Day 1 ⏐ Session 3
The power of with:
creating systems for better health in communities
With a focus on health, this session looks at why we need to shift systems and how we might stretch our understanding of complex issues, blur boundaries and build relationships across divides to open our thinking and create possibility for change.
Offering wonderful examples from their work we hear from Raquel Mazon Jeffers, Community Health Acceleration Partnerships New Jersey (US); Suresh Kumar, Neighbourhood Network for Palliative Care, Kerala (IN) and Karen Ingerslev, Central Region Health, Midtjylland (DK)
“We started talking to people and we developed over time. It actually evolved on the ground. We did not work on a blueprint, not on a theory… we were responding to a demand ”
Resources
Suresh Kumar
Raquel Mason Jeffers:
Karen Ingerslev
Quotes from the session
“When you work in communities that are so dynamic, new opportunities come up” (Shuresh Kumar)
“In palliative care, the problem is universal… We all know that we all will die and we all know that we all need help at the end of our lives. When you put this concept across, people understand. They also know of instances where help was not possible and there were things that they couldn’t do. So the basic [message] we send across is that this is everybody's business, and also you don't have to feel helpless…” (Suresh Kumar)
“This shift really rested on our ability to kind of speak both languages; that of the government and of the community. We acted as translators and really tried to just engender trust in those two systems and understand the constraints that each system was working within.” (Raquel Mazon Jeffers)
“Creating hope, and creating attractive versions of a future that [hospital employees] actually would like to be a part of… that's such a different approach from a top down thinking of trying to solve problems to really inviting the people… to imagine how could we do this in totally different ways. So I think future thinking and future doing is is creating an activism inside the organisation that we really need.” (Karen Ingerslev)
Emerging question
How do you mobilise a diverse set of people around an issue and generate the momentum around a shared purpose that invigorates new action?