State, national recognition helps Wello shine spotlight on local well-being efforts
One of Wello’s organizational values is shared risk, work and celebration. This means we grow trust by sharing in the work and risks associated with driving just opportunities to health, and also celebrate the resulting successes.
This celebration is important to maintain and build momentum locally, as well as shine a bright spot on northeastern Wisconsin for our collaboration, innovation and drive to explore the possible. We have been fortunate enough to have our work celebrated at the state and national level multiple times, including a 2021 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Culture of Health Prize finalist designation. Here are the most recent and upcoming ways in which Wello’s work, in partnership with our community, was celebrated beyond northeastern Wisconsin.
Toward One Wisconsin state conference
The Toward One Wisconsin: A Conference on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, or T1W as it’s called, brings together leaders, professionals and advocates from a broad range of sectors, including private business, nonprofit, government, health and education, to empower and employ the full talent of all who live here in Wisconsin. This year’s conference will take place April 25-26 in Appleton.
Wello and its community partners at Community Services Agency Inc., We All Rise: African American Resource Center, and Prevea will be part of a panel session called “Co-Creating Well-Being Through Community-Centered, Innovative Approaches.” This session will highlight our Brown County RISE project as an example of how to rethink how health equity work can be intentionally co-created and led by communities most impacted in an issue to positively impact overall well-being. The panel format will allow for a deeper dive into the importance of intentionality in how health equity work is developed, decided upon, approached and completed.
This will be the second time Wello presents at Toward One Wisconsin. The first was in 2021, highlighting our community’s collective signing on to the Wisconsin Public Health Association’s Racism is a Public Health Crisis declaration.
Public Health Institute highlight
The same Brown County RISE project was also featured by the Public Health Institute. This national organization’s mission is to advance well-being and health equity with communities around the world. PHI and its programs improve health, equity and wellness by discovering new research, strengthening key partnerships and programs, and advancing sound public health policies.
The feature on the PHI website puts our community work on a website that has national and global reach for all to see the innovative and impactful work we are doing here locally. We also received national attention by being featured in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention newsletter last December.
National League of Cities
The National League of Cities is an organization of city, town and village leaders focused on improving the quality of life for their current and future constituents. NLC highlighted Wello as one of six communities nationally that is holistically measuring resident well-being to spark local action to address barriers to health. As a result, the city of Green Bay and Wello were panelists during a 2022 NLC conference.
Wello and the city of Green Bay again have been asked by the NLC to share experiences, learnings, and methods this month during a small group convening with six mayors from the Metro-Atlanta Cities Wellbeing Initiative. This will allow us to showcase how Wello’s Community Health and Well-Being survey can spark local change and shine a light on the innovative approaches northeastern Wisconsin is taking to ensure all their residents have the opportunity to be well and thrive.
Amplifying the local wins at a national level acts to accelerate our work and increase the resources we are able to secure to continue innovating, spreading and scaling what works. We hope that these examples make you as proud to live in a community devoted to this work as we are proud of the privilege to work to make visions a reality.
Mario Gonzalez is the communications and marketing manager for Wello. Wello's purpose is to co-create community conditions that are fair and just to drive high levels of health and well-being for all. Share your thoughts, questions and topic suggestions by emailing hello@wello.org.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Recognition helps Wello shine spotlight on local well-being efforts
