Community Wellness Care Continues

Community Wellness Care Continues

New York Quarterly Meeting Partnership with University Settlement is Renewed for Another Year

Community Wellness Working Group Report and Recommendation For the July 2026 New York Quarterly Meeting

This July marked the end of the first two years of the Community Wellness Program, a partnership between New York Quarterly Meeting and University Settlement. This partnership gives monthly meetings’ care committees and individual Friends access to social work expertise and resources. An evaluation of the program was presented to the July 2026 quarterly meeting, where Friends approved the extension of the program for another year.

Below are excerpts from the report prepared by Community Organizer Jess Hobbs Pifer and the Community Wellness Working Group.

After a second year of programming and a careful evaluation, the Working Group recommends that New York Quarterly Meeting continue its partnership with University Settlement into a third year, with several refinements described below.

Why? 

The strongest evidence comes from the care committees the program was built to serve. Every committee we heard from described real relief at having somewhere to turn when a need exceeds their expertise. Amy Scarola of 15th Street Pastoral Care put it plainly: “We are not social workers on pastoral care. We have witness skills, reflection skills, but we are not social workers. It’s been a fabulous resource.” Morningside Meeting’s clerk of Ministry and Counsel wrote, “I can't imagine carrying out some of our care without [University Settlement’s] help.” The Relief Committee told us the partnership finally lets them ensure that f/Friends who receive financial aid also receive the follow-up support and benefits they are entitled to, something that had frustrated the committee for years. 

The program also helped a meaningful number of community members directly. University Settlement supported 31 cases this year, up from 23 last year, involving 29 individual f/Friends. f/Friends brought heavy, complex needs, and most of those who gave us feedback said they would recommend the program to others. 

We also want to be candid about what the evaluation showed. Most f/Friends know their meeting’s traditional care structures well, but fewer know the Community Wellness Program exists, especially its one-on-one services…. We have built real trust with care committees; we have more work to do to make sure individual f/Friends know this help is available to them.

Based on the evaluation, the refinements we propose (for 2026-2027) are: 

• Shift more fully toward in-person “Community Days,” meeting f/Friends in the spaces where they already gather, rather than relying on standalone workshops. 
• Raise awareness of the program’s direct services, which most f/Friends do not yet know about. 
• Build a simple follow-up structure, so we confirm with f/Friends that they received the help they were seeking. 
• Deepen our outreach to Staten Island, Manhattan, and Flushing, where the program has had the least reach. 
• Continue to develop, with our care committees, gentle ways to support f/Friends who are not yet ready to accept help. 

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Read the entire report and the results of the evaluation. The next Community Day is October 8, 2026, at Brooklyn Meeting.