Letter from the President and CEO February 2024
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
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Dear Reader,
A significant portion of the Institute's work involves fostering meaningful, sustained collaborations between faith communities and health systems. This work is housed within our Center for Faith & Public Health, and it addresses topics ranging from chronic disease prevention and self-management, to vaccine preparedness, to trauma resilience, and more. Recently, the Institute was asked by the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to lead workshops in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, focused on preparing diverse groups of faith leaders to better address the opioid epidemic that continues to sweep the nation. As I worked with these leaders - all of whom are passionate about implementing community-based solutions that tackle substance use disorders - I realized that much of the content I was presenting highlighted the power of human creativity. I asked them to think of ways in which we can creatively leverage the power of their faith tradition to impact the health and wellness of their respective community members.
Stuart Nelson, the Institute’s President and CEO, delivers a workshop to faith leaders in Los Angeles, California, who are teaming up to combat the growing opioid epidemic.
We teach that collaborations with faith communities are characterized by a unique kind of passion and commitment. Faith-based organizations enjoy the trust, respect, and familiarity of their membership, which in many cases are the very things that prevent individuals from engaging hospital and public health systems. One of the things that makes faith communities different than, say, a school or community center setting, is the presence of the various “special things” that make a religious tradition unique. These things include food, texts, shared histories, unique cultural practices, language, architecture, music, symbols, people - all of the elements that give life to a tradition. The exercise I give to faith leaders is to consider how these special things might be able to put in conversation with health to imbue a health promotion initiative with the power of the tradition.
For example, one priest we worked with was the leader of a small Catholic congregation that was comprised primarily of Spanish-speaking individuals from Mexico. He explained to me that one of the most important parts of their culture was a certain type of religious folk music that helped the congregation feel tied not only to their faith tradition, but also to their home and mother tongue. This priest struggled with attendance at his diabetes-self management workshops until he had the idea to begin and end each class with mini-live performances of folk music, as a way to enhance the positive energy and bring warmth to the room. It was a big hit! People were excited to come to class to hear the music, but they also benefitted from the health information and resources that were shared.
This is a simple but illustrative example of how creativity can help to infuse health-oriented programs with the power of the human spirit. In our years of doing this work, there are dozens of other examples of how our facilitators and collaborators have taken similar steps to wrap health programs in the traditions that are so meaningful to them.
Do you have goals you are trying to reach in the New Year? Rather than thinking of them as isolated burdens, how might you infuse your efforts with the special things in your own life to give them a new framing and the energy of the living spirit?
With Peace,
Stuart
Stuart C. Nelson
President and CEO