Olo Care in the healthcare network
For over 30 years, Olo Care has been offered to pregnant women and families across Quebec through CLSCs and community-based organizations members of Olo.
What is Olo Care?
The Olo Care initiative offers personalized support. An Olo care provider guides a family throughout a child’s first 1,000 days, from pregnancy to age 2. Thematic meetings are organized by the care provider, who also offers tools, tips, prenatal multivitamins and food vouchers. The goal of the Olo Care initiative is to break down the barriers to healthy eating and foster the health of babies as well as the introduction of healthy eating habits.
Helping babies be born and grow up healthy
A personalized nutritional follow-up is carried out by a trusted health professional (generally a nutritionist, nurse or social worker) and direct assistance is given to expectant mothers through vouchers and prenatal multivitamins. The vouchers are redeemable for food: eggs, milk and frozen vegetables during pregnancy, and tofu, bread, and purees and cereal for babies after birth.
The Olo food vouchers can be redeemed in most food markets in Quebec where these products are sold (grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores).
To learn more about Olo foods and their benefits for expectant mothers, babies and families, or to find out how to redeem vouchers in stores, click here.
Helping families adopt healthy eating habits
Educational tools and professional advice are offered to the whole family to help everyone acquire healthy eating habits and encourage parents to eat well, cook and share meals as a family.
Because early childhood is when eating habits are learned, Olo Care offers parents tools to raise their capacity for action and help them shape their child’s eating behaviours. The tools include a recipe book, a weekly menu planner and baby books.
Once the baby is born, an Olo care provider continues to support the family. The goal is to strengthen and deepen knowledge about healthy eating and to further increase the family’s capacity for action. Postnatal food vouchers are handed out during meetings to help families access and discover healthy foods.
Olo Care leads to the desired outcome: a healthy baby with an adequate birth weight, and new parents who can act as role models to help their child develop healthy eating habits early on.
Olo Care
To access Olo Care, you must:
- Be pregnant or have a child under 24 months of age;
- Have a low income.
However, due to the high demand in certain regions, institutions may add additional selection criteria. Ask your CLSC.
For more information on Olo Care, read our brochure or contact your local CLSC. Find your CLSC
Read our brochure to learn more.
Read the French version of the brochure.
The recommended procedure to access Olo Care is to register at quebec.ca/magrossesse (available in 11 languages).
Register at quebec.ca/magrossesse (available in 11 languages).
Healthcare professionals could also refer you to Olo Care.
If you have any questions, please contact us at 514-849-3656, or toll-free at 1-888-656-6372.
Once you are admitted, Olo Care activities and food voucher distribution can begin as early as the 12th week of pregnancy, and continue until the child is 2 years old. Olo meetings continue after the baby’s birth to provide further support in acquiring healthy eating habits.
Fondation Olo cannot interfere with admission decisions made by healthcare facilities. Do not hesitate to ask questions to the person in charge of Olo Care to fully understand their reasons.
You have a few options:
- If you live in Montréal, you can contact Alima, who also offers support;
- Ask the person in charge of Olo Care to tell you about the resources available in your neighbourhood or town;
- Visit Fondation Olo’s website, which is packed with useful information to guide you through the various stages of development, from pregnancy until your child is 2 years old;
- Find out about the other resources available, as there are other websites and organizations that help Quebec families.
Olo Care is offered throughout Quebec at over 150 points of service (mostly at CLSCs and sometimes in community organizations). Every year, Fondation Olo supports 7,000 pregnant women in vulnerable situations.
Once admitted to the program, mothers can expect to receive individual support that’s tailored to their family’s needs. The approach we use is one of guidance that’s respectful of the family’s motivations and of the pace at which they are interested in adopting certain behaviours.
| Support for mothers and families is offered by an Olo worker. Workers are most often women and mainly nutritionists, nurses or social workers. |  |
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Olo follow-up care begins with a nutritional assessment to identify women who have special risks aside from food insecurity (ex. gestational diabetes). |
| Following sessions include education about the link between the mother’s diet and the baby’s health and about healthy eating habits. During these sessions, mothers are also given Olo food vouchers and prenatal multivitamins. |  |
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Olo vouchers are provided for a period of up to 28 weeks, for women who deliver at full term (40 weeks). |
| Families may receive a toolkit developed by Fondation Olo to promote healthy eating. |  |
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Support may continue after the baby is born, to continue learning healthy eating habits. |
| Follow-up care sessions are generally held every 2 or 4 weeks. |  |
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Olo vouchers are redeemable in most Quebec stores that sell Olo foods (grocery, convenience and drug stores). |
Can you mail me the vouchers?
No. Food vouchers are only given during Olo.s follow-up care sessions. The positive impact of Olo intervention is based on both the foods distributed and the needs-based nutritional support provided to expectant mothers.
Can I get vouchers after giving birth?
Fondation Olo’s recommendation is that vouchers be given during pregnancy, because the benefits of Olo program are proven for that period.
Olo: Much more than vouchers
Fondation Olo offers more than food vouchers. Its goal is to empower parents to take action on their child's eating behaviours, thanks to educational tools and professional advice. We believe in the importance of early action in children's lives, to offer them better chances of success in the future.
Vouchers are used to distribute Olo foods. These Olo vouchers are given directly to expectant mothers as part of the follow-up care provided by support workers.
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During their Olo’s follow-up care sessions, mothers receive a series of vouchers equivalent to the daily food doses:
They get enough vouchers to meet their needs until their next appointment. These vouchers are redeemable in grocery stores, convenience stores and pharmacies in Quebec, where these products are available.* Mothers must give their vouchers to the cashier to get the free products. |
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These are the foods offered:
- Milk: Quebon
- 4 litres of 3.25% m.f. (with some exceptions)
- Eggs: Dozen white eggs, large size
- Frozen vegetables: Arctic Gardens
- Bags of 500 g to 750 g (with some exceptions)
*The process described above is the one used most frequently. However different regions may have different ways of distributing Olo foods.
The life cycle of Olo vouchers
There are 5 main points of contact involved in distributing and redeeming Olo food vouchers.
- The Olo worker orders vouchers from Fondation Olo.
- The Olo worker gives the vouchers to the expectant mother during her follow-up care session.
- The expectant mother goes to the store (grocery, convenience, drug store, etc.). When it’s time to pay, she presents the coupons to the cashier in exchange for the previously identified foods.
- The retailer submits the coupons to the Redemco company (specialized in coupon redemption) for reimbursement.
- Redemco bills Fondation Olo for all coupons redeemed.
