Speakers
Description
Most BPSO organizations operate within institutional structures that were also the context in which evidence-based practice frameworks were developed. The Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority (SLFNHA) operates uniquely by providing community-based care with 17 sites and 8 community health hubs, across 33 First Nation communities in Ontario's Sioux Lookout region. SLFNHA is governed by Indigenous values, shaped by community relationships, and accountable to a geography where many communities are accessible only by air. Implementing evidence-informed practice recommendations in this context requires holding both Western clinical evidence and Indigenous ways of knowing simultaneously and equally — a Two-Eyed Seeing approach — not as compromise, but as design.
SLFNHA's aim is to build a foundation that makes BPG implementation successful, warmly welcomed, and sustainable — in a context where rushing toward practice change without that foundation would undermine the trust and relationships that make change possible at all.
Drawing on RNAO's Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) and Social Movement Action (SMA) frameworks, SLFNHA established a BPSO Steering Committee and BPSO Cultural Advisory Committee to anchor governance. Our Champion development was adapted for an Indigenous-led context rather than typical institutional models. Our implementation pathways were built around existing programs and services, preserving clinical rigour while reducing dependency on top-down directives.
The impact of this work is already visible — not in formal practice changes, but in how the organization navigates cross-program decisions, how community perspectives enter clinical conversations, and how cultural considerations are now embedded in implementation planning. That shift is the foundation, and our practice change grows from it.
Building carefully is not preparation for BPSO implementation. It is BPSO implementation. This session invites newer BPSOs to find confidence in that, and all BPSOs to reflect on what their own foundations required — and who had to build them.
What RNAO BPG or tool/toolkit is your abstract related to?
Knowledge-to-Action (KTA) Framework (Graham et al., 2006)
Social Movement Action (SMA) Framework (Grinspun et al., 2020; Grinspun et al., 2022)
Author(s) Credentials and Title
Shaelyn Leblanc, RN - BScN, Specialist of Nursing Practice, BPSO Co-Lead
Karen Schultz, Analyst for Health Information Services, BPSO Co-Lead
| Organization Name | Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority |
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