Fall Forum 2017 was held on Thursday, November 16 to create new ideas to address our community’s health challenges
Fall Forum 2017: Time Well Spent to Move Action Teams Forward
Mickey Gula, BRHF Executive Director, addresses the Fall Forum crowd
Using the ideas produced by last year’s Fall Forum, Dr. Roger Firestien’s presentation and workshop “Breakthrough Thinking: How to be Deliberately Creative,” provided a new process for the attendees of this year’s Fall Forum
to learn and practice. Six health challenges were identified as priorities for our community and those challenges were explored by categorized groups of our participants in this innovative way. These were:
Flagged ideas from brainstorming for the Transportation Challenge
- Transportation: Helping people get the services they need
- Communication Infrastructure: Connecting residents to resources
- Mental Health Stigma: Communicating the importance of mental health care and making patients comfortable using it
- Addiction and Prevention Pathway: Creating a network of support and treatment for patients as they battle drug use
- Healthy Food Access and Education: Making sure all children have access to good food
- Connecting Residents to Resources: Showing them what services are available to them
The process relies first on deferring judgment about any and all ideas that may be brought to the conversation. As the mind is allowed to accept more possibilities, the groups are challenged to create links between two ideas that may not necessarily seem like they could be related. It is a search for connections that create a viable way to address a concern or develop a plan for the future. At our Forum, leaders from the community and representatives from local organizations used this process to focus on impacting our health challenges.
In the coming weeks, the BRHF staff will compile the ideas that were generated. These notes will be conversation starters at future Action Team meetings where the discussions and creative thinking process will be continued. To join a BRHF Action Team, please call us at 724-418-2750.
Ruthanne Beighley, BRHF Board Chair, introduces the keynote speaker
