Dissertation Published via ProQuest

Thank you ProQuest for publishing my dissertation for my PhD in Organizational Systems from Saybrook University about a local faith partnership's story of compassion + community via storied systems design (10616493). I have volunteered with this partnership for over five years with storycrafting consulting services, various human health + service programs, + leader coaching.

Abstract

STORIED SYSTEMS DESIGN FOR FAITH-BASED CROSS-SECTOR SOCIAL PARTNERSHIPS VIA ORGANIZATIONAL COMPASSION AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL COMMUNITAS

Dena Michele Rosko

Saybrook University

This study envisioned compassionate communitas for a local faith-based cross-sector social partnership (CSSP) to interpret how people express the heart of what faith-based CSSPs do amid rising pressures to meet more human and social needs with seemingly less resources and workers. This study asked, "What is the ideal vision of a faith-based cross-sector social partnership for people who support this type of health system?"

This study consisted of interviews using idealized systems design as a framework to collect participant visions of the ideal partnership of the future. These visions were synthesized and interpreted with reflective short stories and photographs from the researcher to share the experience of compassionate communitas of a local faith-based CSSP for which the researcher volunteered. The five participants who contributed to the local faith-based CSSP were the president, board director, a pastor, a regional leader of a para-church organization, and an employee of a regional health organization.

This study crafted sense from the stories, photographs, and visions by systematically searching the data sources for expressions of the nine dimensions of compassionate communitas based on the theoretical definitions from the literature: collective responding, noticing suffering, feelings of empathy, action to alleviate suffering, communicating concern, sensecrafting, ritual and rites of passage through transition, supporting marginalized experience, and transforming suffering into a personal or communal identity that expresses complex wholeness. A central finding visualized a patch work handcrafted quilt as a metaphor for compassionate communitas to support participant faith-based visions of hospitality to connect beyond sectorial interests and to manage diverse partners in a society that pressures them to design for separation by meeting basic needs with safe love so that people can thrive.

Future researchers can apply storied systems design, merge faith and vocation as worthwhile foci to study, flesh out love as the bond for responding to human vulnerability by connecting instead of ostracizing, and create a health systems model for partnerships and practitioners salient to community health. Implications designing health systems to include a family and hospitality approach to partnering with research discourse that supports study findings of basic needs, safe love, and thriving.

Method

I integrated data from photographs and stories with participant visions of an ideal future for partnerships. I combined organizational compassion and communitas from anthropology to search for the qualities of compassionate communitas in the sources. I call this approach storied systems design, + I continue to apply it to health systems in my current projects.

Findings

Unexpected findings emphasized partnerships as relationship whilst people walk with others through suffering, + the natural environment as the hosting context for partnerships that function as a health system. Some other themes involved transition to motherhood, desire for a spiritual family in the absence of a support system, + the need to address wealth disparity with a softer side of designing society similar to a photograph of a Last Supper quilt to comfort + beautify us from what ails us in-between the for-/non- profit divide.

Participants envisioned a world where clients + partners alike give/receive each other's unique giftedness for basic + safe love for all to thrive. Participants idealized this faith-inspired vision of spiritual hospitality as coming to the table. Findings matter for health systems as the demand for lay partnerships grows around the world, + for various needs essential to human flourishing.

Access

Dissertation available for purchase via ProQuest. Per a contact at ProQuest, I am free to disseminate + promote my work in whatever medium or mode I choose. Access the dissertation via Scribd if you cannot afford the cost of purchase. I ask that you cite me, contact me if any questions about this dissertation for your current research so as to cite-it-well, + help me to promote this work in your social media channels + word-of-mouth.

Contact me if questions or intrigue about my current creative projects + future research that applies storied systems design to improve or support health systems, especially for perinatal lived experience + practice. Please visit the home page to learn more. Thank you ProQuest for staying student-centered, publishing the correct file, + answering my inquiries.

I saved the best for last: I birthed a beautiful baby boy whilst finishing candidacy. PhD- + Dr- Moms please contact me if you want encouragement + support! We succeed together.

Kindly,

Dr. Dena

Dena Michele Rosko, PhD, MA, CLCM encourages and inspires people to develop cultures of heritage in their ministries, partnerships, and organizations by writing, publishing, and training creative content about heritage theology, formation, and care across multiple genres, by facilitating groups, workshops, and retreats with dialogue and heritage circles, and by consulting and coaching leaders, advocates, carers, and families. The gospel promises a beautiful story of a shared heritage together in Christ that can bless and light the world!