BCAPOP would like to share with all our members, partners and donors that our Heathy Care Pregnancy Program (HCPP) pilot project concluded as of March 31, 2025, after five insightful years.

HCPP was designed to improve outcomes for perinatal people who use or have used substances and their infants, who are not already connected to healthcare services. The pilot program was successful in demonstrating how the HCPP approach and inreach workers can be utilized in communities to support some of the most marginalized dyads to overcome barriers to health, wellness and togetherness. You can read our external evaluation that was done by the Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health here.

Since 2022, the funding for the pilot project decreased by 70% and BCAPOP could not sustain the program’s capacity, standards and values that allowed the inreach workers to make such a positive impact on the population they walked alongside and supported.

In 2025-26, BCAPOP will be dedicated to capturing and preserving the pilot project learnings and supporting the sites to sunset the program while transitioning participants to existing services and programs, where available.     

Conclusion Steps for 2025-26:

• All current host sites are welcome to continue their HCPP independently with alternate funding and/or integrate the program into their current programs and services. Each organization is empowered to create their own HCPP integration or sunset plan, which may include transitioning participants to other existing services and programs.  BCAPOP will no longer be providing direct operational support or oversight to the sites who choose to continue HCPP.
• The current host sites will be transitioned from accessing program resources from the online HCPP Portal to a digital HCPP Program Toolkit during the final year.  
• BCAPOP will create an online HCPP Training Program which will be available to pregnancy outreach programs, perinatal professionals and helping peers who wish to adapt and utilize the HCPP approaches in their services. This training will be offered free of charge for two years.
• BCAPOP will develop and disseminate a pilot project conclusion feedback tool collate the findings into a final report that will be shared with all sites, PHSA, partners and the public.

BCAPOP hosted an in-person conclusion meeting with the current HCPP sites in May 2025 to gather the sites’ learnings and to thank the host organizations for their work over the last five years.

BCAPOP would like to thank the Provincial Perinatal Substance Use Program, BC Women’s Mental Health and Substance Use Programs + Initiatives, our partners, regional health authorities, BCAPOP Members, donors, HCPP inreach workers and all the acute care sites and Program Members who made this pilot program so successful. This work would not have been possible without you.

Lastly, BCAPOP would like to formally thank and acknowledge the following HCPP host organizations and acute care sites for their participation in the pilot:

• Kamloops- The Tree/Royal Inland Hospital
• Powell River- Lift Community Services/Powell River General Hospital
• 100 Mile House/Williams Lake - Cariboo Family Enrichment Centre & Cariboo Friendship Society/ Cariboo Memorial Hospital
• Duncan – Hiiye'yu Lelum (House of Friendship) Society/Cowichan District Hospital
• Burnaby/New Westminster- Burnaby Family Life/Royal Columbian Hospital
• Smithers- Dze L K’ant Friendship Centre Society/Bulkley Valley District Hospital
• Port Alberni- Port Alberni Friendship Centre & Port Alberni Public Health Unit/West Coast General Hospital
• Terrace – Terrace Child Development Centre/Mills Memorial Hospital
• Prince George – PG & District Elizabeth Fry Society/University Hospital of Northern BC
• Richmond – Ellizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver & Atira Women's Resource Society/Richmond Hospital
• Surrey – Options Community Services/Surrey Memorial Hospital

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