Vision, Mission and Principles Guiding the Alberta SCI Initiative

The VISION guiding the Alberta SCI Initiative has four inter-related components:

• Each Albertan with Spinal Cord Injury will have access to and be able to participate in the development of, and have access to, innovative responses to priority unmet needs - solutions that will meet evolving, self-identified requirements to pursue the rights, obligations, and benefits of citizenship in their journey through life.
• All Albertans incurring a SCI will have access to timely, appropriate, best practice care and support service from moment of injury through the acute care, rehabilitation, community transition and full integration phases.
• Alberta organizations, agencies and institutions engaged along the SCI rehabilitation care and support continuum will adopt seamless and collaborative approaches that avoid duplication, optimize outcomes and benefits for individuals, and improve systemic efficiency.
• The Alberta SCI research community will be fully engaged in the Canada-wide translational research movement to inform evidence driven best practice at each point on the SCI service continuum.

Together, these vision statements describe what is required to help Albertans with SCI achieve an improved quality of life.  "Minimization of disability and maximization of quality of life for Canadians with spinal cord injury" is the vision statement of the national Spinal Cord Injury Solutions Network (SCISN).  Working with one another and with individuals with SCI, those involved in the Alberta SCI Initiative, the SCISN, and other provincial Solutions Networks, seek to find solutions to the everyday challenges that face Canadians with SCI.

In this visionary context, we support the MISSION of the SCI Solutions Network:

Our mission is to foster collaboration that creates and shares

innovative, customized solutions that accerlerate improvement

to the quality of life of people with Spinal Cord Injury.

To ensure respect for and adherence to the vision, the Alberta SCI Initiative has adopted the following operational principles and philosophy.  We will:

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  faciliate the discovery and application of innovative solutions that accelerate improvements to the quality of life of people with SCI;
  
  
  
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  foster a continued shift to a consumer-driven approach that customizes solutions for each individual living with SCI;
  
  
  
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  strive for seamless coordination of the many agency and disciplinary perspectives, services and interventions critical to achievement of positive health, social and economic outcomes;
  
  
  
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  promote and utilize research that infoms 'evidence driven' best practice at each point on the care, support and service continuum;
  
  
  
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  endeavour to direct 'solutions funding' so that it enhances capacity in Alberta rather than duplicating, replacing or competing with existing and established support programs or services;
  
  
  
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  assist in mobilizing community initiatives to take the right, collective steps to becoming more inclusive and supportive for individuals with SCI;
  
  
  
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  strive to understand the motivations and needs of those people we serve through engagement in the process.
  
  
  

How the Alberta SCI Initiative Began

The Alberta SCI Initiative is rooted in a number of pan-Canadian initiatives dating from 2003:

• In 2003, the Government of Canada through Western Economic Diversification invested $15 million over a seven year period in the Rick Hansen SCI Leadership Fund.  This fund was dedicated to articulation of a vision; to bringing together people with SCI, researchers and service providers; all aligned to identify and implement breakthrough solutions that focus on accelerating quality of life of people with SCI

• Two new national initiatives were created and supported by this Leadership Fund: the National SCI Solutions Alliance and the SCI Translational Research Network - later combining to become the SCI Solutions Network
• Through the leadership of the Rick Hansen Foundation, $107 million in new funding has been generated for related strategy-driven initiatives from the Canadian public, government, granting agencies and individual donors.

In 2007, 'Going Forward Together' linked the RHF and Alberta SCI Stakeholders through a 20th Anniversary Legacy Initiative, together generating the Alberta Proposal resulting in the Alberta Contribution of $12 million.  Similar government investments were made in each territory and most of Canada's provinces.

Together, this pan-Canadian 'solutions movement' is committed to collaborative efforts to minimize disability and maximize quality of life for people with SCI.