Phase B of UNIITE’s
“Health Care and World Religions” series

The first of the 4 meetings of Phase B sessions of the Health Care and World Religions series were held on Friday, 12/8, 2-3.30 pm and Tuesday, 12/12, 9-10.30 am to suit the convenience of different people who signed up and who were free at different times.

Next meetings will be held on
Friday January 19th. from 10:00 to 11:30 am at Conference Room B of Abbott Northwestern's Sartell Outpatient Center
and
Tuesday January 23rd. from 9:00 to 10:30 am. at Conference Room A ofAbbott Northwestern's Sartell Outpatient Center.

LOCATION
Lobby
Abbott Northwestern's Sartell Outpatient Center
2000 Abbott Northwestern Court
Sartell, MN 56377
Direction to Abbott Northwestern's Sartell Outpatient Center

Contact person: Nancy Bunkers
Phone: (320)534-2005

FORMAT
Talking Circles of maximum 5 members each

TIME FRAME
Opening session of the Talking Circles, first half of December 2006. The last three will be in January and February 2007 at a time suitable for all in the Circle. The closing fourth session will be held no later than 28 February 2007.
Contact Malcolm Nazareth at (320) 291-7124 if you are still interested in joining.

ACCREDITATION

The Nursing Dept, College of St. Benedict will award 6 CEU's to all those who spend 6 hours in the Talking Circles during the four 90-min. sessions during Phase B. The same kind folks will handle registrations on behalf of UNIITE.
Contact: Nursing Department, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, 37 College Ave South, St. Joseph, MN 56374

SPONSOR LIST
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation
CentraCare Health Foundation
Abbott Northwestern

Content/Agenda of the Sessions:

Session 1 (completed in December 2006): Mutual introductions of 5 members of each Talking Circle - deciding on a Circle Leader - each member deciding which of the 5 ethno-religious groups he or she will be researching for a case story - Circle Leader makes sure that every member has a copy (or knows how/where to get a copy) of the handouts of each of the 5 ethno-religious groups which were presented at Hoppe - Circle Leader gets group to decide on where/when to meet next (probably at Abbott Northwestern itself).

Session 2: Each member spends 15 mins. sharing the case story which they have chosen to showcase for their selected ethno-religious group - they will identify (a) cultural and/or religious barrier(s) to health care which the case story highlights - others in the Circle will pitch in with their insights about cultural/religious barriers that the same case story exemplifies - Circle Leader gets group to determine next date/location to meet.

Session 3: Each member spends 15 mins. to highlight the cultural and/or religious barriers, and suggests ways for health care professionals to overcome the specified barriers - others pitch in with their insights and suggestions - Circle Leader and group decide on final date/location to meet.

Session 4: Each member brings a finalized print version of their case story, the cultural and/or religious barriers, and the suggested ways to get around them. If further suggestions are made by others in the group, these will be added as footnotes to the finalized version and the 5 case stories - Circle Leader will hand these over to Malcolm.

With this, Phase B will come to a close. It will enable us to have excellent material to present during Phase C. No matter how many Talking Circles we have, there will be no more than 2 case story presentations (per 5 ethno-religious groups) which will be selected by Malcolm and the Circle Leaders along with a UNIITE Board member early March to bring to Phase C. Taken together, the 10 case stories selected will exemplify as wide a range of health care specialties and departments as possible. The case stories will be put into power point presentation format. Each presenter will receive a small cash prize for doing the needful and for doing a public presentation for 10-15 minutes on 13 or 20 or 31 March. They will bring their powerpoint presentations to state-level specialists for expert comment on one of these three dates for public discussion.

If the project is a success, UNIITE hopes that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation (principal funders of the series) would consider printing the best case-stories in booklet form and distributing them far and wide as a valuable educational tool for health care personnel.

PHASE B - CASE STORIES POWERPOINT PRESENTATION

Hmong and Health Care by Linda Meehl

Latino/a Christians and Health Care by Nancy Evans

Somali Muslims and Health Care by Linda Meehl

Somali Muslims and Health Care by Deb Thomalla

South Asian Hindus and Health Care by Mariani Nazareth

Lao Buddhists and Health Care by Malcolm Nazareth

INFORMATION FOR PHASE C

Detailed information for Phase C Part 1 (5 panels) can be found here.

http://www.uniite.org/HCWR_phaseC.html

Detailed information for Phase C Part 2 (Cultural Healing Festival 2007) can be found here.

http://www.uniite.org/culturalhealing2007.html

You are invited to our Cultural Healing Festival 2007 Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday March 6 at Christ Church Newman Center, 396 First Ave South St. Cloud, at 6:00 pm.

Contact: Brenda Graber, Newman Center, 320/251-3260 or
Rupesh Modi, Event Coordinator of the Festival at 405/334-1824 (cell).

If you seek a grasp of the entire HCWR series and how Phase B fits into it all, please visit UNIITE's website: http://www.uniite.org/healthcare_religions.html and/or http://www.uniite.org/HCWR_phaseA.html and/or UNIITE Executive Director's webpage at SCSU http://web.stcloudstate.edu/mjnazareth

Thank you for your time and attention and for supporting UNIITE in its efforts to make health care accessible to all new Americans.

Malcolm Nazareth, executive director
UNIITE
www.uniite.org
320/291-7124 (cell) or 320/230-6669