/territorial health systems; and provinces and territories to adapt their existing health services to better meet the needs of all Aboriginal peoples.

Goals / Outcomes: For the three-phase, multi-year project, the SPHERU team was to develop evaluation frameworks for the AHHRI and the AHTF, to determine whether their goals and objectives were met successfully. This culminated in a Phase I report released in June 2007.

In Phase II of the study, from September 2007 to March 2008, the team developed and delivered two workshops in Prince Albert designed to assist Aboriginal Health Human Resource Initiative (AHHRI) and Aboriginal Health Transition Fund (AHTF) project managers in their project evaluation plans. To help with the workshops, the team created an evaluation workbook. It also provided consultation with AHHRI and AHTF project managers to support progress on their evaluation plans and gathered data related to the regional evaluation plan for the AHHRI and AHTF initiatives.

During Phase III (April 2008 and March 2009) the team oversaw a follow-up meeting with AHHRI and AHTF project leaders for the purpose of advancing project specific evaluations, assisting with data collection methods for their projects and collecting data for the regional evaluations. Other work in the phase included a regional review of AHHRI and a mid-term progress review of AHTF, as well as a Learning Conference.

Funder: First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB), Saskatchewan Region of Health Canada

Related Documents