The Vital Life Community is a community that pursues acts of vitality within a social community by striving to achieve community programs that acknowledge each sector of the wellness spectrum. The eight ecologies of life promote well-being, and these dimensions extend the fun and function stage of life if are they channeled through socially engaging initiatives. These wellness dimensions are social, physical, emotional, intellectual, environmental, spiritual, nutritional, and occupational. Research has found that substantial differences in health are possible when a community focuses on the eight ecologies of life with the guiding focus being socialization.
The Vital Life Community concept originated as part of THW’s approach to healthy living communities. THW is a world class architectural firm specializing in living spaces for continuing care retirement communities. St. Leonard began as a beta community in the early part of 2010 for THW to validate their socialization-based wellness design. The criteria to become certified was extensive but produced valid and reliable results. For example, St. Leonard started a social walking program that marked measurement through destination, and in the early fall of 2011, 400 people from the campus and community had joined forces to declare the benefits of walking together. St. Leonard also formed wellness teams to measure wellness program satisfaction by randomly measuring hundreds of events from every dimension of wellness focus. In addition, part of the criteria for certification was to develop a blog that was to become a journal of the progress and the educational tools that were developed to support team development and wellness. Over 900 entries show the ongoing progress of St. Leonard’s wellness programming and social walking program and this progress can be followed at http://stleonardcommunity.blogspot.com/.
St. Leonard was certified as the first Vital Life Community in September of 2011 with an overall campus wellness score of 90%. This wellness score represents hundreds of programs that have been measured with thousands in attendance. St. Leonard’s will continue to expanding their Vital Life Community with the overall goal of expanding the fun and function stage of life. This effort will realize a reduction in overall health cost, produce a wellness culture that can be sustained, and improve the retention and satisfaction of St. Leonard’s human resource talent and the residents that they serve.
No comments:
Post a Comment