Diversity in Long-Term Care
by Family Councils Ontario
Throughout December, we’ll be focusing on diversity in Long-Term Care.
Canada is an increasingly diverse country. Diversity in Canada includes facets such as race and ethnicity, and also age, language, gender, gender expression, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, abilities, and economic status. Ontario’s Long-Term Care Homes are no different. Home to more than 76,000 Ontarians, LTC is a place where people from many different backgrounds, with various religious affiliations, genders and gender expressions, sexual orientations, economic statuses, and abilities live, work, and visit. In order to continue to create places where people thrive, we need to embrace, value, and promote diversity.
We all have multiple facets or types of diversity that make up who we are; this is our personal culture or experience. Long-Term Care residents, staff, families, volunteers and visitors are no different. In order to truly care for people and embrace them as part of the Long-Term Care Home community, we need to honour, respect and seek to understand their diversities. Differences in our personal culture impact they ways we communicate and interact with others; the food we eat and how we eat it; our decision making; our experiences with institutions of authority; our leisure time and hobbies; our relationships; and much more. It also impacts how we give and receive care. We encourage Family Councils to consider the aspects of diversity within your Home and how your Council can support ways to meet the diverse needs of residents, families, visitors, volunteers, and staff.
To get started, review these resources:
Supporting Cultural Diversity in Long-Term Care: Needs Assessment and Work Plan for 2017-18. Sue Cragg Consulting and the CLRI Program. http://www.the-ria.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/CLRI-on-Supporting-Cultural-Diversity-Long-Term-Care.pdf
Cultural Diversity: A Handbook for Long Term Care Staff. Region of Peel. https://www.peelregion.ca/ltc/resources/pdfs/diversity.pdf
Why Ontario needs more culturally sensitive long-term care homes. Sarah Dziedzic, TVO. https://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/shared-values/why-ontario-needs-more-culturally-sensitive-long-term-care-homes
Next week, we’ll continue our Diversity in Long-Term Care blog series.