A key takeaway for me at Canada’s first Social Prescribing Conference is that we’ve only just begun. Every great movement must begin. By beginning, we become. Admittedly, my colleagues and I attended the conference to see where we might contribute as an arts-based community organization. While we didn’t receive pat answers or direct pathways, we met people, engaged in conversation and began to think about how we can be involved. In retrospect, I think that was the point of the conference. Beginning, exploring, connecting, conversing, becoming.

We heard about several compelling examples of social prescription in Canada. Dr. Grace Park and her team in the Fraser Health Care Authority in BC have developed a systemically integrated SP approach for older adults. The partnership between Fraser Health, the provincial government, United Way BC, BC Divisions of Family Practices, Fraser Health Teams, Fraser Health Patient and Family Advisory Council and other nonprofit community organizations began in 2019 and is a leading model. Community Connectors play a critical role in the success of implementation and hold the community knowledge and put the legs on referrals by linking individuals to programs.

Healthy Aging Alberta has developed a tool for SP assessment and case management used by a variety of professional and volunteers. Based on social determinants of health, this tool looks at seven domains based on Alberta’s health aging framework: physical health, safety and security, social engagement, physical environment, personal wellbeing, mental health and social supports. This tool is being used in Edmonton to support older adults in living in community.

There is a SP student movement in Canada. In 2022, the Canadian Social Prescribing Student Collective was establishing joining a global network of students champions in six other countries. The objective of this group is to call for action by students, staff in health care and community organizations and faculty/administration at postsecondary institutions. The Collective believes their efforts will shape the social prescribing movement and the future of our health system.

We also learned that SP is extended to family caregivers. Various provincial family caregiving organizations are developing SP pathways to build resilience, social connectedness, decreased reliance on healthcare services to support family caregivers with their overwhelming responsibilities, financial strain and system navigation. Family Caregivers of British Columbia have caregiver support specialists provide wellness planning, healthcare navigation and community connections for family caregivers.

The elephant in the room for most of the conference is how SP is funded in Canada. It appears as though the CISP is strategically encouraging multiple expressions of SP to bubble up locally, having the communities themselves figure out implementation pathways and funding models. And perhaps this is the way of influence, bottom up, upstream programming that creates a demand and groundswell with compelling results that governments will not be able to deny. The recent CISP report claims that for every $1 spent on SP in Canada, the ROI is $4.30.

And so we think about the arts in this movement. Our colleagues from the Mississauga Arts Council were also there, and along with us, were learning and exploring and becoming. They have launched a 2-year pilot with their ArtsCare SP program to benefit mental health of individuals living in Mississauga.

While historically our work at Room 217 has been and will continue to be supporting caregivers with music care tools, training and standards to improve care outcomes, we have been developing a music wellness model. Salutogenic or preventative in approach, we define music wellness as interacting with music in a way that contributes to holistic health and flourishing. Our research shows this happens in specific ways. So we may very well have several contributions to make as we consider our intersection with the social prescription movement.

In my mind, music as social prescription is a pure bullseye. Music by its very nature is connective. Music contributes positively to an individual’s state of being and can catalyzes improved mood. Doing music contributes to health and wellbeing such as increased oxygenation, cross-lateral brain activity. Musical engagement improves quality of life in every human domain.



So we continue to explore the application of music care and music wellness within the arena of SP. Stay tuned.