Engaging Faith Communities as Partners in Health Care

Van Loon AM¹*

1. Royal District Nursing Service Foundation Research Unit, Glenside, South Australia, Australia

This paper discusses how faith communities have been, and are continuing to be engaged as partners in primary health care and community health promotion in Australia. A conceptual model of faith community nursing was developed using participatory action research in a demonstration project engaging five faith communities (8–10,000 people).

The author will discuss how she moved the idea of faith community nursing to become a demonstration project with a replicable model. The project was sustainable and has grown into an established network of faith communities who are realising this work across Australia and New Zealand.

The paper highlights the possibilities and pitfalls learned throughout the process pertaining to engagement of, and working with, faith based partners. She will use her doctoral research as the case study to elaborate possible guidelines and benchmarks for such partnerships. The paper aims to provide practical points so the listener might replicate the findings within their community.

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