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Creating Models for Institutional/Community Partnerships to Improve Health

For the past 15 years, the Cultural Wellness Center has been actively creating, refining and implementing community-approved models that impact outcomes and institutional efforts to improve community health. The following is list of its most frequently-contracted models:

 

The Community Systems Navigator Model

The Community Systems Navigator Model was first implemented in Hennepin County to the reduce risk factors associated with high rates of out of home placement for African American children. Now implemented in Ramsey County, the model relies on culturally-specific approaches to help families transition from welfare to work. In this culturally-adaptable model, community residents whose life experiences match the families', are trained by elders at the Cultural Wellness Center to become "Navigators."

Navigators engage people in a process of self-awareness by reconnecting them to their culture and heritage- both of which are necessary, and rich resources for attaining self-sufficiency and self-reliance. 

 

The Elder Coaching Model

The Cultural Wellness Center has been partnering with several health care providers to improve the health outcomes of their patients. In the Elder Coaching Model, physicians and other providers receive 'coaching' on issues they've identified as barriers to providing optimal care to their patients. A cultural elder provides health care staff with specific strategies to improve the hospital or clinic experience for their patients. The elder also coaches patients to interact with their provider in a way that results in greater cooperation and harmony.

 

The Birthing Team Model

The Birthing Team Model is one of the original models of the Cultural Wellness Center. It is a model that consists of an array of culturally-based strategies to prevent infant mortality and pre-term birth. In this model, women are supported by a traditional birth attendant from their culture through pregnancy and birth, and into the postpartum period.   

 

Cultural Knowledge Production Model

The Center provides  cultural immersion experiences within our Invisible College, for public health and social science researchers interested in improving their ability to conduct research with cultural communities. During the immersion, researchers are engaged in a process of cultural self-study where they undergo a facilitated dialog on issues or 'problems' they've identified as barriers to research. Notes are carefully taken during each session and a report is drafted which documents the both the process for producing knowledge, and the knowledge that was produced. Reports serve as a cultural knowledge-produced reference for future and/or existing researchers interested in working in communities.

“In the community I grew up in there was one doctor and several midwives. Going back to traditions is difficult. Now there are not enough midwives, but lots of doctors, yet people are not going. Now we are forced to have bad food. The kids get hungry and there’s  no time to fix something,  so you go to McDonald’s. We’ve omitted  things that we should do. We eat too much sugar and we don’t exercise. We need to do our own diagnosis and turn all of this around. We need to do our own diagnoses."   -Mary Nixon Health Care CHAT February 2, 1995