Is your community interested in hosting an in-person Let’s Go Rural! High School or Post-Secondary event? Look no further! RhPAP, through the Community Development and Engagement Team, is looking to connect with communities within your region to host an in-person high school or post-secondary event in their rural community.
High School
In-Person Events
What is a high school event? Let’s Go Rural! In-person High School events are one-day learning opportunities during which high school students can discover rural health care. Held during school hours, students experience a wide variety of sessions. These sessions may include opportunities to hear from real-life health-care providers in a storytelling or speaker panel in a Q&A format, or through hands-on activities, and/or interactive learning stations called Skills Events, all while highlighting the importance and wide scope of practice found in rural healthcare teams.
The event is held at the local health-care facility, school, or other community gathering place. These events are intended to make students aware of the health-care opportunities available in their communities and encourage them to consider these careers.
Virtual Events
RhPAP also provides Virtual Events called “How Do I Get There?” that focus on what student learners need for courses at the High School level in order to be eligible for certain health-care streams in post secondary institutions. Held via Zoom, these province wide events can be held during school hours or after hours and are offered throughout the year, to highlight different health-care career options. Please note that these are not community/committee hosted, and open for all to interested parties to attend.
Post-Secondary
In-Person Events
Post-secondary experiences are targeted to students in health-care professions programs at the university, college, and technical school levels. All students participating should have an expressed interest in learning about rural health-care professions practice through their academic program.
These events occur in a rural community in Alberta, offering post-secondary students the opportunity to learn about health-care career skills in a rural practice setting. Throughout the weekend (could be a full weekend experience or a one day event!), students are exposed to life in a rural community with community-organized social events and activities that highlight living, playing and working in rural Alberta. These events are organized by RhPAP with the support of the local health-care facility and health-care professionals, and the local community attraction and retention committee.
Virtual Events
A Post-Secondary Virtual Event brings health science program students and rural community stakeholders together on a virtual platform to provide an opportunity for participants to learn more about each other and the process by which learners transition to fully licensed health-care practitioners in a rural setting. Please note that these virtual events are not community/committee hosted, and all are invited to attend.
What’s in it for the community?
Let’s Go Rural! High School and Post-Secondary Events provide opportunities for rural communities to:
- Expose students to the wide range of careers found in rural health, hear the stories of practice from rural providers, and understand the scope of practice within a rural setting.
- Highlight available amenities and the rural lifestyle.
- Plant the seed in high school students to consider returning to the community they grew up in (or any rural community for that matter!) to pursue a health career.
- Let’s Go Rural! events are a great place to begin cultivating the pipeline of students that choose rural health care as a profession.
Through these events, RhPAP creates a collaborative and sustainable partnership with the local health-care community/facility. It’s a great opportunity for community members to work together and show appreciation for the commitment and skills of local health-care providers.
How do you put forward your community to be considered for a High School or Post-Secondary event?
We currently have six regions with a designated Rural Community Consultant. This Consultant works with the rural communities in your region, supporting their retention, attraction, and integration efforts of health-care providers through Attraction and Retention (A&R) committees, and partnerships with key stakeholders throughout the province. RhPAP works with rural communities to host high school and post-secondary events this upcoming fiscal year (April 1st to March 30th). If your community is interested in working with RhPAP to host an event, some information is required through the completion of this EOI.
All rural communities with a population of 15,000 or less with a local, active A&R Committee with representation from RhPAP on, OR an active local group working on A&R efforts and interested in RhPAP becoming part of their group, are eligible to apply, however preference will be given to communities who have not hosted a Let’s Go Rural! event within the past 3 years.
If your community is interested in hosting an event between April 2023-March 30th, 2024, please submit this application prior to March 31, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. Communities are eligible to apply for both a high school and post-secondary event, but please note that only one event will be awarded per community for the year. We require a separate EOI to be put forward for each event.
Please note: we will try our best to accommodate all EOI’s within the calendar year, however we cannot guarantee your event will be hosted during this specified period. If you are not the successful proponent for 2023/24, you will be placed onto the waitlist for 2024/25, which will be communicated to you by no later than April 30th, 2023.
The completed forms, with any relevant attachments, can be e-mailed to shanda.berns@rhpap.ca. Please note that all parts of this EOI must be completed to be considered.
If you require assistance in completing this form or have any questions regarding the Expression of Interest process, please contact your Rural Community Consultant whose contact information can be located in Appendix A of this document.
For further information on Let’s Go Rural! Events, please visit our website: https://rhpap.ca/programs-services/rural-alberta-communities/letsgorural/
Thank you for your interest,
Shanda Berns
Sr. Manager, Community Development and Engagement
Rural Health Professions Action Plan (RhPAP)