Robert Annis

Respecting culture and honoring diversity in community practice.

Nurses work with individuals, families, groups, and communities where lives are enriched and challenged by cultural diversity. The purpose of this article is to discuss challenges and strategies for respecting culture and honoring diversity. This article diverges from the traditional nursing practice of working with individuals to working with collectives, to community practice beyond individuals and families, beyond community as context, to community as client. Culture and ethnicity are defined to set the stage for discussion of theory and its application to practice. Acculturation theory is explored through comparisons of the Canadian mosaic and American melting pot. Cultural competence, cultural attunement, and cultural humility are examined, and recommendations for effective community practice in working with groups and organizations are shared.

Community Health Action Model: Health Promotion by the Community

The goal of the Community Health Action (CHA) model is to depict community health promotion processes in a manner that can be implemented by community members to achieve their collectively and collaboratively determined actions and outcomes to sustain or improve the health and well-being of their community; the community as a whole, for the benefit of all. The model is unique in its ability to merge the community development process with a compatible community assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation framework. The CHA model supports community participation leading to community-engaged assessment and change. In this article, the CHA model is depicted, its genesis described, and its utility demonstrated.

Evaluating support services to seniors A discussion of collaborative research

The difficulties involved in attempting to turn collaboration into partnership are revealed in this article about the relationship between research funders and researchers, specifically government funders and university researchers. Some discussion revolves around the relationships between researchers and among the researchers, practitioners, and consumers. This article also discusses collaborative research relationships by using the evaluation of a support program to seniors as an illustration. Also addressed are how the research revealed the success of the program and the frustrations encountered when government would not act on the findings.

Working Together: Collaborative Response to Welcoming Newcomers in Brandon, Manitoba

The concept of “welcoming communities” has recently become a useful policy and research framework in which to explore immigrant settlement, integration, and retention. Small, rural, and regional communities often struggle to meet the needs of immigrants and have limited partnerships and capacities in the area of immigrant settlement and integration. As many small cities and rural communities struggle with labor shortages and out-migration, immigration is increasingly being looked as a step toward addressing demographic challenges in rural regions. Immigration to small cities and rural communities introduces a host of challenges and opportunities for local service providers, municipal government, community residents, and newcomers. Through concerted efforts by service providers, municipal government, and provincial government, Brandon, Manitoba, presents an example of the impacts and challenges related to multi-sector collaboration and partnerships. Over the past five years, Brandon has received significant increases in immigrant arrivals through the influx of temporary foreign workers employed with Maple Leaf Foods. This chapter provides background information on Brandon’s recent demographic transformation, discusses how the community has moved from serendipity to planned practice regarding service delivery and highlights local immigration and settlement initiatives. Lessons learned from the Brandon case are important for national audiences as governments and rural communities continue to adopt immigration as a mechanism to address labor and demographic challenges. Adopting a welcoming community framework provides a unique and pertinent lens through which to establish and work toward successful immigrant attraction, integration, settlement, and retention.