The Lawson Foundation is pleased to announce the recipients of new grants under our Child & Youth Diabetes Strategy. Twelve projects out of 66 submissions from across Canada will receive a total of $2,640,000 in funding.
For the first time, the Foundation’s Diabetes Strategy is centred specifically around the prevention and management of diabetes and diabetes-related complications for children and youth. Work funded under the Strategy is focused on improving diabetes-related health outcomes for children and youth, optimizing the health of women with a history of gestational diabetes to help ensure the health of their children and families, and ensuring equitable access to high-quality diabetes prevention and management programs and services for children, youth and their families.
The newly funded projects seek to strengthen the delivery of these programs and services by translating knowledge into clinical practice and community programming. They will pilot new community-based interventions, expand existing evidence-based programs, and create tools, resources and training to engage and support children and youth, parents, health professionals, teachers and school staff, community representatives and policy makers. All projects include an evaluation component and a plan for sharing results and learning.
Projects are based in various settings – rural and First Nations communities, inner-city neighbourhoods, schools and clinics – and range in scope from local to regional to national. They serve high-risk, vulnerable populations including Indigenous communities, South Asian and other ethno-cultural populations, youth who are transitioning from pediatric to adult services, and families who are dealing with issues of poverty and food insecurity. Two remote Cree communities in northern Quebec and northwest central Manitoba are implementing initiatives to build capacity to deal with diabetes in their communities. The Lawson Foundation believes it is important to support these communities in their work as part of the Foundation’s commitment to Reconciliation.
We will be working with our grantees using a cohort approach, bringing them together periodically over the life of the projects to share, learn and connect with each other. The diversity of the projects will bring a richness to these conversations. We will also be conducting an overall, developmental evaluation of the Child & Youth Diabetes Funding Strategy to help inform our future funding in this area.
Learn more about the initiatives being funded by the Child & Youth Diabetes Strategy