Interdisciplinary symposium sponsored by Drew Medical and Health Humanities and Drew Seminary
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March 2024 – Drew University hosted “Building a Caring Community: Leadership, Spirituality, and Holistic Care.” The symposium brought together scholars and experts in care, ethics, and theology to expand the learning experience. We extend the vision and knowledge of caring communities to the broader field of public health by exploring its opportunities and challenges.
of Events that take place throughout the day Sponsored and Sponsored by Drews Medical and Health Humanities ProgramDrews Caspersen Graduate School, Drew SeminaryCollege of Humanities and Sciences, and Atlantic Health System.
More than 150 in-person and virtual attendees heard from these multidisciplinary and academic expertsThe keynote speaker was Rev. David Brawley T’21, senior pastor of St. Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn and founder of MAAFA Suite. Joke Van Saane, Dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences; Carlo Leger, Director of Research and Care Ethics, College of Humanities and Sciences; Jonathan Golden, Director of the Drew Center on Religion, Culture, and Conflict (CRCC) and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Drew University. Yvette Vieira G’15, Atlantic Health System Senior Manager of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics. and Cynthia Orsini C’00, Certified Social Worker.
“The caring community model has the potential to bring about a paradigm shift in public health and care, changing the way we care for individuals who face health challenges throughout their lives,” said Drew University Program Director, Medical Health Humanities Associate Professor Merel Wisse said. . “However, its success depends on comprehensively integrating all available treatments, support services, and informal networks. A caring community model has the potential to revolutionize the way patients are treated. This is a groundbreaking approach to sexual health care, but for it to work it must take a holistic approach that encompasses all aspects of care.”
Van Zaan explored the contradictions in leadership found in European caring communities, particularly the shift in the balance of power from the leader to the group or community, coupled with a strong desire for security and authority. “Leadership is not about the individual as a leader, but about its dimensions: the interrelationships between the individual, the leader, the group, and the followers.” Furthermore, there is a paradox in connection: connectedness versus safety. She explained that strong desires often manifest as fear of uncertainty or death. “Diversity is not a problem. Diversity is a gift,” she said. “You need to be clear about the group and the purpose of the group.”
Vieira and Orsini, both doctoral candidates in the medical and health humanities, implemented a caring community model. Existing community-based support systems, often found in large cities, are formalized with policies that guide institutions such as businesses, government agencies, and schools to identify and reach vulnerable populations. Establish a structure. Other models are based on more traditional approaches and center on a strong sense of community citizenship, such as neighbors living nearby and organizing support networks for those in need. This model emphasizes communal care and relies less on formal structures.
When these models align, caring communities are designed to provide assistance to people who are seriously ill and near the end of life, as well as to support the social and community experiences surrounding death, bereavement, and grief. It has been. Mr Vieira pointed to the need to expand compassionate community care to include people dealing with social isolation, trauma, discrimination and abuse, to name a few.
Mr. Orsini told the audience about NORCs (buildings, neighborhoods, or communities with a large proportion of older people living in housing not built or designed for an aging population). NORC usually evolves naturally over time, developing when individuals move into a building or neighborhood and age in place over many years. New York City is where his NORC model was formed, first established with private funding in 1986. There are currently approximately 60 of his NORCs in New York City.
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Mr. Brawley’s keynote address was titled “Community as the Medicine of Being Together,” highlighting St. Paul Community Church’s impressive 40 years of community rebuilding in the East New York and Brownsville neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Participants were informed about the campaign. “We’ve been involved in the community, but we’ve also been building the community,” Brawley said. “For us, that’s where healing happens, and it happens in community.”
Brownsville was in turmoil in the late 1960s, a ghetto. One of his first reconstruction projects undertaken by the church was basic but essential infrastructure improvements such as road signs. In the early 1980s, the Nehemiah Housing Program was born, utilizing unused or abandoned land to provide affordable homes and apartments in East New York and Brownsville.
St. Paul is at the forefront of neighborhood and economic development. They have worked with Metro IAF (Industrial Area Foundation) to build approximately 5,000 affordable homes and apartments in Brooklyn over the past 40 years. “We’re training people to build buildings,” Brawley said. “People who have equity have better outcomes for their families and health. Their lives are changing because their communities are changing.”
“A lot of people in my community weren’t thinking about their health because they were thinking about paying rent.”
Their latest residential development project, Spring Creek Nehemiah, is being built on a former landfill site. “The community saw the landfill, but it saw the home through its imagination. How do you look beyond the trash to see the glory?”
Brawley earned his doctorate in ministry from Drew University, where his research focused on the intersection of social justice and sacred memory. “Social justice and sacred memory create healing, bring us into community, and demonstrate the worth of each of us.”
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Mr. Golden proposed expanding the caring communities model and applying it to peacebuilding and conflict resolution. Using Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as examples, Mr. Golden shared examples of community building and supporting survivors as a means of healing. “It takes the whole community to contribute to healing and the ability to move forward,” he said. Through needs assessments, examining existing interventions, assessing community capacity, and identifying needs, a caring community framework can exist to support peacebuilding.
Mr. Leget presented his research on “Coping with Loss and Grief Across the Lifespan: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.” Loneliness and connection are both human needs, but loss and grief are the flip side of love. “Working through loss and grief is an invitation to face the ultimate concerns of life and death and find a way out of grief,” he said.His model is public and available Download from here.
GRACE Founder Amanda Block shares her commitment to leveraging community resources to meet community needs to enable integrity and success for vulnerable and underserved neighborhoods Did. On the Thursday after the symposium, selected people in Summit, New Jersey volunteered to distribute groceries to more than 200 people at her GRACE.
Two case studies were presented. Atlantic Health System colleagues Dr. Abdul Mondur, Alex Beth Shapiro, and Laura Hawkins outlined various aspects of his medical center’s integrated multidimensional approach to care at Overlook in Summit, New Jersey. . They emphasize the importance of teamwork and collaboration, and care throughout the continuum of illness, addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs, and providing patient autonomy and information. We have shown how this includes promoting access and choice.
Healing Tree Director Pat Weikart T’00,’24 shared their ongoing efforts to support pediatric patients and their families managing sickle cell disease. She emphasized the difference between treatment and care. Treatment is transactional care, and care is a relational encounter that listens, is fully present, and responds to unmet needs that restore human dignity and meaning.
The day ended with Overlook Medical Center Humanities and Medicine Program Manager Thomas Dooley sharing a poem that captured the powerful atmosphere of the day and opened an inspired space for future conversations.
