This recording is from the Future of Museums Summit held October 29–30, 2024. In this session, Molly Phillips, Assistant Director for Education, highlighted a program at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art that enables community engagement initiatives to be covered through insurance.

Transcript

Molly Phillips:

Hi everybody. Welcome. I’m going to go ahead and get my slides up. There we go. Thank you all so much for being here. Welcome to the session on piloting a museum prescription program. While we are all getting settled, I invite you all in the chat to share what you were hoping to take away from the session or what brought you to this session. And while you are all sharing, I will go ahead and introduce myself. So my name is Molly Phillips. I’m the assistant director for education at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, North Carolina. And excited to be here with you all to share an idea that we all have been working on at the Bechtler Museum for about a year. Full disclosure, this program is still very much in its implementation phase, but we are excited to be here and thank AAM for giving us the chance to share with you what we have learned so far.

So in this session, I’ll talk about what led the Bechtler Museum to this project, the lessons that we’ve learned so far, and then save some time for questions from you all at the end. During the presentation, I really encourage you all to use the chat, share your ideas with one another. If you do have specific questions for me, please use that Q&A tab and that way, I’ll be able to keep track of them when it’s time for Q&A at the end of the session. And I’m seeing some people in the chat already. So thank you all and welcome to the session. So to start off, I just wanted to give you all a little bit of background on the museum and the region in which we’re located in.

So the Bechtler Museum is relatively new. It opened in 2010 and is located in Uptown, which is the city center of Charlotte. It is one of several arts and cultural organizations that make up the living center for the arts. It is a midsize museum with a staff of 12 full-time members and a permanent collection of around 3,000 art objects focused primarily on European modern arts. The museum also brings in contemporary exhibitions from artists who are inspired by modernism and its legacies. And you see here an image of the outside of the museum, as well as one of the images of one of our larger galleries inside.

And I wanted to share with you all to the mission and vision of our museum as well. The mission of the Bechtler Museum is sharing the joy and excellence of the Bechtler collection with all to inspire, inform and enhance cultural and intellectual life. And the vision statement is to create a space where the past and present meet in positive ways, where art empowers people to tell stories, make memories, and remind one another of shared human experience. So to give you all an idea of what led us to this project, the Bechtler Museum, since its inception in 2010 always had a reputation for high quality community engagement programs. It was one of the first museums in the region to offer arts enrichment programs for youth and adults in detention centers, as well as a wide variety of programs for individuals with disabilities. So you see here these two images.

The one on the left is some of the individuals in the jail arts program. And then on the right, you see a small group of children experiencing a touch tour at the museum. Unfortunately, as some of you may have experienced too, a lot of these programs needed to pause during the pandemic. And when the museum resumed normal operations, due to staffing changes inside the museum as well as community changes in Charlotte, these programs were unable to return. And when I joined the museum in 2023, one of my first priorities was to think about community engagement at the museum and really think about a community-wide initiative that we could begin again at the Bechtler.

So while we were also thinking about community engagement, we were also drafting the vision statement that I read earlier. Prior to this point, the museum did not have a vision statement, and we were also updating the museum’s strategic plan. So all three of these things are happening simultaneously, and we thought it was an amazing opportunity to align all three of them, all three of these pillars and to really think about how community engagement and how a community engagement initiative can inform both the vision of the museum as well as the strategic plan. So a few of us, a few of the staff members, we got together, and we brainstormed over the course of a couple of months. You can see here from this image, we covered a wide variety of topics. We thought about trends both nationally and locally. We thought about issues that affected the Charlotte community, as well as issues that we felt personally attached to.

And one thing that really informed our thinking too was being very intentional about what community issue makes sense or what community issue makes sense for the museum. There are so many issues that affect Charlotte and the community of Charlotte, but that are really outside of the bounds of what a museum can do. And so we thought very intentionally about what makes sense for the size of our museum, for the mission of our museum and the vision as well. And one of the things that we kept coming back to was just how museums are beautiful spaces for human connection, and how museums can be used as a tool to combat loneliness in our community. So knowing that and taking that brainstorming information here, that led us to our first step, which is conducting a lot of research. So I won’t share with you all of the research that we did.

We read many, many different pieces of literature, looked at a lot of different case studies, but I just wanted to highlight a few of them. If you are interested in learning more, chat with me afterwards. I’m happy to share the full list. But one of the first places, it was really important for me personally to just understand and gain that foundational understanding of what loneliness is and how it can impact a person and how it can impact a community. So a couple of the places that we looked to first were the US Surgeon General Reports, the 2023 report on Loneliness and Social Isolation, as well as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Both had really wonderful definitions of loneliness as well as research to show not only how prolonged loneliness or unaddressed loneliness can affect your mental health, but also one’s physical health and the health of a community.

So once we had that sort of foundational understanding of loneliness and how it impacted a person as well as a community, we then started thinking about, well, what exists out in the world that pairs arts or cultural organizations with wellness and specifically that enhances social connection? And one of the models that we continued to find was the social prescription model out of the UK. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with a social prescription model, in a very brief nutshell, it is the idea that a healthcare provider can prescribe a patient or an individual a visit to an art museum or tickets to a performance as a way to help support their mental health and specifically enhance one’s sense of belonging within their community. And we were really excited about that model. It was something that was new to us. It didn’t exist in Charlotte, and we felt like it was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with both arts organizations in our community as well as a healthcare provider as well.

So with that model in mind, we then turned locally to make sure that the idea that we had really did fit a need within our community. And what I am sharing here are a couple of screenshots from the 2022 Mecklenburg County Community Health Assessment. And I’m sharing this with you all. It’s likely that your communities in your cities have very similar research. And one of the findings that came out of this assessment was that the community, Mecklenburg County, really needed more support and more resources around mental health. And it might be a little tricky to tell from the screenshot, but one of the causes that they particularly call out is social isolation as a cause for poor mental health in our community. So we knew we were on the right track in our thinking and knew that this was something that our community was thinking about as well.

All right, so then how we got started and where we currently are. So I mentioned to you all that we are still very much in the implementation phase of this project. For me, this was the hardest part was taking it from the research phase to the implementation phase. And we are still very much in that phase. And I will share the model that we developed in the next slide as well. But we really liked the social prescription model just because of the collaborative nature of it and because of the partnership with healthcare. So we decided to design our program around this model and created a chart that outlined how a participant would move through the program. And again, I will share that chart in the next slide in a moment. Once we determined the process for a potential participant, we then thought about how we would determine one’s qualification for the program.

So we really wanted this program to reach a wide audience, but we also wanted to make sure that this is meeting those who was in need of this service the most. So we wanted to make sure that it cast a wide net, but still that there were some safeguards in place so that it was really meeting those who needed it the most. And there were two systems that we explored in particular. So the Loneliness Scale developed from UCLA and then the flourishing scale from UC Berkeley. As of this moment, we are planning to use the Loneliness Scale to determine the participation or how somebody qualifies for the program. However, we are leaving this a little bit open because we are hoping to solidify this with advice from our healthcare partner. And I’ll explain what the role of the healthcare partner is as well in a minute.

But once we had a general outline for the program and a method used to determine participation, we started sharing this idea with museum stakeholders and community leaders. And there were a couple of reasons why we did this. Some were given some more formal presentations with slides and some of the research that I shared earlier, and others were more casual conversations just with community leaders or people that we’ve partnered with for other museum programs as well. And there were a couple of reasons why we did this. One, we wanted to see if there were any other community organizations or arts organizations out there who were thinking along the similar lines that we were, maybe developing programs really aimed at social connection. And then two, we also started sharing it more widely because we were looking for financial support as well as advisory support. We are experts in the museum; we understand our collection very well.

But loneliness and healthcare, these are new realms for us. We really wanted to make sure that we had somebody with that expertise helping support this project as well. And I’ll say, this was a daunting step, to share a brand new idea and just put it out there. But it was also one of the most helpful steps in this process because it did help us get some sponsorship money for the program. Excuse me. So early on, we spoke with Blue Cross Blue Shield, we shared the idea with them, they were really intrigued by the project but wanted us to get a little further along before they became involved. And so our director, Todd Smith, continued to engage with them, share updates about how we were progressing with the project. And this did result in some sponsorship funding for the pilot year. So we’re very grateful for their support.

And this could not have happened had we not just immediately put the idea out there and started sharing this idea with a lot of stakeholders. So after these conversations, once we had the outline, we had the idea out there, we had an idea of how we might welcome people into the program, we then started thinking very strategically about the partners that we would involve. After some brainstorming and some back and forth, we really decided that the healthcare partner we would like to join us on this endeavor was Novant Health. It is a large healthcare system based here in Charlotte. And we chose a large organization like this because we really felt like it would give the project important backing. And we really do envision this project eventually becoming a citywide endeavor. So we felt like their support, especially because they have several locations throughout Charlotte and is well-connected to the community not only through these various locations, but also through the amazing community work they do, we felt like they would be the best partner.

We were also strategic in our thinking. So one of the reasons we wanted to particularly target Novant Health was because we [inaudible 00:13:43] joining this year. And so we did welcome a new board member just a couple of months ago from Novant Health. And since that happened, it really has strengthened our relationship with the organization and has allowed this project to progress a little bit more. So two reasons, we love the work that they were doing, but also there were some strategic thinking behind that decision as well. So lastly, once we had some of those targets identified, we also begin to think about what arts organizations we would want to invite to join us in the pilot year. And what we decided is we invited Charlotte Ballet, Three Bone Theatre, which is a small contemporary art theater here in Charlotte, and then Clayworks, which is a ceramic art making, they host ceramic art making courses and classes.

We chose these organizations partly because they represent many different art forms. And so we wanted to ensure that there was a variety of options for participants in the program, but that also we made these decisions based on our past work with these organizations. The museum has partnered with some of them in the past. And then just from personally attending some of their performances or events or workshops, we knew that they would be good partners based on our own personal experiences. So they were very excited about the idea and were excited to be on board. So after all that, what we are currently still working on, you can see here from those two bullet points, we are still working on confirming Novant Health as our primary healthcare partner. We really feel like this is a key component to the project and we’ve had a lot of really great conversations, especially over the past month or so, but have not quite confirmed their participation yet.

So it’s still working its way through various chains of communication. And I will share with you in the next slide just exactly how we envision their support and partnership. We have a very specific idea, and then we are also preparing for that first cohort. So we want to make sure that all these pieces are ready to go so as soon as we start receiving referrals, there’s not a lag time in between when a person is referred to the program and when they can start experiencing the different art activities. So with that being said, this is the model that we believe we will start, but I’ll also share with you how we plan to adjust if this does not come to fruition. So you can see here, one of the very first steps with the model that we designed is a conversation with a healthcare provider. So I mentioned that they play a key role in this project.

We really believe that having their backing and having their support will really give this project the strength that it needs in the community. So when a patient or through a conversation with a healthcare provider, they can then be referred to the program. And once that referral happens, that individual then gets connected to me. And then through that screening that I mentioned through those scales, we determine their qualification for the program. And assuming that they qualify for the program, they then are invited to an introductory experience at the museum. And during this introductory experience, it’s a chance for them to learn about the program, learn about the expectations of the program and what their involvement is. But then it’s also a chance to experience a group gallery experience as well. So it’s part informational, but also part art engagement. And we really believed that this was an important step to incorporate into the model one, because we believed that this might, if a person attends this in-person meeting, they’re more likely to attend the future art events that they sign up for.

So we were hoping that this might cut down on some of that attrition that happens with free programming. And then two, we wanted to ensure that when people came to the Bechtler and experienced that introductory gallery experience, we were really setting up the entire program through the lens of social connection. So we want to make sure that participants are having fun experiencing these different art activities or arts events but also want to make sure that they are experiencing them with the idea that this is meant as a tool to help support their overall wellness and social connection as well. So we thought by framing it this way, that it might help set up the entire program. After that point, participants can choose from a menu from the different options that our arts partners provide. And then there is a follow between myself and the participant so that we can continue to assess the success of the program.

To share with you all, our goal was to have 100 participants in the first year. This may or may not happen. We’re still hopeful. And then our second goal was to have participants in place by the end of October. This will not happen. It is the end of October now. So we have adjusted that timeline and now hope to begin the program by January 2025. And we do think this is a realistic goal based on some of our recent conversations with some of the partners involved. So that’s to share with you all, if we cannot confirm our healthcare partner, we are also thinking of a plan B, because we really do want to test out this model this fiscal year. So if for some reason our healthcare provider needs a little bit more time or is not able to confirm their participation right away, our plan B at this point is to recruit a small group of participants, 20 to 25 through our social media channels, have them still fill out the survey to make sure that they qualify for the program, and then shorten the program to about five or six months.

And this way, we’re able to test the model and get some of that feedback, make adjustments before opening up to a larger group of people. So I want to pause here for a moment and ask you all in the chat if you could share maybe where you are along in your process for creating a program like this. So I know some of you mentioned you were hoping to just get some inspiration, so maybe you haven’t thought of a program yet, but if you have or have started brainstorming ideas, please share in the chat how is your program similar? How is yours different to what I have outlined here? I would love to see what other people are thinking along the lines of creating programming to help combat loneliness. And while you all are responding in the chat, I wanted to go ahead and share exactly what we were thinking for that gallery experience, designing a gallery experience for social connection.

So this is the part of the project that is ready to go. My background is in gallery-based or object-based teaching. So this was a facet of the project that was a lot more easier for me to design than some of the other parts, and especially with the recent work that I have done with social emotional learning and K through 12 programs. So I included here, there’s a chart that outlines some of the standards for social emotional learning. And then what I did was pull out some of the texts from those standards that I felt like really connected to some of the goals that we were envisioning for a gallery experience in this art prescription program. So what you can expect or what a participant can expect in a gallery experience that’s really for social connection is a lot more partner discussion, a lot of group discussion, reflective writing activities, journaling, and as well as creative making in the galleries. So it really is using the art as a tool to help us form connections within that group setting.

And to give you all an example on what creative making might look like in the gallery, I brought a couple of images from a past school program that we conducted this past winter. So this past winter, we exhibited the work of contemporary artist Hildur Jonsson, and she is known for these large-scale painted weavings inspired by the Icelandic landscape, which is a place that is very important to her. You can see an example on the far wall in that first image there. And what I did is I asked school groups when they came to the museum to bring a paper picture of a place that was important to them. And when they arrived, what I did is I cut their pictures into strips and then in small groups, asked them to work together to weave together their images to create their own version of an abstract landscape or abstract place based on the places that were important to them.

And as I walked around, those were the only instructions I gave to the group. As I walked around, I overheard some really wonderful conversations. Students were asking each other questions about, oh, what is the meaning behind that picture? They were sharing memories with one another. And one moment particularly stood out in my mind as just why this kind of work is so important and why we think this will be such an important project in terms of creating a program for social connection. I overheard another student say to another, “Oh, wow, I didn’t know that about you.” And I love that idea that we can use art as a tool to help people get to know one another and really help form some of those bonds and social connections. And so I use this as an example because we are very much inspired by some of the SEL work that we’ve done with K through 12 groups and are excited to expand this to an adult audience as well.

And I see some people are sharing and also sharing contact information, which I highly encourage. So very quickly, I also wanted to share one of the things that we talked about with our stakeholders too, was really how we envisioned this program growing. So it was important for us to create a three-year plan so that we really could demonstrate how we plan to grow the program and how we plan to determine its success. So you can see here some of the things that I’ve outlined in that pilot year. We are also hoping to add a model specifically for healthcare staff. So that was something that Novant Health was really excited about as well, since burnout and disconnection is something that their staff experience on a daily basis as well. And then in year two and year three, we hope to expand to multiple more arts partners as well as more participants.

And then also hope that this can be a tool that community organizations can use to make referrals as well. So we really do want to have a primary healthcare provider as a partner but also hope that this can be a tool that maybe senior centers or community-focused organizations like YMCA can also use with their members so that we really can cast a very wide net and make sure that we’re meeting everyone within the Charlotte community. And I wanted to call out too that in year three, we also hope to create a program that is specifically designed for teenagers. That is a segment of the population that has seen a sharp increase in rates of depression specifically tied to loneliness and social disconnection. And our community groups, Boys and Girls Club, the local school district here, is doing a lot of work in that realm.

And we hope that we can create a program that helps support some of those community organizations as well. So that is our hope for a three-year plan and what we envision for this program in the future. Before I share my reflections, and I know we’re running a little bit on time where I want to save some time for some Q&A as well, I wanted to pause and ask you all, I know maybe some of you have not created programs specifically based on social prescriptions or programs aimed at combating loneliness, but you may have thought about programs that really tie into museums and wellness. So just thinking and reflecting on your own experiences, maybe creating brand new programs in that realm, I want to ask you all what kind of advice you would give to maybe our colleagues in the chat right now if they were also thinking about creating a brand new program of that.

And if you have created a program that is tied to social connection, we would love to hear that too. So as I’m sharing my top five takeaways, I hope you all share your takeaways as well. So the first for me is working with many partners and working with especially a large healthcare partner. It does take time. So it is a very complicated system of communication, especially within that large healthcare system. And so it did force us to be flexible with our timeline a little bit. And the second part or takeaway for me is that we have made slight adjustments already to the format of the program. So the document that I shared that outlined how a participant moves through the program went through a few different iterations before we finalized that one, and we do expect to make more changes to it as well. And we see this as really a strength of the program and a strength of the model.

We want to make sure that it is really being responsive to the community partners we work with, as well as the community that it’s serving. And so we expect to make adjustments to the program as well and really do see this as a good thing. And then the third, I learned very quickly that many people have not heard of this idea, the idea of social prescriptions, nor were they aware of the loneliness epidemic like I thought they would be. So I had to adjust my elevator pitch many, many times. Communicating such a brand new idea to people, especially different stakeholders, was challenging at times. And so I found myself constantly adjusting my elevator pitch, one, depending on who I was speaking with, but also two, just to make sure that the idea made sense. So there were times when I gave too much background information. There were times when I gave not enough.

So it took me a little while to find the right balance when I was speaking and sharing this idea with people. And so my advice too is to think about your elevator pitch and make changes accordingly. But I also want to share that this was the most helpful step, was just putting that idea out there. I mentioned earlier it can be really daunting, especially with an idea that is as brand new as social prescriptions are or museum prescriptions. But putting that idea out there was so, so helpful. It really helped get feedback. And my advice to you all is to put the idea out there. Don’t be afraid to hold it and don’t hold it back. Just put the idea out there, because it really was helpful and made the program feel more like a reality too.

Lastly, there are so many amazing individuals and groups within the social prescription community. This is a growing community, and I really hope more opportunities like this summit exist as well so that we can continue to engage and learn from one another. I didn’t mention this early on, but I had many conversations with colleagues at organizations who have started similar programs and really want to thank everyone, there might be some of them in this session today who has shared information relating to the programs that you all have created, because it really is such a supportive community. And I have learned so much from colleagues all over the country and hope that my presentation and hope that the information that I’ve shared is helpful to you all too. So with that being said, and I see a lot of people sharing some ideas in the chat too.

Yes, and I will say, I saw somebody share, Project UnLonely is a great organization as well. Yes, I used that also in my research. It is a wonderful, wonderful book, and their website is just, it has wonderful information. So there is a lot out there and I thank you all so much for sharing your ideas related to prescriptions as well. With that being said too, and thinking about the community that is being formed, I did want to end by sharing my contact information too. My email address is here, as well as my LinkedIn. In a second, we’ll transition to some Q&As. But if you have a question that comes up after the fact or that did not get answered, please do get in touch and please do continue the conversation. I would love to hear about what you all are envisioning in your communities and hope that we can really support one another and learn from one another too.

So thank you all so much for sharing your ideas in the chat. I want to make sure that we have plenty of time for a Q&A too, so I’m going to go ahead and transition there. Awesome. So I see one question here. Can you say more about what the programming is? There is an intro experience and then future, yes, future museum visits, or are they just invited to attend existing programming? That is such a great question. So the intro experience is the first part and thank you for bringing the questions up on the screen too. So that intro experience is really the first part or participation in the program. And then after that point, what they’ll be presented with is essentially a menu of options.

So for example, there will be dates that they can select where they can receive tickets to the Charlotte Ballet. There will be more tours that they can attend at the museum in that group setting. So they’ll essentially get a menu of different things that they can choose from. And then after each experience, they’ll receive a follow-up so that we can test. They’ll be continued to be sent the Loneliness Scale so we can continue to assess how these programs might be helping in terms of loneliness and social connection.

So I hope that answered the question. It is mostly they are invited to existing programming with the arts partners. However, the programming that we are creating at the museum is new in the sense that it’s not something that is just regularly offered to the public. So I hope that answers that question. But we did want to make sure that with the arts partners we were involving that, especially in this pilot year, that we were keeping it as simple as possible for them to join. We envision that maybe in the future, some of these arts partners will create specific programs for this initiative. But for now, it is existing programming so that it is as easy as possible for them to participate.

Any recommendations for, I see another question about recommendations for adapting an experience like this for a more traditional historic house museum experience. That is a great question. I’ll admit to you all, my background is primarily art museums. So I have never worked inside a historic house museum before. But I will say, when we designed the social emotional curriculum and really thought about the design of this program as well, there was less emphasis on sharing information about the artwork or the exhibitions. And we were really using it as a way to form social connections.

So we did make some connections to the exhibition that we had on view for that school program, but that kind of process could have been done with anything. So we really do feel like the objects are almost like, a way to look at them is almost like a conversation card. So really helping people have a conversation in connecting with one another. So my recommendation would probably just to be to think about creating experiences that are less content-heavy and really thinking about what kind of questions or activities can you involve or incorporate in a group experience that allows for people to connect with one another, maybe using the objects as the impetus to do so. I hope that makes sense and gives some advice.

And I see another question. “For your success criteria, is it an improvement in the diagnosis by the healthcare professional, or does it also include sense of belonging to the community or institution or relationship strength between program participants?” That is an excellent question. Thank you so much. So it is an improvement in the diagnosis, although I will say, I’ll admit to you all, we are trying to leave that part open-ended too. So I envision using the Loneliness Scale to help us determine the success of the program and if diagnosis improves over time after participating in the program. However, if our healthcare provider has maybe different metrics that they are looking for, we are trying to be open-ended so that we allow for some of that change to happen. Like I said, we are the experts in the museum, the collection in the museum tour and some of that programming.

But when it comes to really thinking about collecting some of that data and research, that is one of the reasons why we wanted a healthcare provider as a partner as well. So they can really inform some of that decision making. But I do think our hope, that one of the things that we do hope will come about with this program is a natural, a person, an individual who’s in the program might then naturally seek other community organizations to be a part of. So maybe they choose to visit another arts organization or their local library, attend a program there outside of the prescription program because of what they’ve experienced within the prescription program here. So that is one thing that we are looking towards is, does this help somebody feel more connected to their community, and do they seek other opportunities because of their participation in this program? So again, we envision that we will be getting some of that information through surveys and through that Loneliness Scale but also leaving it a little bit open in case there’s some other metric that a healthcare provider might look to also try to collect.

All right, I see a couple more questions. “Who absorbs any associated costs? Is the healthcare professional as the person providing the prescription or the arts partner, the museum, et cetera?” Thank you for asking this. So we were very intentional that in this pilot year we were trying to keep costs very, very low. I mentioned to you all, we did get some sponsorship funding. I’m sorry that that word is so difficult for me to pronounce today, but we got some funding to help support some of the costs in the pilot year. We really see the primary; the most tangible cost of the program will be reimbursing some of those arts organizations. So for example, some arts organizations can give away free tickets. That is wonderful. We know some of the smaller organizations that we partner with will not be able to do that. And we wanted to make sure that this was not a program that would cost our partners money.

And so the primary cost of this program will be reimbursing some of those arts organizations for tickets and for the materials of some of the classes that participants will take. So that’s a great question. Eventually, we do hope to find more permanent funding and hope that we can, whether it is a healthcare provider who’s maybe helping support some of the costs of the program, because we really do not want any arts partners to absorb the cost of the program. I hope that answers your question. And then another question I see, “You mentioned cohorts. Will this be available for ongoing programming or does it have a certain set course in meeting times?” That is a very good question. We thought a lot about this when we were designing the program, and we felt a little unsure on whether we wanted every arts experience to be sort of a forced gathering amongst people.

So we wanted to make sure that we were really starting off that group experience, that introductory experience was a shared experience. Our hope is that maybe there are some natural connections formed from there, and maybe participants choose to attend a performance together from who they met during that time. But we also want to make sure that we were trying to create a system that was easy for people to attend to, so they had a little bit more control over their own schedules and the times. So when they see that menu, they’ll see times, they’ll see dates listed, because we wanted to make sure that it was something that would be able to fit into a wide variety of schedules as well.

So we’re hoping some of those natural connections happen, but that is something that we’re going to assess on if people are attending a program on their own or with a friend that they invite who’s outside of the program, will it have the same sort of meaningful interaction as if, or should there be this cohort that moves through the experiences together? For now, we hope that by having a balance of the two, by starting off with this group and shared experience, maybe some of those connections are made, but we also wanted to make sure that people had control over their own schedules.

All right. And then I see, “We have initiated a Creative Aging program for folks 55 and over, started with one session per month, beginning in June. Now have four sessions. Cap is 15 people per session. Definitely related to social prescribing because we target social connections.” Yes. And I imagine too, there is a lot of emphasis on creative aging programming and programming for individuals who are 55 and over because this is definitely a large, when you think of loneliness, that is a segment of the population that does experience loneliness at higher rates, especially if there are individuals living in assisted living or living on their own. So we do imagine that this program will reach a lot of older adults as well. But again, we did want to create something that was a little bit more broad and could reach a variety of populations too. But I love, yeah, this is where we are definitely seeing a lot of work is within the creative aging realm for sure. And those were examples that we looked at when we were thinking about designing this program as well.

And then curious, oh, and I see maybe there’s a follow-up to this. “And curious about why the program you were talking about has such a large qualification criteria?” That’s a good question. So thinking about the scale that we used, I hope I’m understanding the question correctly, but again, we wanted to be able to create something. We did envision this becoming a citywide initiative. So we wanted it to be big. We wanted it to reach a broad audience, but we also wanted to make sure that there was some sort of metric in place so that it was fitting, filling, or making sure that it was filling a need within the community. So that is why we chose to have some sort of screening process for the program, because then it does give that program a little bit more control over who is joining. But we hope that it’s not too prohibitive for people, the filling out that survey.

And we do imagine that a lot of people will meet that criteria just because of how widespread loneliness and social disconnection is in the community as well as outside of the community. But I hope that answers that question. We were really interested in trying to create something that did reach a broad audience. And then for performing arts, how are they connecting? Is it through artist talks, et cetera? That’s a good question, and I’ve been asked this before too, of is it really social connection if you’re just attending a performance and not really having that connection? For now, we envision we’re trying to, again, like I mentioned in that pilot year, keep the program as simple as possible. So right now, we do not necessarily plan on incorporating some sort of artist talk or convening after a performance, but we might consider adding that component as well.

But for now, we also, there is a lot of research to support the idea that just by attending an arts performance, it is improving someone’s overall wellness and helping them feel more connected to the community. And so we’re hoping that some of that might come out just by offering people tickets to certain performances. But we are interested, we have talked about the possibility of hosting conversations at the museum after a performance or having some sort of special program, like a pre-performance meeting or a talk somewhere before, just so that we really can emphasize some of that social connection. So it is something that we are looking at, but that we probably will not have the capability to incorporate within the pilot year. So I hope that answers that question too.

All right. And “Do you think folks that cannot regularly access healthcare could find this prescription as well?” Thank you for that question. That was one thing that we talked a lot about as well. Knowing that not everybody is involved in a healthcare system like Novant, it does not reach every single member of the Charlotte community. And there are certainly a lot of places where people go to, they might not even trust their healthcare provider. They might not be the place where they go when sharing some of the concerns about surrounding loneliness or social connection.

So in the year two and year three, we really hope that we can use this tool, share this tool with other community organizations as well so that they can also refer people to the program. Because we know not everybody will come through the Novant channel, through a giant healthcare system like that. We know that there are other places where people go where they trust their community organizations or community members. And so we really are hoping that especially after this first year, we can share it more widely so that we can make sure that we’re meeting people that are outside of the Novant community as well.

And then, “In any of the research you’ve done, do you have a prediction on who will be your core audience or demographic for this program?” Thank you. It’s a good question. I don’t, and that is an exciting part of the program. I mentioned earlier that we do have an aging population in Charlotte. There’s certainly a lot of older adults and a lot of senior living communities within Charlotte. So we do imagine that we will see many older adults in the program, but we were not creating this program with one specific demographic in mind. And that was very intentional. In the past, we had created many, many programs that filled the need of certain demographics, and we wanted to see this as an opportunity to create something that was intergenerational and that had a wider reach. And so our hope and our goal is that within a group experience, you might see many, many different types of populations within Charlotte. So we were very, very intentional not to design something that was specifically targeting a certain population or a certain audience demographic.

All right. I think those are all of the questions. It looks like it. Well, thank you all so much. I really appreciate all of your thoughtful questions. I’m going to go back to the chat too. Yeah, and thank you all so much for sharing. Oh, I see a couple of questions. There was one question too about health insurance covering the program. That was also something that we thought about is that maybe, and there was a New York Times article that talked a little bit about this too, but maybe that this is something that health insurances will begin to cover to help with some of the costs related to this program. So you are on the right track. That is our hope and our goal, but we will see what happens.

But we do think it’s a great opportunity for health insurance to come on board as financial and advisory support as well. So fingers crossed. But thank you all so much for sharing all of your ideas and your questions and thank you so much for being here. And thank you again to AAM for hosting this summit and this conversation. I hope some of you will get in touch. My contact information is here, my email and my LinkedIn, and I hope to connect with all of you soon. So thank you again and enjoy the rest of the day.