Reimagining Healthcare Through Ecocultural Education

Health care access

Applying a proven solution to a new issue or sector (using an existing model, tool, resource, strategy, etc. for a new purpose)

There is a growing crisis of healthcare provider burnout and moral injury. Suicides continue to increase among caregivers. The quality and access of healthcare is directly impacted as a result of this problem. All of our communities suffer when the health of our healthcare providers is not a priority. How is the healthcare workforce expected to offer the compassion required for this work, when they are depleted themselves - and have little time taking care of their own mental, physical and spiritual health.
U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory on Health Worker Burnout
Our health care workers are suffering from more than burnout
U.S. Faces Crisis of Burned-Out Health Care Workers
Furthermore, the limited understanding and lack of awareness surrounding how ecological systems thrive, remains a detriment to community health, causing the most damage among rural and marginalized communities. health impacts of pesticides and other chemicals on child health

Our program is a blend of a health conference, a healing & cultural awareness festival, and a space for the community to connect with local caregivers to learn/share ways to improve health care access together.
The Healthcare Conference is intended to provide a learning space for healthcare providers in LA County to build social support networks for each other and also learn civic engagement so they can better advocate for their own needs as well as the community's, especially folks with income inequality who do not have access to quality healthcare services. This portion is also important in providing providers with new tools for resilience and understandings about mental and physical health by connecting with leaders in difference healthcare fields in a dynamic and playful way.
The healing & cultural awareness aspect focuses on providing healthcare professionals with embodied experiences to regenerate their mind/body/spirit, learn ways to grieve and move through the current challenges of working in healthcare, and build cultural intelligence and competency to cultivate more connection and understanding, ultimately empowering providers in the workplace and at home.
The community space is an opportunity for local artists, non-healthcare healers, farmers, educators, and others to share their gifts with the healthcare provider community of LA County as a token of gratitude while also building bridges so new pathways of equitable and collaborative healthcare can be possible.

Imagine LA County becoming a beacon of collaborative healthcare: Imagine healthcare professionals that are healthy, happy, resilient, integrative, ecological aware, and cooperative. Imagine LA County being able to attract the best healers in the world because of an effective health care culture.
Imagine health outcomes for BIPOC communities improving because there is more cultural medicine and more awareness of food as medicine (better local farming and food systems). Imagine BIPOC
Imagine more mentoring for youth impacted by foster and youth systems so they can become healthcare professionals in their communities. Imagine more integrated ecocultural health education programs in LA County schools so youth are healthier mentally and physically.
Imagine healthcare professionals being significant civic leaders so that there are abundant resources for social support systems, health care access, green spaces, community safety, more healthcare jobs that are worker supportive, etc

This is the first healthcare conference and festival we have planned. We have hosted Community healthcare conversations in rural Hawai'i and in rural California. We have also hosted a Transforming Rural Healthcare panel at the California Small Farm Conference. All these event were tremendously helpful and led to CALLS TO ACTION like a local psychologist now running for mayor on the Big Island of Hawai'i (that's one way to measure success!) and we also generated lots of warm data from folks who attended our various civic healthcare gatherings. Our biggest way to measure success will be on surveying healthcare professionals pre-event and post-event to evaluate the effect of the gathering on their general wellbeing and burnout resilience.
Farm gathering to discuss Healthcare provider shortage crisis in Hawai'i
Transforming Rural Healthcare panel at 36th CA Small Farm Conference
Hosting a Community Health discussion at a 50,000 person festival in Joshua Tree