Executive Summary:

Throughout his lifetime Henri Nouwen pondered the spirituality of caring for others, writing extensively about being a wounded healer, caring well and dying well. Henri’s approach to caregiving empowers caregivers to embrace their own personal struggles and mortality. Henri Nouwen continues to be a respected and influential name within as well as outside the Christian community which positions us well to develop strong partnerships to ensure a broad reach and long-lasting impact.

Courage for Caregivers is a new initiative that has quickly become the main priority for the Henri Nouwen Society, providing a rich spiritual perspective on the experience of giving and receiving care based on the wisdom and writings of Nouwen. Through exploring creative and innovative platforms, the goal is to provide ongoing support and sustenance to those caring for a family member or friend at home, as well as professionals on the front lines of care in various capacities.

With limits on health care systems, more and more people are requiring care to support their daily living. This phenomenon is causing the number of caregivers across North America and indeed globally to increase daily. Our initiative directly responds to and addresses this growing need to support caregivers, with an initial reach to tens of thousands of people across Canada and the US, through partnerships with health organizations, churches, educational facilities and community forums.

Phase 1 was successfully completed as of December 2017 through a partnership with Church Health in Memphis. Church Health has grown to become the largest faith-based healthcare organization of its type in the US. This partnership allowed us to create and publish 3 books and share them with 17,000 parish nurses who work across the US.

Phase 2 promotes and delivers these resources directly into the hands of caregivers while building partnerships and laying the groundwork for continued growth. Through the creation of video components we will have the tools in hand to expand our global reach in Phase 3 with a web portal for caregivers around the world. Training more facilitators in Phase 2 will enable us to present more retreats/workshops in Canada and the US. Developing an adapted resource book will engage professionals with our spiritual resources. We are also working towards developing a training model that can be adapted for each organization to augment their internal practices.

Our plan for this initiative is that we create a direct revenue stream for the Henri Nouwen Society through the sale of this book series. Revenues received through Courage for Caregivers will augment external funding and enable the Henri Nouwen Society to steward this initiative into the future.

Measurable Outcomes:

• Video-record six stories of caregivers and care receivers as well as video-record two retreat/workshops by the end of 2019
• Train 5 facilitators and offer 7 retreats/workshops across North America in 2018 (more retreats/workshops in the planning stage for 2019)
• Develop a new Courage for Caregivers professional book to be in print by May 2019 with 1000 copies for an initial print run.