Nurturing Our Retired Citizens		Replication Guide

Faith Communities Network (FCN)

Mission

To bring together representatives of all faith communities to explore ways to strengthen congregational outreach to seniors.

Program Description

Members of the faith communities met quarterly to explore issues of common interest related to seniors, especially those who were isolated or had health concerns. Lunchtime speakers addressed various topics of interest. Seminars were also planned for more extended presentations.

Community Goals Met

• Educate residents and service providers about existing resources
• Initiate an outreach program to connect seniors and their families to the available services in the community
• Encourage and support intergenerational interaction
• Develop a collaborative mechanism to identify gaps, coordinate programs and avoid duplication

Program Leadership

NORC Community Liaison with advice from Chair of FCN

• Schedules meeting time and place
• Sets topic and arranges for speaker
• Sets meeting agenda
• Makes follow-up calls to encourage attendance at meetings
• Moderates meeting.
• Takes notes, types and distributes to members (administrative assistant)

Impact

• Clergy, staff and congregants in participating churches and synagogues.

Planning Timeline

Before the event

• Three months before the event, Faith Communities Network members decide on the topic and date for the next meeting, contract with speaker and book room. For the seminars, send out a flyer two months in advance.
• Create a participant database.
• For community seminars, arrange food with the host facility one month ahead and confirm the week before.
• Three weeks before the meeting, email a meeting reminder.
• One Week ahead, arrange food for regular meetings.

• Display board
• Program handouts
• NORC flyers, brochures, pens
• Name tags
• Food
• Equipment set-up
• Two staff people

After event

• Type and mail out minutes with date and topic of next meeting with help of administrative assistant.

PR Marketing/Dissemination

• For the first couple of meetings, we communicated through mailings. Future communication was sent by email which proved more time efficient and cost effective.
• Minutes were emailed a couple of weeks after the meeting. They were a reminder of the resources presented at the meeting and a way to keep connected to those who were not in attendance. An initial notice of the meeting was included in the minutes.
• A meeting reminder was sent by email three weeks ahead.
• Reminder calls were made about a week and a half before the event.
• For seminars open to a wider audience such as the transportation training, email lists or bulletin notices from other organizations were also used such as:

• Faith Community Nurse Network email list of Hennepin County
• Vital Aging Network newsletter
• Flyers distributed at events  

Process and Outcomes

Initial contacts with congregations

The Faith Communities Network began meeting in May of 2004. During that summer, the community liaison met with the clergy of each of the participating congregations. It was an opportunity to tell them about the NORC initiative, affirm their existing programming for seniors, encourage intergenerational programming and share ideas among the congregations. This helped broaden the vision of possibilities and encouraged congregations to work together to meet the needs of their seniors.

We found that each congregation did something unique that we identified as their Best Practice. We asked them to write it up based on a format provided. A Best Practices booklet was put together with the entries received. About a third of the congregations chose to participate.

Challenges

At first, the Faith Communities Network met quarterly. We started with meetings on Thursday afternoons, but when attendance waned, we changed to Tuesday over the lunch hour. We provided a free lunch and had a guest speaker on a topic of common interest. Even though not everyone attended all the meetings attendance continued to grow, as did the awareness of the needs of seniors and of the resources available to support them.

Bringing NORC to the faith communities as a new resource was a difficult task. Initial calls were made to congregations to set up face-to-face visits where we introduced the NORC mission and learned about each congregation’s activities. We encountered a wide variety of religious groups, and not all of them wanted to be a part of our collaborative efforts. In addition, it was difficult to get clergy to come to meetings, so we encouraged them to designate someone to attend as an alternate. If congregations requested not to participate at all, we did not call them again, but we kept them on the email list. As programs came up and resources were offered, some did approach us for programming help. The connections made and relationships built were particularly important as we began the congregational nurse program. Because of the Faith Communities Network, congregations had an awareness of NORC and most were receptive.

As we expanded, we learned that it was more effective to work through City officials to create buy-in from the clergy. When we expanded into our second community, the initial invitation came from the Mayor’s office. When the clergy came together for this meeting it also fulfilled the City’s senior-related goals of bringing the faith communities together.

Summary

We reached out to the faith communities to help build capacity to reach out to seniors and others with health concerns. Establishing relationships with the leadership of the congregations helped us better achieve our goals. Not all congregations wanted to participate in this community venture. It is important to be realistic about participation in the Network and to understand that we have an impact whether people attend or not. Even those who do not participate, hear about new visions and new possibilities to expand their outreach, which could influence future programming. The success of the congregational nurse program was dependent on the relationships we had built the FCN.

Budget

Attachments

• Budget
• Letters announcing meetings
• Flyers
• Sample email notice
• Brochure
• Best Practices

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