Des Moines

Iowa, United States

Mary Martin had been exposed to the Three Principles in Denver, before moving to Des Moines. Rachel Lewis who was recommended to lead the Neighborhood Health Initiative in Des Moines took an interest in why Mary saw things the way she did. As Rachel learned more, she suggested a 3P community training be held as part of the Neighborhood Health Initiative. The President of the Mid-Iowa Health Foundation supported the idea and helped with funding. Cathy Casey and Kristin Mansheim were brought in to do the initial training of about 60 people.

Twenty of the attendees from this training began meeting weekly reading Realizing Mental Health. As the lives of this group began to change others noticed, making recruitment to the initial community trainings conducted The original 20 began holding additional trainings staffed by them with the continued assistance of Cathy and Kristin fairly easy. After 2 or 3 trainings, there began to be a waiting list and the group was able to pay for Cathy, Kristin and Christine Heath to come in. By the end of the year they were offering training quarterly and the network continued to grow, with each person sharing it in their own lives. At the end of year two Roger Mills and Ami were just starting CSC and helped design a year long Train the Trainers Program with Cathy Casey and Kristin Mansheim and Christine Heath that also included Judy Sedgeman, Mark Howard and Bill Pettit.

Connie Ziller, the HR Manager for the hospital system, attended the original training after Mary invited members of an internal hospital committee focused on improving patient and employee satisfaction to participate. She partnered with Mary who was serving on an internal committee gaging hospital patient and employee satisfaction and they Connie convinced the hospital’s Human Resources department to give their employees paid time off to attend the training and implemented an evaluation using the SF36 Health Status survey. Lunch and Learns began being held at the hospital, driven by participants interest in continuing to learn more about the Principles.

Aisha White, who worked at the an inner-city middle school attended the training and brought it back to the school system. The Vice Principal began handling the students called to his office differently. The drama teacher, Karen Sissel, worked with the original 20 to teach the Principles in her class and even had the students write and perform a play about “Middle school students with and without the Principles”. A grant was obtained through United Way’s Emerging Leaders Program which funded a couple years training for any teacher at Calanan who wanted to receive it and covered the cost of a sub for their class while they attended the training. Karla Hardy began working with high school students in West De Moines.

Others shared where they were. Scarlett Lunning introduced the Principles into her Mediation Trainings. Claudia Henning brought it into the Youth Justice Program. Connie Ziller began bringing it into the Women’s Prison. Corinne Lambert and Mary brought it into Des Moines Community College as a team building and leadership workshop. Many of these programs are ongoing still.

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CHANGEMAKERS IN THIS COMMUNITY

Mary Martin, Claudia Henning, Alice Bryan

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