The Innovation Strategy 2009 to 2020: A strategic fund to effect multi-level change (infographic)

The Public Health Agency of Canada's Innovation Strategy (PHAC-IS) was a national program that supported the development of locally driven innovations between 2009 and 2020 while increasing the reach and impact of proven projects.

This strategic funding model focused on two complex public health issues: mental health promotion and achieving healthier weights. Its aim was to foster promising interventions that had the potential to effect change at the individual, family, community, and system levels.

Phased funding

Through a 3-phase funding approach, projects were able to adapt, reflect, and build vested partnership networks to impact policy and practice while increasing reach and scale towards sustainability.

1. Initial design, development, and testing of interventions (12 to 18 months)
2. Implementation, delivery, and evaluation of interventions in multiple sites (4 years)
3. Scale up effective population health interventions (3 years)

Vested partners

• Built and invested in shared public-facing agenda
• Over 1400 partnerships by community-led organizations across multiple sectors
• Leveraged resources to create systems level change
• Over $30 million leveraged in additional funding

Scale up

There was a gradual and deliberate effort to increase the reach and impact of successfully tested interventions across diverse populations and communities.

Readiness for scale

The PHAC-IS developed an evidence-based assessment tool to determine project readiness for scale. The funding program reached over 2 million individuals from 1700 communities across Canada.

Sustained impact

The model created the conditions for sustainability beyond program funding.

• 82% of projects were active beyond Phase 3 funding
• Moving upstream by investing in the social determinants of health to strengthen protective factors
• Equity focus by supporting actions that aim to remove structural and systemic barriers to positive health

Outcomes for children, youth, and their families

In Phase 2, 81% of projects reported increased knowledge and/or skills among participants and 75% of projects reported a change in protective factors.
By the end of Phase 3, all projects demonstrated a positive impact on protective factors associated with positive mental health and healthier weights.

• higher cultural connectedness among youth
• higher emotional self-regulation and positive ways of coping among students
• improved social connections and among youth and their caregivers

Knowledge development and exchange

Over 200 examples cited of knowledge developed by projects used to infl­uence policy, practice, and other programming.