HELP Ottawa is fortunate to be working with four distinct communities and pilot sites across Ottawa. The two Community Health Centres and two faith communities were selected through a rigorous and time-intensive process based on indicators for success and background information provided by Compassionate Ottawa. The selection criteria include:
- community capacity;
- a commitment to the vision of the project;
- stable leadership throughout the duration of the project; and
- a willingness to undertake additional work to meet the objectives of the project.
There was also consideration given to variation among the sites, aiming for diversity in urban/rural, ethnicity, average income, average age, and so on, that helped guide decision-making. This comparative case study design gives us factors we can compare and contrast between and across sites, which become important points of discussion in the findings. Learnings like these inform future efforts to choose HELP sites. We understand that these communities as not representative of all communities, but rather provide an opportunity to begin to understand and explore ways to build compassionate communities.
Visit our pilot sites: