ChangeLab Solutions providing answers on ‘shared use’ to health-based organizations building new community connections
By Les Gura
In the 21st century world of health care, new ideas and approaches are constantly being sought to head off long-building crises in obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
One concept being applied in a new way “shared use.’’ What’s new about it is the growing involvement of the faith community to open their resources to the public in the form of parks and exercise space—all in the effort to improve health. The issue of shared use, and how to accomplish it, often raises vexing questions for faith-based organizations and others.
ChangeLab Solutions, based in Oakland, Calif., is helping faith-based organizations, health departments, nonprofits and communities around the nation find answers and strategies to make shared use work.
“We’re an organization that tries to work in the broader realm of health in all policies … moving beyond more traditional approaches,’’ says Ellie Gladstone, staff attorney for ChangeLab Solutions. “We work to figure out new and innovative policy approaches that are rooted in an evidence base and will make a real difference.’’
North Carolina Partnerships
In North Carolina, ChangeLab Solutions worked with the Division of Public Health to create a 10-page resource outlining the benefits of shared risk, discussing liability and insurance issues, answering questions about managing risk and providing case studies of successful shared use partnerships. “Congregation to Community: Shared Use by North Carolina Faith-based Organizations,’’ provides information not just for potential partnerships in North Carolina, but to other organizations nationally that are seeking guidance in shared use.
“We wanted to create a resource that we could give to faith-based organizations reaching out to them to really explain what we’re talking about and delving into some of the issues that are going to be on their minds when they think about shared use,’’ says Anna Stein, legal specialist in the Chronic Disease and Injury Section of the Division of Public Health. “ChangeLab Solutions brings this national expertise; it’s a beautiful document. It really legitimizes the topic when you’re handing it to a partner in the community.
“We had started to explore the idea of working with faith-based organizations to integrate them into their communities as a resource for physical activity because we knew that, particularly in rural areas, when you look at opportunities for recreation and what infrastructure there is for recreation, oftentimes it’s not much,’’ Stein says.
Congregations, on the other hand, frequently have land or indoor space that can be used for playgrounds, basketball courts, walking trails, meeting and exercise rooms—all of which when open to the public can help improve public health, she said.
A Game Changer
Although the federal funding that paved the way for the resource ended just as new partnerships on shared use were beginning, she says, private foundations such as the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust are stepping up with money, especially in rural areas of North Carolina. For example, in Marion, N.C., two churches have created parks open to the public that serve children and adults thanks to grants from the Reynolds Trust and KaBOOM!, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that funds efforts to create recreation space for kids.
Shared use, Stein says, has been a game changer in terms of “creating a new social norm’’ that says it’s OK for private organizations to open their space to the community in the broader effort to improve health.
Gladstone says ChangeLab Solutions is pleased to be involved in the push to improve public health via new strategies.
“Any time you’re asking an organization or a group or a government institution to do something that’s different from what they’ve always done, that’s a challenge,’’ Gladstone says. “And in particular when you are pushing folks to let others use their space, that can be scary sometimes.’’
Robert Phillips, director of health programs for the Sierra Health Foundation in Sacramento, Calif., sees a lot of potential in the idea of shared use in a nascent effort there to reach the faith-based community. The foundation’s mission is to build a safe and healthy environment to improve emotional and physical health in Sacramento.
So far, 10 congregations have agreed to move forward with looking at potentially taking on shared use projects. ChangeLab Solutions is providing technical assistance to the foundation to help answer questions congregations have about liability, operations, logistics and more.
Phillips says that ChangeLab Solutions’ expertise and practical experience has been invaluable.
“The way they answered questions was not only extraordinarily helpful, but moved the conversation to ‘Yes, we want to do this.’”
Click here to download the 10-page Congregations to Community PDF describing shared use by faith-based organizations in by North Carolina.
Here’s a ChangeLab Solutions video, Unlocking Possibilities:
Photos: Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
