UNIITE - Understanding the Need for
Interfaith / Intercultural Togetherness & Education

UNIITE’s 2006-07
“Health Care and World Religions” Series:
Aims, Objectives, and Strategies,

division

PHASE A, Part One:

Aim:
To conduct five 4-hour sessions every other Tuesday in order to orient health care professionals to the socio-cultural and religious needs of five relatively new immigrant groups in the St. Cloud area, namely, South Asian Hindus, Lao Buddhists, Hmong, Latino/a Christians, and Somali Muslims.

Intended Audience:
Physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, chaplains, counselors, dieticians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, dentists, surgeons, students, interns, volunteers, and others engaged in health care delivery in the St. Cloud area.

Objectives:

  1. Expanding current biomedical paradigm(s) of health and healing, especially mental health, to include wellness and health beliefs, practices, and concerns from diverse faiths into a holistic model of health care delivery.
  2. Providing opportunities for anybody engaged in health care delivery to interact directly in role play with representatives of the five immigrant groups and to receive immediate feedback on those interactions in a frank, friendly, and fun atmosphere.
  3. Extending cultural competence of health care professionals to the spiritual and religious beliefs and practices of the new immigrant populations.
  4. Discussing concrete ways in which all those who are engaged in health care delivery could integrate knowledge of diverse faiths and cultures and into clinical practice

PHASE A, Part Two:

Aim:
To execute an 8-hour Complementary Therapies Festival on a Saturday.

Intended Audience:
Everybody in the St. Cloud area, especially physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, chaplains, counselors, dieticians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, dentists, surgeons, students, interns, volunteers, and others engaged in health care delivery.

Objectives:

  1. Increasing local mainstream health care professionals’ knowledge of and sensitivity to effective integrative and complementary health care practices with a special emphasis on yoga.
  2. Expanding the current paradigm(s) of health care delivery, especially related to mental health, by presenting beliefs and practices, and health care concerns from diverse faiths and cultures.
  3. Socially and professionally connecting practitioners of mainstream and complementary healing professionals, and acquainting the former with the latters' unique skills.
  4. Providing immigrant healers an opportunity to share the richness of their healing traditions with others practicing from the biomedical paradigm.
  5. Offering immigrants and others a whole spectrum of new and viable avenues to decrease cultural and economic barriers to health care.
  6. Reducing myths and misconceptions among mainstream health care providers about the spiritually-based health-related beliefs and practices of peoples from diverse faiths and cultures.

PHASE B

Aim:
To develop diverse case stories on the five new immigrant groups selected in Phase A, Part One.

Intended Audience:
Anybody in the St. Cloud area, especially physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, chaplains, counselors, dieticians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, dentists, surgeons, students, interns, volunteers, and others engaged in health care delivery, who participated in all five sessions of Phase A, Part One.

Strategies:

  1. Forming talking circles of five persons who will each select one of the five new immigrant groups and commit to group work from mid-November 2006 through mid-February 2007.
  2. Connecting each talkin circle with leaders of the new immigrant groups in the St. Cloud area to work on case stories pertaining to health care with precautions duly taken to ensure privacy protection.
  3. Having talking circle leaders ensure that each of the five case stories will be adequately discussed so that health care related cultural and religious barriers experienced by the new immigrant groups will be properly teased out in the talking circle.
  4. Selecting two of the most representative case stories from the various talking circles from a wide spectrum of health care departments and scenarios in view of Phase C, Part One.
  5. Ensuring preparation by the case story authors of 10-minute Power Point presentations on these ten (5 X 2) case stories for presentation in Phase C, Part One.

PHASE C, Part One:

Aim:
On three alternate Tuesdays, mid-February through March, to publicly present case stories, which have been developed in Phase B, to state-level or national-level specialists in the five new immigrant groups for their expert comments on religion and cultural specifics in three panel sessions (2+2+1).

Intended Audience:
Everybody in the St. Cloud area, especially physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, chaplains, counselors, dieticians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, dentists, surgeons, students, interns, volunteers, and others engaged in health care delivery.

Strategies:

  1. Bringing the finalized Power Point presentations from Phase B to three panels (2+2+1) of specialists in the five new immigrant groups.
  2. Offering the specialists a forum in which to publicly apply their expertise to the various issues which talking circle participants have teased out in Phase B.
  3. Videotaping these sessions in order to utilize the case stories and their public discussion with the help of well known experts as resources and possibly even for future publication.
  4. Having the specialists each deliver a 60-minute presentation, followed by 30-minute q&a, on the new immigrant group which consists of their area of expertise.

PHASE C, Part Two:

Aim:
To execute a concluding 4-hour Complementary Therapies Festival immediately after the third and final panel presentation on the last new immigrant group of the series.

Intended Audience:
Everybody in the St. Cloud area, especially physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, chaplains, counselors, dieticians, occupational therapists, physical therapists, dentists, surgeons, students, interns, volunteers, and others engaged in health care delivery.

Objectives:

  1. Increasing local mainstream health care professionals’ knowledge of and sensitivity to effective integrative and complementary health care practices with a special emphasis on yoga.
  2. Expanding the current paradigm(s) of health care delivery, especially related to mental health, by presenting beliefs and practices, and health care concerns from diverse faiths and cultures.
  3. Socially and professionally connecting practitioners of mainstream and complementary healing professionals, and acquainting the former with the latters' unique skills.
  4. Providing immigrant healers an opportunity to share the richness of their healing traditions with others practicing from the biomedical paradigm.
  5. Offering immigrants and others a whole spectrum of new and viable avenues to decrease cultural and economic barriers to health care.
  6. Reducing myths and misconceptions among mainstream health care providers about the spiritually-based health beliefs and practices of peoples from diverse faiths and cultures.