BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH PARTNERSHIP

Just want to give a huge thanks to the Bismarck Doula Community for hosting the local launch of my health and wellness blog at the Bismarck Baby Expo! They have done an incredible job over the past several years of creating a space that welcomes young and expectant families and connects them with knowledge, providers, goods, and other community resources!

Let’s talk more about the importance of community. What is “community” anyway?  Community is defined as a group of people who share a common interest, values, characteristics or geography.  Researchers in community and public health realize the importance of understanding how a community works in order to develop an effective program for improving health outcomes within that community. What is so cool is that this research also shows that building a “culture of health” within communities improves outcomes amongst its members - such as preventable death from cardiovascular disease and diabetes as well as improved adolescent mental health outcomes with lifelong benefits to children who grew up in these cohesive communities. And at a time when most of us have at least one family member with cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and we are all at risk if we don’t prioritize everyone’s mental health, who doesn’t want these outcomes?

When we are faced with corporate takeovers that make many of us feel small and replaceable, and we see great talent fleeing from our communities because of decision making that is not in line with community need or interest, we are forced to find our community or create the community we need through partnership. We have the common interest of wanting to live in communities that are safe and supportive. We want our children to receive a good education, we want our parents to have access to quality healthcare, and we want to be living and working in healthy environments that support our productivity, and our contributions to a continually growing and thriving community.  

With the huge changes underway in the healthcare industry locally and nationally, primary interests seem to shift away from quality care, and toward the bottom line, so community members have to rely on each other to drive quality. We as community members can and must “create the change we want to see in this world”. As our wellness community grows and changes, my patients reinforce the fact that the need for quality care has not. And these same families reinforce another constant, we all work hard to ensure that our amazing children are priority number one.

Wondering how you can contribute to building your community?  

Let’s take a little personal inventory.

At the Baby Expo, we featured the Nurturing Wellness Challenge that you can check out in our resources section. It asks you to brainstorm what you’re really good at, choose your top 3 traits, and Name Your Superhero! Please join us at home to complete this first exercise, and start thinking about all the things that make you great, and how you can share this greatness with your community.  We will also feature the winners of this challenge on our website over the next 5 weeks! Thanks again to the Bismarck Doula Community for showing us an example of community collaboration at work. Looking forward to seeing our culture of health unfold!