Ongoing Projects

Citizen Health Care / Families in Democracy Projects

New! With Malice Toward None

With Malice Toward None is Braver Angel’s national initiative to heal America in the aftermath of a clear 2020 election outcome. University of Minnesota students, faculty, and staff are invited to organize gatherings (either online or socially-distanced in-person) after the election has been decided. The recruitment guide, a host/facilitator meeting guide, and a sample agenda will help you understand what’s involved so that you can decide whether to host a gathering of people in your social world. A sample email invitation will help you get started. If you have not already registered, please register here if you would like to host a With Malice Toward None group. If you have questions email Bill Doherty, professor and UMN project director, at bdoherty@umn.edu

Hold America Together

Bill Doherty, professor and UMN project director, has created a guide for members of the community to host a Hold America Together gathering. The guide includes a sample invitation, gathering overview, and action steps. Download the PDF guide.

Baby Boomers for Balanced Health Care

This group of citizen Baby Boomers believes that out-of-control health care spending will bankrupt our country unless we all take responsibility for changing how we think about and use health care. Learn more about the Baby Boomers for Balanced Health Care project.

Citizen Health Care Home

Based in HealthPartners’ Como Clinic, this project has developed a framework for deeper engagement of patients in the Health Care Home. This citizenship has three levels: personal and family responsibility for one’s own health care, a vehicle to do health care together via peer Health Goal Groups, and opportunities for patient leadership development and co-responsibility for the health mission of the clinic. The leadership group has created an Active Member Project to engage citizen patients in the mission of the clinic, and is developing an Experienced Patient Project to tap the knowledge and wisdom of patients who have something to offer those facing similar challenges.

Como Clinic Health Club

This clinic-based, health-promoting community focuses on patient leadership and engagement the mission to engage patients of all ages as active agents of their own health and well- being, and as citizens of the Como Clinic community. Learn more about the Como Clinic Health Club.

Family Formation Project

This initiative encompasses at-risk urban unmarried couples with children in Minneapolis and St. Paul being mentored by experienced married couples and forming their own leadership group. Its mission was to promote stable family formation and healthy marriage in urban couples who desire this for themselves. The initiative, which began in 2004, has received by federal and state funding, and has been concluded.

Family Health, Child Success

This CBPR initiative involves parents and professionals organizing to promote child wellbeing among sub-Sahara African immigrant families in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Started in 2007, its mission during its first stage of development is to design and pilot a project that accesses the resources of the community to meet challenges facing African families and children.

FEDS: Family Education & Diabetes Series

This health promotion initiative was created through the collaborative efforts of providers affiliated with the University of Minnesota and local leaders in the Saint Paul/Minneapolis American Indian community. Begun in 2001 and funded through a variety of internal and external grant monies, it works to engage low-income, urban-dwelling American Indians and their families in an active forum of education, fellowship, and support. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of American Indian people through diabetes education, fellowship, and support in manners that embrace their heritage, values, and culture. Learn more about FEDS: Family Education & Diabetes Series project.

Hennepin County Citizen Professional Project

The goal of this initiative is to increase the capacity of Hennepin County for community engagement by expanding training in democratic, civic engagement that activates the resources of the community to solve health and social problems. Initiated in 2010 through the efforts of the Hennepin/University Partnership, we have worked with a group of six Hennepin professionals to learn the core principles and craft of Citizen Professional work. This group is now generating projects that engage communities in the following areas: reducing youth violence in the American Indian community; improving the health of African American women in the Brooklyn Center area; school readiness in the Latino community; and high school retention in the Latino community. Now that this pilot project has demonstrated proof of concept that Hennepin professionals can develop their capacity for democratic engagement with communities outside of a conventional service delivery mode, we plan to transition into a second phase in which we add six additional participants. As current and new professionals engage in this work, we anticipate that all involved will be able to serve as resources to other Hennepin County professionals in this new way of working with communities.

Intervention Approaches to Reduce Tobacco Use Among Southeast Asian Communities

This initiative partners four Southeast Asian communities in Minneapolis/St. Paul: Hmong, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese in a mission to design and carry out pilot projects on tobacco use that call upon the culture resources of Southeast Asian communities. Funded by the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco, this work was first launched in 2006.

The Police and Black Men Project

The goal of this project is to forge connections between police officers and African American men that can lead to better partnerships for community safety and law enforcement. Learn more about the Police and Black Men Project.

The Relationships Project In Partnership with the Office of Black Male Student Achievement Minneapolis Public Schools

Begun in 2015, this is a project at South High School in Minneapolis with about 17 Black male high school students, with two Black male process leaders, including then doctoral student Cory Yeager, and FSoS Professor Bill Doherty, the meeting designer, with the goals to achieve more academic success through improving our relationships with teachers and young women, and to spread learning to other Black male students at South and beyond. Learn more about the Relationship Project In Partership with the Office of Black Male Student Achievement, Minneapolis Public Schools project.