Putting Care at the Center 2021 with Adventist Health’s Well-Being Division

A mobile health unit. A sustainable homeless collaborative. Ecosystems for care and social needs. Pediatric trauma screenings.

These aren’t always the concepts we think of when we talk about well-being. But they are the complex, complicated, layered and deeply critical conversations that are vital for communities, and Adventist Health’s Well-Being Division had not one, but six, opportunities to take the stage to inspire and lead on these subjects at Putting Care at the Center 2021, the annual conference of the Camden Coalition’s National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs this month.

The theme for this year’s event is “Trust, trauma, and healing in our communities,” an idea that truly encompasses the body of work that Adventist Health’s well-being teams are trailblazing across the footprint of Adventist Health.

The passion, the dedication and the creative and strategic planning by well-being teams have the power to change entire populations and ignite systematic change. Their work is breaking down barriers, helping to build trust and resilience to improve community well-being. Here are some of the uniquely special projects Adventist Health has been sharing at the Camden Conference all week:

MEET MOBI, A MOBILE HEALTH UNIT – What do you do when your goal is to make healthcare accessible to everyone by taking healthcare directly to where it is needed most? You figure out how to create a mobile health unit. That’s exactly what Adventist Health St. Helena has done to meet the community where they are, providing health screenings, consultations, referrals and education.

HOMELESSNESS PRESCRIPTION – Addressing and ending homelessness requires the collaboration of organizations and individuals from across the community. Adventist Health and Rideout has created a sustainable homeless collaborative that is transforming the community’s most vulnerable population through connections with community partners by doing simple things like collaborating with local leaders to leading and coordinating a functional HMIS (Homeless Management Information System).

BUILDING AN ECOSYSTEM OF CARE – After the Valley fire of 2015 devastated the Lake County community and 1,800 FEMA-defined homes (it doesn’t count those who lived in sheds, off the grid and in homes that didn’t meet FEMA standards), Adventist Health Clear Lake in Lake County truly stepped in to lead the path to recovery and stood up when people were needed to band together for recovery. Out of that came a beautiful story of human collaboration, where a community created an ecosystem of care, involving collaborators across settings and sectors that worked together to support the health and well-being of individuals with complex needs in the dismantled community.

SCREENING FOR HOPE -- How do you restore trust after trauma? Childhood adversity is one of the most serious, expensive and widespread public health crises of our time. Adventist Health Sonora and Adventist Health Mendocino County have created a comprehensive approach to whole-person care that includes appropriate utilization of services and resources, assessment of community needs, screening in the pediatric setting and the development of an all-inclusive trauma informed training curriculum with an emphasis on resiliency. It’s changing lives every day.

GROUP SOUL – The Well-Being Division is tackling issues that affect the most vulnerable populations among us. Through cross-sector community collaboratives, shared data and asset mapping, community specific targeted interventions and the integration of process improvements, we are beginning to address root causes of social health determinants. This is helping to rebuild trust and weave together groups of community leaders and shakers who are whole-heartedly committed to creating positive outcomes.

Thank you to all of our Adventist Health Well-Being speakers: Karla Newton, Noemi Mauricio Jimenez, Ashten Phillips, Marylin Wakefield, Rev. Shannon Kimbell-Auth, Matthew Rose, Roseanne Ibarra, Yesenia Mock, Susan Passalacqua and Lisa Fowler. Adventist Health is lucky to have well-being leaders who are doing the hard work to ignite transformation and improve well-being in massive ways.