An Update on the Creating Health Collaborative

It’s almost time for the annual meeting of the Creating Health Collaborative. I thought I’d take this moment to bring you up-to-date on what we, the Executive of the Collaborative, have been doing.

CHC 2016

The annual meeting is at the heart of everything we do. I spend about five months speaking with innovators whose primary focus is to understand health from the perspective of people and communities, rather than the health system (it’s what we call ‘health beyond health care’). From these innovators I invite about 20 to a 36-hour meeting in New York in July at which they share their work, their underlying perspectives, and – most importantly – their struggles.

This year we’re welcoming:

1. Anjali Taneja, Executive Director, Casa de Salud, USA
2. Bruno Sobral, Professor and Director, OneHealth Institute, USA
3. Chantal Walg, Health Advisor, Syntein & Health Transformer, Games for Health Europe, The Netherlands
4. Doran Schrantz, Executive Director, ISAIAH, USA
5. Julian Corner, Chief Executive, Lankelly Chase, UK
6. Katherine Mella, Economic Democracy Project Post-Graduate Fellow, MIT Community Innovators Lab (MIT CoLab), USA
7. Kim Fortunato, Director of Community Affairs and President of Campbell Soup Foundation, USA
8. Maggie Hawthorne, Director, Strategy and Innovation, Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers, USA
9. Mike Roaldi, Vice President of Policy, Health and Community Alignment, UnitedHealthcare Community and State, USA
10. Philip Sambol, Vice President, Operations, Good Food Markets, USA

We’re also welcoming back the following participants of CHC 2015:

1. Anthony Iton, Senior Vice President, The California Endowment, USA
2. David Zuckerman, Manager, Healthcare Engagement, Anchor Institution Initiative, The Democracy Collaborative, USA
3. Maggie Super Church, Community Development and Sustainability Consultant, Conservation Law Foundation, USA
4. Margaret Aimer, Development and Delivery Lead, Ko Awatea Health System Innovation and Improvement, Counties Manukau Health, New Zealand
5. Tom Kottke, Medical Director for Well-being, HealthPartners, MN, USA

The annual meeting is all about learning from experience. While many of the above are keynote speakers at major gatherings, they know they’ve been invited to CHC 2016 because of their willingness to share, learn from others, and collectively think about how to surface, understand, and respond to the needs of communities, including encouraging community agency. The title of this year’s meeting is ‘Principles to Practicalities’ and it builds on the report from last year’s meeting, Eleven Principles for Creating Health. We hope to publish a report from this year’s meeting in the coming months.

Pencil The Date For Our Larger Gathering

We’ve started to get requests for help. Although we’re responding to those requests individually, we’re taking it as an indication that it’s time to hold a larger gathering. Last year’s webinar, Organizing Communities to Create Health, had over 2200 registrants so we’re modestly hoping that about 10% of that number would be willing to participate in a gathering.

Our target date is October 24-25, 2016, and it’s to be held in San Francisco. Save the date for now and keep watching these posts for an update (and if someone forwarded this post to you, sign up here).

We’ve spent a good few months finding the right kind of partners for the gathering. We’re pleased to say that MIT Community Innovators Lab (MIT CoLab) and Community Science are on board as editorial partners. MIT CoLab brings insights into what it means to genuinely engage communities, especially those often excluded. Community Science brings insights into how qualitative and quantitative methods can be used to strengthen the science and practice of community change. The Executive of the Collaborative brings insights from the health system. Collectively, we’re leveraging our networks to bring insights from the investment community. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco are providing the venue. And the Insight Center for Community Economic Development will be our fiscal sponsors.

Building empathy across systems and with communities is in the DNA of our annual, 20-person meeting (we’ve even realised that having more than 20 erodes our ability to do this). Getting this right for a 200-strong gathering will be tough. Our current plan is to spend the first half-day illustrating how sectors and communities think differently and the next day looking at real-world examples of how commonalities of purpose were surfaced and arranged into programmes – and where those programmes have got to.

Seeking Like-Minded Funders

Our next step is to find funders. We have a number of conversations on the go but if you’re at a funding organisation and would like to talk, or if you can suggest funders to talk to, please do get in touch. Our hope is to raise funding for the full costs of the meeting so that we can curate the attendees (including residents from communities). Even if we have to charge for attendance we’ll seek to have a travel fund to ensure that we have new voices in the room.

Making It Up, With a Little Help

As ever, I am making the Collaborative’s journey up as I go, although these days I am ably assisted by the Executive; my thanks to Scott Liebman for once again hosting the CHC annual meeting, to Bridget Kelly for leading on the planning of the larger gathering, and to Leigh Carroll, Mark Wieland, and Ollie Smith for being part of the gathering’s planning committee. My thanks also to Andrew Binet of MIT-CoLab, Oscar Espinosa of Community Science, David Erickson of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Brad Caftel of the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.

Drop me a line if you’re interested in the event and, again, if this email was forwarded to you sign up here.