Mentoring Community Health – One Neighborhood at a Time

At the Pollin Center we developed a mentoring program for community centers, working to transform these centers and the communities around them into health-promoting settings. The “settings-based” approach involves a holistic and multi-disciplinary method that integrates action across risk factors. The goal is to maximize disease prevention via a “whole system” approach that integrates environmental, organizational, and personal factors to promote health and wellbeing.

Jerusalem is most highly populated Israeli city.  The metropolis divided into 32 neighborhoods, each with the local communal “government” that oversees local urban planning, coordinates between the neighborhood citizens and the municipality, and runs a local community center providing services and activities for the citizens.  This governing body is called the “Minhal“

The Pollin Center coordinated with the City of Jerusalem and the Ministry of Health – Health Promotion Department to train community health promotion coordinators in the principles and practices of community-based health promotion, and guided them as they developed  a proposal that was then funded by the City. We then mentored these trainees as they set out to implement their projects. We’d like to share a little about the way this transformation is taking place – one neighborhood at a time

This is the story of the Givat Shaul “Meitarim” Minhal that has branches in six separate neighborhoods. Hagit R, the dedicated minhal rep who took part in the Pollin Center training environmental, organizational, and personal factors interact to affect health and wellbeing. program, is extremely enthusiastic about promoting health amongst her constituency.   Hagit worked with the neighborhood steering committee to ensure that a health promotion agenda was incorporated as part of the ongoing work of all neighborhood coordinators.  Hagit and her coordinators identified specific community needs, and outlined annual health promotion work plans to meet those needs. Hagit was there to lend a helping hand throughout the year as coordinators advanced with program development (including development of new operational partners) and implementation.

Community programs were conducted for teenagers, new mothers, children and parents, seniors, and minhal workers.  Some of the community programs that grew out of this initiative include:

• Healthy Lifestyle Training for teens
• I’m a Mom – Support group for new mothers coupled with learning about healthy lifestyle needs for new mothers
• Healthy Lunches – hands on workshop for children with their parents
• Memory Enhancement – for seniors
• The Beauty of Health Food – Combining vegetable carving and nutrition education

The  Minhal itself has become more health conscious – at staff meetings healthy snacks are the only food served and they now offer Nordic walking for Minhal workers!