Deep Dive in Review: 
Emergent Priorities and Potential Action Steps


On Thursday, June 1st, the NRN met at the Needham Town Hall and reviewed the most salient themes to emerge from the past months’ ‘State of Needham’ reflections. Then, in breakout groups, the NRN considered follow-up action steps aimed at increasing overall belonging and mental health awareness and access, and reducing group-based inequities in these areas.



ICE BREAKER: Inspiring Community Events


In pairs, members recalled inspiring community events or initiatives they attended or helped to craft. The ingredients cited as helping to make these events effective often had to do with co-creation, voice, power-sharing and collaboration: 

  • Planning which included a diverse array of community partners

  • Planning which included student voices, reflecting a shift in power and allowing voices not usually heard to emerge

  • A strong response/endorsement from the community

  • Bringing the community together around a common project, enabling all to have ownership

  • A broad diversity of voices all included at once
 


REFLECTION ON THE DEEP DIVE & POTENTIAL FOLLOW-UP PROJECTS


One goal of the “State of Needham” reflections was to build common knowledge about town issues (e.g., strengths, risks, weaknesses and disparities). Another goal was intergroup empathy and understanding. Throughout the reflections, members shared their own experiences and attitudes towards the community data, enabling greater understanding of others’ lived experiences. A third goal was to apply our shared understanding of the risks, weaknesses, strengths and disparities that exist in town to how we think about community level risk and protective factors.

Understanding community-level risk and protective factors can be tools for preventing division and preemptively countering hate. It is also an important input into how we design and implement rapid response—the work that the NRN will take up in September. From September 2023 to February 2024, the NRN will use its meetings to co-create and practice a rapid response protocol. 

At the June meeting, the NRN identified themes that had emerged again and again in our Deep Dives, and then, as a means of prevention (e.g., strengthening relationships and supporting positive norms of belonging & wellness), it brainstormed potential actions that the NRN might pursue to address them. The two community needs that emerged across multiple NRN sessions in recent months were the rising challenges around mental and behavioral health in Needham, and disparities in residents’ sense of belonging.

Each need is discussed below, along with a bare bones proposal of how the NRN might be able to help address the need. It is important to note that these two issues are related: Belonging is itself a protective factor for good mental health.

Improving Community Mental Health via a Mental Health Collaborative
 
Challenges involving residents’ mental health emerged in almost every arena of our deep dive into Needham. At Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Needham, the rate of admissions related to mental health has increased substantially.

The Needham Public Health Department reported a significant increase in issues related to depression, anxiety and hoarding. A report from the Needham Community Council noted an increase in food and economic insecurity in Needham, and discussed its negative impact on parental mental health. Schools in Needham have seen skyrocketing mental health concerns for youth, exacerbated by inequity, performance pressures, and constant assessment. Finally, the NRN’s “Belonging and Social Cohesion in Needham Survey” found that a significant percentage of Needham residents lack a primary care doctor, suggesting potential barriers to accessing mental or behavioral health support.

A Mental Health Collaborative was proposed as one way to improve mental health within Needham. The Collaborative would seek to meet three goals: 

  • Increase accessibility of therapy for low-income and non-white populations who need MH care and live or go to school in Needham via the creation of a clinician “collaborative.”  The collaborative will prioritize cross-cultural competency and diversity. 

  • Increase community awareness, knowledge, and de-stigmatization of mental health by training a cohort of informal neighborhood and/or identity group “hubs.” These well-known and trusted community members will be trained in ‘Mental Health First Aid’ and then co-design and implement programs/protocols for building awareness with their communities.

  • Increase mental health outreach/awareness by intentionally establishing a presence at community events, such as block parties, festivals, business gatherings, and initiatives at houses of worship, schools, childcare centers, etc. and offering tools for self-assessment, outreach steps, conversation starters, etc.

This breakout group strongly endorsed the proposal. Discussion centered more around the local context, and the need to better identify those groups/individuals experiencing more risk factors. Breakout group ideas around action included: 

  • Acknowledge that the local mental health system is severely strained.

  • Identify those aspects of the community that interfere with belonging. 

  • Research and build/co-create programming with local groups experiencing increased risk factors (seniors, BIPOC, anyone experiencing non-belonging or feeling isolated, anyone facing food or economic insecurity, those with language challenges, etc.).

  • Leverage the NRN’s subnetwork system in order to most effectively position the clinician collaborative to activate community resources and partnerships.

  • Support the collaborative’s efforts at ‘increasing protective factors and decreasing risk factors for mental health, and addressing anxiety, depression, housing, and food security through informal “hubs” trained in Mental Health First Aid and dedicated to building awareness/outreach within their network.

Increasing Belonging and Inclusion through a “Together Needham” Initiative

While the NRN “Belonging & Social Cohesion Survey" found that residents of Needham are doing better than the national average on outcomes such as general health, stress, loneliness, neighborhood and community satisfaction, and openness to a diversifying community, it also revealed that Needhamites are struggling with local change. Needhamites are more likely than the average American to agree that, “Things in my local community have changed so much I feel like a stranger in my own town.”  Moreover, non-white Needhamites reported less local belonging and neighborhood and local satisfaction than white Needhamites. Lastly, Needhamites whose social networks are more homogenous report less belonging…suggesting that efforts to increase connections across difference might also improve an overall sense of community belonging in Needham. 

Various programming ideas emerged from Network members over the past six months as a means of increasing community belonging. These include:

  • Distributing a community ‘welcome’ or ‘Needham Belongs’ packet mailed to all residents bi-annually with updates/photos about events, contacts for Human Rights Committee, calendar, list of groups, etc.

  • Encouraging or supporting neighborhood block parties or activities with special belonging or wellness themes (e.g., visits by Rocket the Youth Resource Officer dog, representation by informal mental health ‘hub’ leaders) and with novel community partners (e.g., neighborhood art or mural activities around themes of belonging in partnership with the Arts Council). 

  • Creating/facilitating ‘Community Conversations’ around topics such as belonging, inclusion & equity, local lived experiences, and wellness.

  • Holding a second Multicultural Festival, in which NRN can support or partner with the Needham Human Rights Committee and NDI for the next iteration of this impactful event.

  • Creating programs/gatherings with the themes of belonging and/or wellness for specific stressed/at-risk groups, such as caregivers; elderly (i.e., intergenerational activities); parents of younger children that might not yet be engaged in school communities (i.e., parent coops) and teens.

This breakout group liked the proposal and generated additional ideas: 

  • Create intergenerational opportunities for connection, such as open mic night with poetry, writing, music and art; students helping at CATH.

  • Create ‘young parent’ co-ops. 

  • Utilize the restorative power of nature by creating outdoor programs and be inclusive for those with mobility challenges.

  • Expand current Needham Community Council tutoring and English language learners ‘walk and talk’ programs.

Developing a “Businesses/Places of Belonging” Program in Needham

Another program with the potential to improve belonging in Needham could come from the business community. There are several reasons for this: First, business is the most trusted entity in the US today, making it a powerful change agent and norm influencer (Edelman Trust Barometer, Jan 2023). Second, workplaces are an important platform for meeting people across difference, with the potential to increase local social cohesion (Belonging Barometer, Mar 2023).  Third, the NRN “Belonging and Social Cohesion Survey” revealed that a number of businesses/organizations in town are viewed as key “places of belonging.” Lastly, belonging can generate positive, tangible outcomes for businesses themselves, including “…heightened employee engagement, teams that consistently surpass financial and performance targets, and a workforce that experiences improved overall well-being…” (See “Building a Culture of Belonging,” Joshua Frazier-sparks, Director of Culture, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Walmart).

Ideas include the following:

  • Establish an annual or bi-annual certificate/award for the 'places of belonging' most frequently mentioned in the NRN “Belonging & Social Cohesion Survey.” This could also include organizations, town institutions, and restaurants. 

  • Assemble resources and/or provide workshops on how to incorporate effective belonging practices/spaces into the workplace or entity of interest.

  • Create scholarship/program to develop/honor high schoolers who wish to contribute to belonging within Needham and/or foster internship opportunities for low-income and non-white high schoolers.

  • Consider how one would know that a business was committed to belonging. In addition to a “place of belonging” certificate, such signals might include signs (BLM), rainbow flags, and/or explicit belonging/welcoming statements. Would the program provide such statements to businesses upon request?

  • Utilize information about national failed diversity/belonging strategies to create different plans.

  • Train people on strategies for responding to negative and escalating social media in order to de-escalate, neutralize and allow people to engage safely (consider the impediments, bad behavior, textured personalities, etc.); utilize positive local media like the new ‘Observer’, The News you Needham, The NCC and Chamber newsletters, etc.

Project ideas will be reviewed, refined and added to by NRN participants. The summer will hold opportunities for groups to meet, consider resources needed to move forward with initiatives, help to build the scaffolding, and begin outreach to subnetworks to engage other community members in the planning and enactment of these projects.