Roos Noralou P, Macdonald Sharon, Boriskewich Eileen, Roos Leslie L, Massey-Wiebe Sally, Metge Colleen J
Department of Community Health Sciences, Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Community Financial Counselling Services, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Can J Public Health. 2025 Jun 17. doi: 10.17269/s41997-025-01064-y.
The GetYourBenefits! Project began as an attempt to convince physicians that it is important to diagnose and treat poverty.
The academics worked with community agencies and physician organizations to communicate about the government benefits for which individuals with low incomes and/or disabilities are eligible. The Project Manager and Outreach Officer met with and gave talks to community groups. The Financial Literacy and Empowerment Program Coordinator, Community Financial Counselling Services (CFCS), who leads Manitoba's free tax filing clinics, led the development of the Get Your Benefits booklet. The authors decided communicating about the project was important. The project was funded by the Winnipeg Foundation with the collaboration of the Manitoba government and is being continued by CFCS.
This paper describes how information on accessing benefits has been communicated to physicians, health care providers, and those who work in public health. Over 170,000 booklets were distributed. By the final year of the project (2023), over 85 websites had linked to the project website, a major growth over the nine websites linked in the first year of the project. Several updates a year were sent advising on opportunities for accessing benefits, with more than 270 individuals and organizations receiving these in the last year of the project.
Accessing these benefits has brought and could bring additional millions of unclaimed federal dollars to eligible individuals across Canada. There is still much to be done.
“获取福利！”项目最初旨在说服医生认识到诊断和治疗贫困问题的重要性。
学者们与社区机构和医生组织合作，宣传低收入和/或残疾人士有资格享受的政府福利。项目经理和外展官员与社区团体见面并进行演讲。社区金融咨询服务（CFCS）的金融知识与赋权项目协调员领导了《获取你的福利》手册的编写工作，该协调员负责马尼托巴省的免费报税诊所。作者们认为宣传该项目很重要。该项目由温尼伯基金会在马尼托巴省政府的合作下资助，目前由CFCS继续推进。
本文描述了如何向医生、医疗保健提供者以及从事公共卫生工作的人员传达获取福利的信息。已分发超过17万份手册。到项目的最后一年（2023年），有超过85个网站链接到项目网站，相较于项目第一年的9个链接网站有了大幅增长。每年都会发送几次关于获取福利机会的更新信息，在项目的最后一年有超过270个人和组织收到这些信息。
获取这些福利已经并可能为加拿大各地符合条件的个人带来额外数百万未领取的联邦资金。仍有许多工作要做。
