Rutland Belonging Collective
Building bridges to grow CONNECTION throughout the
Rutland Region
Bridge near Kent Pond, Photo by Jeanette Langston
Our
Shared Purpose
To build and foster a sustainable and equitable community-wide network that coordinates resources, experiences, and skills to identify and reduce the barriers to meaningful social connection.
Our Goals
Center people with lived experiences of the complex causes and impacts of isolation and loneliness to guide the work.
Build and sustain equitable and brave spaces for listening, learning, connecting, and growing compassionate belonging together throughout Rutland County.
Identify and remove barriers to connection through collaborative projects.
Every community and individual will experience lack of connection and it's
complex impacts at different levels and in different ways.
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The question is:
How can we intentionally grow meaningful connection, reducing isolation and loneliness, for an entire community?
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The Rutland Belonging Collective exists to explore answers to this question and to build an
adaptable model to share throughout Vermont and beyond.
Applying the Social Tinkering strategy...
Experiences
Members collaborate to offer and participate in welcoming and inclusive experiences throughout the region where we can practice overcoming barriers and really feel what it is to meaningfully connect.
Deepening understanding
Members work together and throughout our communities to offer opportunities to learn about connection together through active participation at each person's comfort level.
Identifying & Reducing Barriers
We commit to collaborating to identify existing barriers to connection in our communities and then prioritize and implement projects that reduce those barriers.
Our Commitment to each other and to Growing Connection
As a Collective, building our own internal trust and connection is critical to making our work as impactful and sustainable as possible. The first step is clarifying our commitment to each other and our work and to foster our own culture of connection and belonging so that we can practice what we preach.
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Check back soon to see our Commitment document once it is finalized!
Who is the Rutland Belonging Collective?
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Measuring Connection in Rutland County
We are currently working on the FIRST KNOWN social connection, isolation, and loneliness
data collection project to take place in Vermont!
This includes a baseline Landscape Analysis, surveys, discussion groups, and storytelling. We are excited to hear from our fellow Rutland region residents how meaningful connection impacts their lives and how we can help reduce barriers to connection. We hope this data project will become a model that can be replicated across the all of Vermont through our statewide Vermont Thriving Communities Coalition.​​
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Join the Rutland Belonging Collective!
Any person, organization, business, local government representative can join the Rutland Belonging Collective! We want to coordinate with you!
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Join our Connection Partner group, participate in Connection Advocates activities, and invest as a sponsor or through in-kind donations to help further connection in the Rutland region!
Click Here to get started and read more below to learn about our current progress.
Current Work
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* We have hosted 2 workshops with Stacy Thrall Coaching using the book Living Proof Advocacy to support each other as advocates as we apply the Living Proof framework to our stories to encourage positive change and greater connection.
We are currently working on building this network through advocacy workshops and events.
Do you have a story that could inform positive change and want to hone your skills and connect with advocacy opportunities?
Are you already an advocate and are interested in working with peers to empower and support each other?​
Building a
Connection Advocacy Network
Connection Partners
We are currently in the first year of building the Connection Partners group of the Rutland Belonging Collective.
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How is this partner group different from others in the Rutland region?
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Lack of connection is a major root cause of isolation and loneliness and leads to many of the issues that our families, friends, co-workers, and neighbors are facing every day. Causes include inequity, fear, discrimination, bias, inaccessibility, stigma, lack of inclusion, trauma, and many other complex reasons. And impacts range from addiction, violence and crime, poor mental and physical health, increased inequity, lack of feeling community belonging and more. To make things even more complex, causes and impacts are often the same.
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This group brings together the people who are working to solve the specific and urgent impact issues and the folks who are working with the people who are most impacted by lack of connection. In this way, we bring together the experts of each specific impact and center people who are living the experiences who know what is needed most to heal and reduce isolation and loneliness.
This collective space carves out time and shared resources to tackle the root cause issue of lack of connection.
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Our Social Tinkering team members work to hold this space through administration and as co-facilitators with members.
West Rutland Marsh Boardwalk
Photo by Jeanette Langston
Partner logos and links coming soon!