Increasing and Deepening Connections for Children’s Health

Within that tenet, many public health professionals, including me, have championed the importance of bringing “uncommon partners” to the table: the people and organizations that may not first come to mind, but whose perspectives broaden and deepen our discussion. NICHQ and our partner organizations have worked hard to expand these voices and perspectives to ensure that the people we are serving are part of the discussion and the solutions. And we have done well in including those most affected by the particular discussion at hand, such as when we include the parents of children with special health care needs like sickle cell disease, bring school health nurses together with physicians to develop asthma improvement programs, or engage mothers of color in quality improvement collaboratives that address Black maternal mortality.

I have spent my life, personal and professional, working in collaboration, and believing in the inherent goodness and value of people from all walks of life coming together in partnership to solve a problem, save a life, improve healthcare. While the simple importance of working together is clear, for me it’s a deeper sense that we – as individuals and as a people – do better, do more good, when we enter every situation expecting the best of each other and, then, work in true connection.

Forging Collaborative and Connected Partnerships

In 2024, I was honored to be recognized for my work and passion in bringing people most affected by an issue into partnership with the quality improvement teams and healthcare professionals working to address the problem.

When I received the Gravens Award, it came with an invitation to give a talk at the annual conference. Preparing the plenary presentation spurred serious introspection about what makes collaboration work, how difficult it often is to bring one’s authentic self to discussion with people of different experiences and perspectives, and how important it is to then focus on common ground while honoring our differences. That conference talk and its focus on connection resonates even more today: the importance of our voice for change in maternal and child health and the criticality of joining our voices with all others who care about mothers and babies – especially those whose perspectives and life experiences are different from our own. 

These past few months have brought the importance of gathering uncommon partners even more into focus. It’s become abundantly clear that there are rifts and divides across our country and many feel so disconnected and with so little common ground that we aren’t connecting, aren’t listening to each other, and in turn, aren’t understanding each other. This divisive and divided environment spurs me to dig deeper, try harder and to do even more to connect with people and groups with different perspectives and belief systems than mine.

Connection that brings depth to our work in children’s health is not easy by any means.  It’s not easy because it means focusing on common ground when, more often, we focus on our differences. Adding to the challenge is that the differences themselves are so varied, including education, race, disabilities and other physical differences, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, geography, religion, and societal and political perspectives. When we embrace these differences, we find something even more powerful: our shared, deep commitment to improving the health of all children, helping each child reach their optimal health. That shared commitment can connect us across the vast array of differences when we are open to it.

What I Learned from my son, Sam, about Reaching Out and Connecting with Others

The Gravens Award recognized that my beginnings in collaboration came early in my adult life when my son, Sam, was diagnosed with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome at 22 months old. As a pediatrician, I had seen my share of children’s health conditions; nonetheless, I was floored by this very rare syndrome. I knew my wife and I couldn’t start the journey alone. We immediately began to make connections with the few physicians, researchers, parents, and others whose common ground was this incurable disease. Progeria causes children to age rapidly, and they acquire age-related conditions and diseases early in life. And Sam had an innate ability to see others and create meaningful connections. In 2013, Sam gave a talk at TEDxMidAtlantic, My Philosophy for a Happy Life, headlining his four key strategies for happiness. Sam’s philosophy has become a metaphor of sorts for my approach to collaboration and connection and formed the basis for my talk at the Gravens Conference.e.

Sam began his TEDx talk with “Be okay with what you ultimately can’t do, because there is so much you CAN do.” This was the foundation of Sam’s positive life philosophy. What I learned from Sam was not “accept your limitations,” but rather that if you focus on limitations, you miss what matters more: your possibilities.

My first strategy for building collaboration and connection reflects Sam’s focus on what I can authentically bring: my experience, my story, and my desire to listen and connect with others.

Using your own story to connect with others means listening, above all…none of us has the “most important” perspective or the “ultimate” story. Rather than pitching our own perspective or experience, we can seek ways to strengthen the broader message by expecting the best intentions, listening intently to others’ experiences, and seeking to understand where they are coming from. It is in listening and learning that we deepen our connections, and it is through that connection to different perspectives that we can join together in building collaboration and community.

Keep moving forward was Sam’s second positive life philosophy and my second connection strategy.

There always have been setbacks – the quality improvement cycle that didn’t produce the expected results; a PSA, policy paper, or proposal that failed to move the needle; or a grant proposal that didn’t result in funding. And, right now, a nationwide setback in building connection can feel overwhelming. Brad Stulberg, author of Master of Change, wrote in a New York Times essay (December 3, 2024), “Between the poles of excessive optimism and extreme pessimism… exists a third way: committing to wise hope and wise action. Wise hope and wise action ask us to accept a situation and see it clearly for what it is, and then muster the strength, courage and resolve to focus on what we CAN control.”

With this fall’s election, I’ve come to a deeper understanding that many people do not feel recognized in the discussions and by the people who are making decisions about programs that affect them. It’s important for us to recognize that a large swath of our country may not feel embraced by the coalitions we have constructed, may not feel included, heard, or seen in our work in public health. A setback like this is not the time to isolate and insulate ourselves. Rather, it’s the time to open up, reach out, and take apart barriers. It’s a time to intentionally seek out people who have not been at the table and move forward by seeking common ground among different perspectives.

Surround yourself with people you want to be around, was Sam’s third piece of advice.It was important to Sam that he surround himself with people who respected and supported him. That didn’t mean they always agreed. Or were always alike. Sometimes it meant that Sam had to help create the connection, as with a situation when Sam was about 10 that could have been heart-breaking and turned out to be heart-lifting. Sam’s physical differences were very apparent by then, and he was teased by a boy in his class. Being his dad, my approach was to not let a kid get away with bullying. But Sam’s take was different: his repeated response to the jabs at his stature and baldness was to laugh and say, “Tell me something I don’t know.” By turning to humor instead of taking up battle, Sam disarmed the kid, made a connection, and turned a bully into an ally. And I learned a lesson about turning a potential battle into a connection.

Even as adults, people with different perspectives can seem like adversaries. But more often they are not. They are simply holding a different life view borne of different experiences. And the different solutions they bring are invaluable to our work. As I translate this part of Sam’s philosophy into my strategies, I consider that to surround ourselves with the people we need for best solutions means broadening the collaborative, committee, or workgroup to those who might not share our perspective. Instead of agreement, recruit for difference, remembering that the people we call uncommon partners are only uncommon because we haven’t invited them in commonly enough. We often focus on improving care for a population when we all are better served when we connect and address needs with people.

In particular, I have always believed that it’s important for those of us in the medical, clinical and public health arenas – myself included – to be intentional about including people who traditionally are not brought into the discussion because they don’t have the science background, the medical degree, or the understanding of how public health works. But our connections, ideas, and results are deepened by greater breadth of perspectives, including connecting with people from different fields that impact health and healthcare.

If you don’t have people with views different from your own, across geographic areas, political viewpoints, and socioeconomic perspectives, it may be easier to come to solutions, but much harder to bring those solutions to reality.

And, last…never miss a party if you can help it!  Sam always saw the value of connecting through celebration, whether it was a homecoming dance, the high school marching band, or a breakthrough in Progeria research. In my approach to connection, I emphasize celebrating the big and small successes and, most important, the people who made those moments happen. Honor the moment of connecting with and listening to one family’s perspective, celebrate a new partner organization in the community, and recognize the improvement that began with a committee member who hadn’t been part of the discussion before. When you take time to recognize progress in the moment, it provides you and your fellow travelers with the fuel you need to move forward.

Valuing connection means recognizing and addressing the disconnect. Working across divides does not mean adding people with different perspectives and backgrounds to convince them to our side. It means engaged listening for understanding a new point of view. It doesn’t seek one answer or unified agreement, rather it seeks to understand and connect. After all, we can’t create sustainable solutions if those solutions are not developed with the people most affected. I believe we need to recognize that connection is essential to the human spirit and the way to make true connection is through a willingness to listen to each person’s perspective. That willingness needs to be unfettered by a focus on difference. Rather it’s a willingness to listen that focuses on valuing our differences.

Bridging division to create shared solutions will not make our work easier. It takes intention and attention to find people and views that you have not included before. Creating broader and deeper connections will require greater commitment and patience. And the discomfort we may feel in difference will call for our empathy and humility.

This is the hard work that is needed now. To continue to make the broad improvements that are imperative in children’s healthcare today and to help every child reach their optimal health, we all need to listen intently to understand and build collaboration and connection.

And when we do understand and build across sectors and differences, our connections will be deeper, our collaborations more fulfilling, and we will all be closer to the outcomes we are seeking for all children and their families.

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