TULALIP — Fania Davis, a nationally known civil rights activist and leader in the restorative justice movement, will be a keynote speaker at an upcoming health summit.
Davis is a lawyer and co-founder and director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth. The pioneering program has been successful in eliminating violence in schools, reducing suspensions and improving academic outcomes.
She will speak at “At The Edge of Amazing,” a health summit scheduled Sept. 9 at the Tulalip Resort Casino Conference Center. Some 400 people, including representatives from area businesses and community, governmental, nonprofits and education groups are expected to attend.
In a telephone interview, Davis said restorative justice, what she has called healing justice, began with one school in 2007 and is used in about 40 schools today.
Restorative justice isn’t simply about conflict resolution, she said. “We want to create healing environments within the schools so these unhealthy responses to conflict are less likely to happen.
“We are interested in using restorative justice not simply after harm already has occurred, but using it proactively to transform the climate of our schools,” Davis said.
Schools should be places “that care and seek to heal instead of adding harm,” she said. There should be strong connections between adults and children as well as among children, she said.
At a conference in November, Davis told of a student who had been suspended more than 150 times, who had been arrested multiple times, who was homeless, and a member of a gang.
He was enrolled in a school with restorative justice. When he met the principal, she gave the file which documented his previous problems and invited him to tear it up. He went to graduate with a 3.7 GPA.
Restorative justice has been used in many different settings. In the criminal justice system, it’s been used to bring victims and offenders together for mediation and dialogue, she said.
In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, helping transition the country from apartheid to democracy “with a minimum of violence,” Davis said.
And in communities that have experienced crime and harm, grief circles have been organized where people can express sorrow and outrage in a safe place.
Mukilteo might benefit from a similar event to help heal from the recent killings of three young adults at a party, Davis said.
Jordan Ebner, Jacob Long and Anna Bui were killed in a July 30 attack that also left Will Kramer wounded.
Participants at the day-long health summit also will hear from Dr. Richard Jackson, a professor at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Jackson, an environmental health expert, hosted the PBS television series, “Designing Healthy Communities.” It examined how health can be affected by the neighborhood and environment people live in. It also looked at cities that have redesigned spaces to make them more walkable and inviting, places where people want to gather and meet.
The conference will focus on three topics that can affect health: community connections, healthy community designs, and health system transformation.
The event is part of work begun last year to improve the health of children and adults in Snohomish County. This year, that effort involves broadening the ways people define good health.
A true measure of one’s health should be much more than just traditional medical tests such as checks of blood pressure and cholesterol, said Scott Forslund, executive director of the Providence Institute for a Healthier Community, which is organizing the conference.
When someone is healthy, there are many contributing factors, he said. Optimal health should include things such as relationships, emotional health, and the walkability of our communities, he said.
“If we’re serious about wanting to improve our health as a community, we have to come to grips with the fact that…it’s a lot more than reducing rates of high blood sugar or the prevalence of a certain condition,” Forslund said.
A recent survey conducted in Snohomish County found that people who reported they were in optimal health also reported high levels of satisfaction with interpersonal relationships and having a sense of purpose, he said.
“If we want to get healthy, it’s more than physical health,” he said. “Optimal health looks at many, many things working well.”
Other topics to be discussed at the Sept. 9 conference include: preparing for affordable housing needs, healthy eating, and an examination of health care costs for employers in Snohomish County.
This year’s health conference will begin with remarks by Dr. Karen DeSalvo, acting assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Dr. Patrick O’Carroll, regional health administrator in the agency’s Seattle office.
They will discuss stops they made across the country, including Snohomish County, looking at public health challenges, and steps toward innovations and “putting together a strategy that speaks to a different model of public heath,” Forslund said.
One such step that might occur locally is the screening of 75,000 local Medicare and Medicaid patients, work which would take place if a five-year, $4.5 million federal grant is approved. People could be screened for five or more non-medical needs beginning in 2018, Forslund said.
In addition to the typical questions asked during medical appointments, patients would be asked about factors that can affect their health, such as whether they have housing, whether they’re having problems paying their utility bills, if they have adequate access to food.
People who have concerns about these and other topics would be given information on local resources to help them, Forslund said.
“Within the next decade I do believe we’ll be defining health and health care in a much more broadened way,” he said.
Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.
Summit info
At The Edge of Amazing, a community health summit, is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Tulalip Resort Casino Conference Center, 10200 Quil Ceda Blvd., Tulalip. Registration is $149 and may be made at the website edgeofamazing.org.
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