Systems Change Project Resources

BREASTFEEDING SYSTEMS CHANGE PROJECT IS FUNDED September 2021 to September 2024
KCR Community Resources in partnership with Interior Health has been awarded a Field of Interest Systems Change Test grant of $300,000.00 from the Vancouver Foundation. The grant was awarded based upon the recommendation of the Foundation’s Volunteer Advisors. Reviewers appreciated the strong partnerships and community relationships built between KCR, Interior Health and various community groups, and the foundation of this work in the community through the initial Journey Mapping project. We would like to thank the Vancouver Foundation for their support of this important project.

The project is overseen by a multi-sector Steering Committee with co-leads from KCR and Interior Health. It is a continuation of the Breastfeeding Art Expo and the Breastfeeding Journey Mapping project, which identified barriers to breastfeeding best practices within health facilities and the community.

Our goal is to implement a range of recommendations that will result in better support to mothers to breastfeed. The longer-term goal is to improve rates of sustained breastfeeding and result in improved long-term health benefits for women and their children, and significantly reduce provincial health care spending.

We will be implementing various pilot projects across the Interior Health region over the next three years. From 2021-2024 our Systems Change Project has plans to partially or fully undertake the 15 recommendations from the Journey Mapping:

  1. Support doctors with breastfeeding resources – see report
  2. Support Healthy from the Start – a pregnancy phone helpline
  3. Support Public Health Nurses to deliver patient-centred prenatal breastfeeding care
  4. Connect pregnant women with a breastfeeding support person – Indigenous project
  5. Develop BFI hospital breastfeeding policies/practices
  6. Support maternal nursing staff with enhanced breastfeeding education
  7. Have a lactation consultant for every maternity ward
  8. Offer a family/peer support person
  9. Create a “We Promise To” poster
  10. Hospital Resources – Co-sleeping beds/bassinets
  11. Evaluate if hospital discharge process supports successful breastfeeding
  12. Improved Collaboration
  13. Enhance supports for mothers once they are home
  14. Develop and distribute plain language print resources
  15. Steps to normalize/support breastfeeding in public/work places