I feel heard, understood, accepted

Salus Ottawa recently adopted the Winning Strategies for serving Francophones. The organization provides life-changing housing and support services to adults living with serious mental illness and concurrent challenges including addictions, homelessness and cycles of hospitalization.

In the fall of 2025, Salus surveyed their patients and clients about their experiences related to language in a care setting. The words below reveal how they feel when being served in their own language. 

Real-life examples of language barriers in care settings 

Salus clients' testimonies also reveal the impacts of language barriers when they feel unable to express themselves and the consequences of being misunderstood. 

“When I share something painful in French, I’m overwhelmed with emotion, and even in French I get confused and search for words. Doing this in English would be impossible.”

“I can’t talk about my mental health in English, even though I speak it fairly well — I just don’t have the right words in English.”

“I once had to go to an English-speaking dentist. Because of communication difficulties, he worked on the tooth next to the one that was bothering me. I don’t go to dentists anymore.”  

We thank Salus Ottawa for sharing these enlightening survey results.  

Join the Fast Track Program today! 

Sign up by choosing one of the sessions below. Sessions will be held from 12:00 to 12:45 via Teams. 

Registration for January 8, 2026 Fast Track Session

Registration for February 4, 2026 Fast Track Session

For more information

Visit our website to find out how the implementation of the Winning Strategies can benefit your clients and your organization. You'll also find tools and resources, as well as the key contacts to ask for free coaching. 

Go to the Winning Strategies website

This initiative, in collaboration with the Société Santé en français, is funded by Health Canada under the Action Plan for Official Languages 2023–2028: Protection-Promotion-Collaboration.