Medical Workers Recruiting Ideas Health Improvement Partnership Aimed At Making Community Healthier

Spokane hospitals and medical workers are looking for people with ideas on how to make the community healthier.

In fact, they’re looking for 10,000 such people.

It’s part of a plan to help people back up their ideas with the resources they need.

“We can put wind under the wings of this dream. We’re not controlling it,” said Barbara Savage, who is directing the Health Improvement Partnership.

The partnership is a collaboration between Spokane’s major hospitals, the county medical society, the county health district, and the Washington State Health Foundation.

Organizers have been meeting for more than a year to form the partnership and find out what Spokane residents consider their biggest health concerns.

Answers ranged from drug and alcohol abuse to violence to teenage pregnancy.

Now, organizers are recruiting people who have specific ideas on how to make the community healthier. They’re teaching them to organize their own projects.

And they’re connecting them with resources they need. A group in East Spokane, for instance, wants help negotiating with city officials for a neighborhood park.

At the Northeast Community Center, a teacher wants to set up a child care program for women trying to get their high school general equivalency diplomas.

Holy Family Hospital may help organize another project to provide after-school child care in the surrounding neighborhood.

“It’s a need out here,” said Linda Crabtree, a partnership staff worker.

She’s first trying to find out if neighbors agree it’s a problem. If they do, she’ll find out if they want to fix it and how to go about it.

“I’m excited because it’s a different way of doing things,” Crabtree said. “You listen, you don’t tell. You don’t go in with an agenda.”

Partnership organizers call the ideas to improve health “discoveries.” They call the people who come up with them “discoverers.”

“Discoveries can happen anywhere and everywhere in the community,” Savage said. The group’s goal is 10,000 discoveries.

Medical workers aren’t supplying the money for projects, Savage said. That’ll come from other people. An asphalt company, for instance, could provide the foundation for a playground.

“We don’t see ourselves as a controller, enforcer or director, but more as a catalyst in the community,” Savage said.

Training sessions will be offered for those interested in participating in the program. Reservations can be made by calling 482-2557.

, DataTimes