Deva Nation builds Compassionate Communities.
NicBluCares - A compassionate community model (serving Nicollet and Blue Earth Counties, Minnesota)
www.NicBluCaresNOW.com
We model a new public health approach to modern palliative care, as promoted by Public Health Palliative Care International.
We work to establish strong and equal partnerships between citizenry, civic institutions, and health systems so that together.
We can effectively provide continuity, equity, and compassion in the delivery of care to everyone who needs it.
The residents of the Greater Mankato Area are invited to participate in the development of our country's first Compassionate Community.
Take a look at the video of our model/partner city in Frome, England: HEALTH CONNECTIONS MENDIP. Compassion abounds in our community with excellent programs and services offered. Our work is to maximize our 'social connections' so that when anyone is dying, caring or grieving, we all know what to do.
Meet the Team>>
“A Compassionate Community recognizes that all natural cycles of sickness and health, birth and death, and love and loss occur every day. It acknowledges that care for one another during life’s most testing moments is not solely a task for health and social services but is everyone’s responsibility.”
How will Compassionate Communities Work in the USA?
Local Champions + Evidence-Based Research + Private & Grant Funding = Statewide Initiative building to a National Movement.
Starting with Deva Nation:
Phase I: Complete. (January 2017 – October 2017) The assessment of Deva Nation’s six-month community interview process determined the feasibility of the project. Please view the results and the powerful ‘community voices’ in the Deva Nation Interview Report
Funded by the Mankato Area Foundation
Phase II: Complete. (November 2017 – December 2018) Advanced local alliances with health and social service organizations, educational institutions, and non-profits; researched local, regional, national and international resources; produced community events to help normalize conversations about death, dying, and loss; provided death and dying workshops; attended state/national meetings and built alliances with affiliated organizations focused on healthy aging, hospice and palliative care, green burial, family-directed after death care, death doula, dementia, bereavement, and population health; initiated relationships with regional and national funders. Funded by the Andreas Foundation
Phase III: (January 2019 - January 2021)
Civic Action –Established the Deva Nation Advisory Team (1.10.19). Established Compassionate ‘Kato Towns’ Steering Committee (3.1.19), nursing professors from Minnesota State University Mankato to oversee the Compassionate ‘Kato Towns’ Charter evidence-based research to be completed fall, 2020. Research involves 15 sector leaders who have a facilitated conversation about belonging, loss, and resiliency. Each sector leader coordinates up to 4 focus groups in their sector to have the same conversation (total 40+ focus groups). The 15 sector leaders will review transcriptions of their focus groups and choose a best practice to mobilize as an organizational policy. These 15 sector policies will form the Kato Towns Compassionate Charter to be celebrated through a media campaign and available as guidelines for other sectors/organizations to develop their own policies. This goal of the charter is to create compassionate responses to loss that further a sense of community and resiliency, to harvest the wisdom of lived experiences, to help reduce suffering, and to promote our responsibility to care for each other in difficult times.
Population Health - Created NicBluCares (8.1.19) - a Compassionate Community Model serving Nicollet and Blue Earth Counties, MN. With generous financial support from the community, we purchased the innovative Aunt Bertha database directory and closed-loop referral system platform and created NicBluCaresNOW.com (2.1.20) serving Nicollet and Blue Earth Counties, MN. NicBluCares.com is the website ‘social integrator’ companion to the database.
NicBluCares Community Engagement
Talking Cafés (5.1.20) - Virtual conversations facilitated by Community Connectors through NicBluCaresNOW.com about experiences of need, support, or resources that are available in the community: what helps and what more help is needed. An online, two-hour Community Connector Training is available to anyone who wants to champion a robust and dynamic Compassionate Community. Community Connectors learn about resources available and help by ‘signposting’ others to programs that may be useful to them.
Care Cafés (7.1.20)- Virtual conversations facilitate by Health Connectors through NicBluCaresNOW.com delivering a place for ‘story’ with Peer Support and/or Education. Health Connectors are employees of a health system (medical or nonmedical) who support people to make positive changes to improve their health and wellbeing through virtual health-related conversations and workshops.
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Please email Mary Ann Boe (maryann@devanation.com) if you would like to contribute your experience, ideas or resources for our Compassionate Community Movement.
Stay tuned to our statewide initiative Minnesota Compassionate Communities Cares (MN-3C) coming in 2021.
Thank you!
Deva Nation is a charitable organization under the fiscal sponsorship of the Minnesota River Area Agency on Aging,
a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. We are grateful for the vital and generous financial support from our Sponsors.
