Healthy Community Coalition Meeting
November 20, 2014
Topic: Framing Our Shared Purpose
Attendees:
Barbara Luniuck-Rakita: Friends of Youth / Kristina Steffin: Sound Mental Health / Kelly Stinson: Snoqualmie Valley School DistrictFritz Ribary: Snoqualmie Valley Hospital / Carol Trenga: Health Scientist/Wellness Consultant / Nela Cumming: Encompass
Amy Biggs: Sno-Valley Transit / Laura Smith: Snoqualmie Valley Community Network
Agenda Topic / Info Shared / Action/Next Steps
Welcome, introductions, announcements / The HCC will be meeting on the 3rd Thursday of each month.
We reviewed the purposes of the Healthy Community Coalition.
Primary purposes:
- A shared learning community around health and wellness
- A platform for "think tanking" on ad hoc concerns attendees bring to the table
- A networking opportunity for attendees
- Communication/connecting residents of the valley
- Information Sharing/Clearinghouse for the Valley
- Encouraging promotion and use of agencies (need more definition)
- Evaluation of initiatives
- Coordination between the sectors
Review of September and October meetings: Determining a Shared Focus / We discussed the process to date, and created some group norms that will help us be most effective as we move forward.
Our Group Intentions:
- Start and end on time
- Work toward specific goals while fostering innovation and creativity
- Assume positive intent
- Maintain an environment of compassion and forgiveness
- Be respectful by avoiding side conversations and using deep listening
- Seek to understand
- Strive to stay on task
- Continually work to build trust and integrity
- Make room for purposeful pauses and reflection (add to the beginning of the meeting)
Move the newsletter date to the beginning of the month so that attendees have access to the minutes sooner / N/A
Framing Our Shared Purpose: A More Collaborative and United Snoqualmie Valley Community / To help frame our shared purpose, we explored our unanswered questions:
- How do we define the Snoqualmie Valley? We decided that for our purposes this includes: Duvall, Carnation, Fall City, Preston (98050), Snoqualmie, North Bend, and Snoqualmie Pass.
- What are we trying to UNITE? We decide that we are not trying to unite anything. Instead we are connecting the valley community by reducing barriers to health and wellness.
- Are the resources really available? Accessible?
Our shared purpose or goal is to reducing barriers to create a more collaborative, connected Snoqualmie Valley by:
- increasing communication about services
- teaching/guiding public how to navigate the system
- connecting agencies in meaningful ways.
- Distance: Mental health services are challenging to find because those that are in your network may also be far away
- Valley geography: 500 square miles
- KC often offers urban solutions for rural challenges
- Political boundaries
- Availability
- Access: What I am able to use vs. what is available
- Transportation: The reality is that we tend to own and drive our own cars, yet we think it is great for others to use public transit; not enough political clout
- Our communities look affluent and that gets in the way of funding (example: we have a 19-21% Free and reduced lunch rate as compared with White Center’s 80% rate)
- There is a “rural” attitude or resistance to getting help
- Gaps in affordable housing
Next steps / At the December meeting, we will review and finish our discussion about barriers and begin a conversation about opportunities or ways that the HCC might actively work on the goal. / N/A
Solutions Parking Lot / We want to be purposeful about giving adequate time to narrowing the focus, identifying root cause, identifying opportunities, BEFORE jumping into a problem solving mode. To help with this, we have created a Solutions Parking Lot to track solutions that come up and we will revisit them when the time comes. These items came up in Oct and Nov.
- Map how we currently get information (like a map at a mall)
- Grid of providers and the related barriers to getting service
- Heart of the Valley kiosks throughout the valley with “community navigators” who can help connect people with valley systems and services
- Crosslink our resources by posting/linking to another’s websites
- Welcome Wagon as a vehicle for getting quality information out to community
- Design a rural, culturally competent model
- Engage Kathy Lambert in this effort