Faith and health partnerships
Loving communities are healthy communities.
Where you live affects your health more than your genetics or even the quality of health care you receive. Do people have access to high quality, affordable food? Do they feel safe, know their neighbors, and trust that they will receive help if they need it? Are there good jobs available nearby? Do kids receive an excellent education? Can people live free from discrimination and bias?
This is what Loving Community is all about. And when communities are loving and just, people are healthier. At Advocate Health, we recognize how faith communities already are leading to overcome the deepest social issues and create the conditions in which people can live well.
Advocate Faith and Health Partnerships collaborates with faith communities of all religious traditions to build Loving Communities of hope, justice and wholeness where all people can be healthy. We work toward this aim by:
- Partnering with faith and community partners to address the social conditions that impact people's health, such as community safety, housing, workforce development, food security and access to physical and mental health services;
- Developing partnerships with existing faith leader networks to promote health and well-being;
- Designing and implementing faith-rooted health promotion programs;
- Connecting faith communities with existing Advocate Health programs and resources;
- Developing resources on faith and health topics;
- Advocating for policy and system changes that address the social determinants of health.
Our work includes initiatives such as:
Faith community nursing
The purpose of Faith Community Nursing is to nurture the human spirit through health education, spiritual support and linking the needs of the whole person to resources within the congregation, community and health care system. Faith Community Nurses:
- Provide health education and consultation
- Connect people with resources
- Facilitate referrals for services
- Help people navigate the health care system
- Provide support when people are in the hospital or facing a health crisis
- Intentionally care for the spirit and integrate spiritual care into health promotion
- Organize support groups and systems
- Assist in creating conversations around end-of-life care and other critical health care decision-making
Advocate Health Faith Community Nurses serve in individual congregations and in neighborhood networks.
Advocate Health also convenes a Faith Community Nurse Support Network that gathers Faith Community Nurses from around the region for regular meetings to provide support, continuing education and spiritual renewal.
Community connectors
Our Community Connectors work hand-in-hand with our Faith Community Nurses to build relationships and networks across a neighborhood. They connect community residents with services, build collaborations across community organizations, link community initiatives, and connect the Faith Community Nurse with community residents who need health consultation, support and programming.
Faith and mental health integration
The Faith and Mental Health Specialist supports and equips faith leaders to meet the mental health needs of their members. Their work with clergy is available at no cost and includes:
- Assistance to clergy in managing mental/behavioral health issues within their communities.
- Monthly consultation/support call with clergy
- Education and training for faith leaders and their congregations
- Linkage and referrals
- Partnership and collaboration
Our mental health work is grounded in a trauma-informed and healing-engaged framework that recognizes that we are all impacted by adversity and that faith and spiritual practice is foundational to our resilience and our mental and emotional well-being.
Education and development
We offer many workshops and classes on faith and health topics and promote the initiatives or partners, as well. These programs include a focus on topics such as:
- Health ministry development
- Support teams
- Love asset mapping partnerships
- Trauma, resilience and faith
- Mental well-being
- Chronic disease self-management
Communications and community events
We publish bulletin inserts and newsletters with health information, resources, events and learning opportunities across a range of health topics and issues. We also support a website for The Center for Faith and Community Health Transformation with resources, connections to others working in faith and health, blogs, articles and information about timely faith and health topics. Our Facebook page is another source of information and connection with the wider faith and health movement.
Health ministry development
We work with faith communities to build health programs that are unique to their setting and that fit the culture and interests of the congregation. Topics covered include:
- Introduction to health ministry
- Grounding health ministry in faith
- Approaches to health ministry
- Assessing and planning
- Putting it all together
- Follow up and on-going support and technical assistance
The center for faith and community health transformation
The Center is the joint work of Advocate's Faith and Health Partnerships and the Neighborhoods Initiative of the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Center formed in 2009 out of growing concern in Chicago's faith and health movement about how social conditions – poverty, racism, unemployment, lack of access to care – impact people's health. The Center was created to mobilize faith communities to change the social conditions that affect people's health.
Learn more about The Center’s programs and partnerships.
The Center hosts a website that serves as a gathering place for the faith and health movement to share information and interesting projects, post events, share resources and ideas, and keep in touch with what others are doing. Visit faithhealthtransformation.org to learn more.
Contact us
Faith and Health Partnerships
The Center for Faith and Community Health Transformation
3075 Highland Parkway
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Email: kirsten.peachey@aah.org
Phone: 630-929-6107
www.faithhealthtransformation.org