In 2024, RCCbc hosted the Rural Voices Gathering in partnership with First Nations Health Authority and Health Quality BC. The multi-day event brought together individuals and groups from rural and remote communities across BC, including First Nations, and Métis Chartered Communities, to share experiences, build connections, and shape the future of rural health and wellness in British Columbia. 

Following positive feedback and strong interest with over 900 registrants, RCCbc identified a clear desire to continue these collaborative, community-driven conversations on smaller scales. Working with a network of trained facilitators and engaged communities across the province, the Gathering has now transitioned to the ongoing Rural Voices Initiative.

The Rural Voices Initiative is about shifting the focus from one-time engagement to ongoing partnerships, ensuring that rural and remote communities have a sustained and empowered voice in shaping the future of their own healthcare systems. 

Through this initiative, RCCbc supports interested communities in creating local, independent, community-led partnership tables. These collaborative tables are made up of people from across the community, passionate about improving rural health and wellness. The intention is to share work being done across the community, develop and work on common goals, and holistically move together towards actionable commitments for improved health and wellness in the community.

The support provided by RCCbc is indented to meet the needs of your community. Examples of how we’re be able to help may include; offering facilitation training or on the ground facilitation support, making introductions and/or connections to others you would like to join the table, financial support which may be used towards venue costs, catering, child care or travel for participants or seed funding towards a community initiative.

At RCCbc we have a saying that “if you know one rural community, you only know one rural community”. What your community chooses to focus on during these discussion groups depends entirely on the needs of your community.

Some examples of themes that could be discussed include transportation for health services, education and training for healthcare providers from rural communities, hybrid healthcare combining in-person and virtual patient consultations, or wellness programming.

The Rural Voices Initiative isn’t about gathering feedback for external organizations. It’s about creating space for communities to lead their own conversations and initiatives, using strengths-based frameworks, including the Appreciative Inquiry approach and the Partnership Pentagram Plus model.

Creating sustainable change requires the voices of all partnership groups. These partnerships are crucial to ensuring conversations lead to impactful, lasting change at a local level. Community members, healthcare providers, administrators, policy makers, local governments, academics, local businesses and other organizations work together to drive meaningful system change that reflects the strengths and needs of their community.

How we work: An overview of the Partnership Pentagram Plus

Facilitating community-focused discussion groups: A toolkit – Coming soon

Using the Appreciative Dialogue framework – Coming soon