Teaming up For a Healthier Community: Connecting Policy, People and Place

Friday, May 29 | 11:40am - 12:30pm
Location: Fuji Rooms 3-4

Speakers: Colie Hough-Beck, ASLA, Landscape Architect, Principal, Hough-Beck & Baird Inc.; Linna Dossett, Senior Director of Health Innovation, Membership and Healthy Living, YMCA of Greater Seattle and Bergen Beck, MS, Health Living Director, Downtown Seattle YMCA

Description:

Today’s generation of kids will have a life expectancy less than their parents. This session will increase awareness of Landscape Architect’s role in addressing the health crisis our nation faces. We will look at national obesity trends across decades and the prevalence of chronic disease. We will look into Chelan County’s Health Trends as a local example. Teaming up for a Healthier Community starts by identifying and engaging community partners, as well as addressing health equity and disparity in your community. We will share tools and resources for determining health assessments and how Landscape Architects can participate in setting policies to intersect healthy living principles with the built environment for all communities, regardless of size, and with limited financial resources. We will also explore how Landscape Architects can educate the public and incorporate components of livability to promote healthy activity through built work.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the design principles necessary to successfully promote healthy living components within projects.
• Make the shift from healthcare to caring for health by collaborating with community health partners and policy makers.
• Learn what tools and resources are available for assessing and addressing health equity and disparity in your community.
• Understand how to promote policy, design and legislation using a healthy living lens.
  
  

Speaker Bio: Colie Hough-Beck, ASLA, Landscape Architect, Principal, Hough-Beck & Baird Inc.

Colie has practiced throughout the Pacific Northwest for 36 years and is a founding partner of HBB in Seattle. Her practice focuses on transforming communities to create livable walkable environments. She creates places that reflect local context and promote healthy activity. As a former Seattle Planning Commission member, she advocated for policies to promote designs for healthy living.

Co-Speaker Bio: Linna Dossett, Senior Director of Health Innovation, Membership and Healthy Living, YMCA of Greater Seattle

Linna believes healthy communities are built through collaborations. Through her work at the YMCA she directed the West Coast YMCAs/Stanford Total Health Plus Project and led the YMCA USA’s Activate America National Relationship Management Team. Linna has successfully used tools such as community healthy living assessments to incorporate wellbeing into an agency or organization’s culture.

Co-Speaker Bio: Bergen Beck, MS, Health Living Director, Downtown Seattle YMCA

As Healthy Living Director, Bergen administers programs to prevent and manage chronic disease. She fosters partnerships with health providers, businesses, schools and nonprofit entities. In collaboration with students from Cornish Arts College, she introduced healthy behavior change within the built environment during the 2013 Seattle Design Festival. Their “NEXT STOP” initiative encouraged transit riders to walk to the next stop.