Social Prescribing and Community Paramedicine in Canada: A Guide to Promising Practices
The Social Prescribing and Community Paramedicine in Canada: A Guide to Promising Practices (“guide”) is designed to help paramedics across Canada use social prescribing.
The goal is to share examples that help paramedics standardize this work to better address the diverse health and social needs of participants. The term “participants” is used instead of “patients” to reflect people’s choice, control, and how they participate in care, including in co-creating social prescriptions.
How to use the guide
This guide defines key concepts like community paramedicine and social prescribing, and shows how community paramedics can use social prescribing to improve care. While many paramedics already use social prescribing, they may refer to it by other names, such as system navigation.
The guide is organized around a three-step process based on the Common Understanding of Social Prescribing (CUSP) Framework, supporting paramedics to:
- Identify that a person has non-medical, health-related social needs (e.g. issues with housing, food, employment, income, and/or social support) and build trust.
- Collaborate with the person as an equal partner, to make a social prescription based on what is important to them.
- Connect the person to non-clinical supports and services within the community, and follow up to track progress and support long-term health.
Each step shares real-world examples and practical strategies (called promising practices) from across Canada to help paramedics use these approaches in their own communities.
Whether you're just getting started or looking to strengthen your approach, this guide is meant to inspire and support action.
Who this guide is for
This guide is for paramedic services looking to integrate or improve social prescribing in their work. While this guide focuses on social prescribing in community paramedicine programs, the examples and strategies can be used by any paramedic service looking to use social prescribing.
This resource in action
This resource was created to support Paramedics and Social Prescribing, which will help paramedic teams use social prescribing to connect clients with local, non-medical community services that improve health and well-being.
Authors
- Kate Mulligan, PhD
- Syrine Gamra, MPH
- Juwairiya Ahmad, MPH
- Cheryl Cameron, MEd
