Editor's Note
The Cutting Edge of Common Sense, Monique Sternin
With the year 2019 coming to an end, I though it fit to reflect on the 30 some years of the use of the Positive Deviance (PD) approach, across many sectors and may countries, involving thousands of frontline workers and community members, managers and leaders, facilitators and consultants in both the public and private sector.
The enduring features of PD include its lasting effect, its flexibility to adapt to very diverse environments and contexts, on complex problems big and small. This Winter 2020 newsletter case studies illustrates just that: from the use of the PD approach to address social isolation among people living with mental illnesses in Pittsburgh (USA) to a focused use of PD to improve STD testing for partners of infected individuals in a British STD clinic, via improvement in reading skills among 5th & 6th graders in a district in Wisconsin, USA and reducing school drop-out and illiteracy in Roma communities in North Macedonia and Northern Romania. In each of these application Jerry Sternin‘s legacy lives on 11 years after his pre-matured & devastating disappearance.
One of the highlights of the year for me was returning to Thanh Hoa province in Vietnam for a short visit this January, some 23 years after Jerry, Sam and I left Vietnam which you can read about in the case study “Return to Vietnam.”
You will hear pearls of wisdom on how to facilitate the PD approach by Dr. Cole Zanetti who used PD in diabetes management in a clinic in New Hampshire. You will also find a long list of new publications and articles in health care, public health and education which attests to the current interest in using the PD concept in research.
In this period of giving, we urge you to donate to the crowdfunding campaign underway to build a community house in the village of Sacele, Garcini neighborhood in Northern Romania (see the Roma case study). Please share and thank you in advance for your contribution.
Special thanks to Linh Nguyen, student at MIT for her fantastic work in designing and maintaining the PD website and this newsletter.
Most of all I hope that this edition will incite you to look for existing solutions to complex problems and will urge you as Jerry Sternin often said to “act your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of action.”
The time is ripped to look at some of the most challenging issues of our time from disaster preparedness and recovery to displaced population and water management, inequality and migration and more, through different lenses by uncovering local solutions and amplifying them… The cutting edge of common sense.
Peace be with you.
Monique
