Social Prescribing USA

11/18/2025

Exciting announcement here! Our friends at the National Academy for Social Prescribing have announced that International Social Prescribing Day 2026 is on....March 26th.....Stay tuned for more information!

Social Prescribing Day is on the 26th March 2026 - get involved and share your stories

11/12/2025

Did you miss our webinar this week on the emerging and exciting field of Lifestyle Medicine? If so, it is now available for view on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/-u8h) and below:

This engaging webinar was designed to educate participants about the principles and practices of Lifestyle Medicine and explore how its successful implementation can inform and strengthen the social prescribing movement. It featured:

Panelists:
💡Melissa Sundermann, DO, DipABLM, FACLM

-AKA "Doctor Outdoors"
-Medical Director, Lifestyle Medicine, Corewell Health System
-Founding Chair-Nature As Medicine committee, American College of Lifestyle Medicine
-Chair-Lifestyle Medicine Initiative, Global Wellness Institute
- Advisor, Prescribing USA

💡Christy Billock, PhD, OTR/L, DipACLM
-Conscious Living Specialist
-Occupational Therapy Educator

💡Rak ("rock") Jotwani, MD, DipABLM -Dual board-certified physician in Internal Medicine & Lifestyle Medicine
-Host of Podcast
-Founder of

Moderators:
💡Alan Siegel, M.D. Siegel, MD
-Co-Founder and Executive Director, Social Prescribing USA

💡Adam Hirschfelder, MA
-Director of Strategy & Development, Social Prescribing USA

Producers:
💡Ivory Rose, OTD
-Healthcare Engagement & Strategy Lead, Social Prescribing USA

💡Jennifer Kuo, MPH, CHES®
-Education & Programming Lead, Social Prescribing USA

This engaging webinar on Lifestyle Medicine and Social Prescribing was designed to educate participants about the principles and practices of Lifestyle Medic...

10/28/2025

At our recent U.S. Leadership Summit on Social Prescribing, we heard about the growth of lifestyle medicine. We will be exploring this topic further in an upcoming webinar on Lifestyle Medicine and Social Prescribing, a program designed to educate participants about the principles and practices of Lifestyle Medicine and explore how its successful implementation can inform and strengthen the social prescribing movement. The panel will include:

Melissa Sundermann, DO, DipABLM, FACLM
"Doctor Outdoors"
Medical Director, Lifestyle Medicine, Corewell Health System
Founding Chair-Nature As Medicine committee, American College of Lifestyle Medicine
Chair-Lifestyle Medicine Initiative, Global Wellness Institute

Christy Billock, PhD, OTR/L, DipACLM
Conscious Living Specialist
Occupational Therapy Educator

Rak ("rock") Jotwani, MD, DipABLM
Dual board-certified physician in Internal Medicine & Lifestyle Medicine
Host of The Health Feast Podcast

Register on the page, linked here: https://www.socialprescribingusa.com/webinars-events

10/27/2025

Our recent U.S. Leadership Summit on Social Prescribing (the focus of a previous post last week) would not have been possible without the leadership of Dr. Jill Sonke.

Her leadership and partnership with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), along with the UF Center for Arts in Medicine, provided Social Prescribing USA a platform (the terrific Creating Healthy Communities Conference) to build on for our Summit. For that reason, we wanted to share this new interview given by Dr. Sonke that discusses developments in the arts and health field, and the future of social prescribing in the U.S. It's an important interview, in our opinion! Thank you, Jill!

Learn, share, and connect to build the interdisciplinary field of neuroarts

10/26/2025

10/21/2025

We are still on cloud 9 (is there a cloud 10?) from hosting the first U.S. Social Prescribing Leadership Summit at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark, NJ last Friday! Our goal in hosting this event was to catalyze all of the great energy around social prescribing in the U.S., help set the stage for the next phase of the social prescribing movement in this country., and to transform Social Prescribing USA in ways that will help us support this rapidly-growing movement. Based on the great vibes at the Summit, the connections made, the discussions held, the relationships strengthened, and the hugs shared at the end, we say: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. We will have so much more to say about the Summit in the days and weeks ahead, but for now, we want to thank the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund and Resonance Philanthropies for its support of the gathering, for NJPAC's support of our reception and a special huge digital thanks to all the incredible leaders from both the U.S. and around the world who joined us to push our U.S. movement forward! Stay tuned for much more!

10/12/2025

Happy Autumn! Our October meeting will feature a brief presentation from Louisa Neumann of Wider Circle. This presentation will focus on social health solutions that their organization provides. We hope to see you there on October 13th from 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm PT!

The Zoom info was emailed to those who signed up for news about the Health Professional Champions group. If you are new, please contact Ivory Rose, Healthcare Enagement & Strategy Lead, at Ivory@socialprescribingusa.com. Learn more about this group at https://www.socialprescribingusa.com/health-professional-champions.

10/10/2025

The world of arts and health is having a serious moment in the New York City area this Fall, with significant conferences and gatherings featuring many key leaders, friends and colleagues in the field from both the U.S. and around the World, along with great announcements like this from our friends at NYC Health + Hospitals. This new effort to pilot social prescribing in a program that integrates arts and culture in the Bronx with psychiatric care treatments is definitely something to follow in the coming months as more organizations seek to test and evaluate new models for our field.

Tania Azhang

10/06/2025

Around the U.S., citizens are learning about social prescribing through articles and editorials like this in the Naples Daily News which advocates for integrating arts, including museum visits to institutions like Sarasota, Florida's The Ringling, into medical care. We encourage advocates to localize their advocacy with pieces like this in local papers to continue to build momentum for the field!

As anyone who has sat quietly in a gallery knows, sometimes beauty itself is medicine

09/17/2025

We are less than a week away from the “Creative Care: Reimagining Well-being Through Social Prescribing" virtual summit!. It takes place between September 22-26, and three of our Social Prescribing USA colleagues are participating in it: Dr. Alan Siegel, Jennifer Kuo and Ivory Rose/

This summit will explore how creative expression, movement, nature connection, and community belonging can become integral parts of patient care plans as healthcare systems worldwide face unprecedented challenges.

Key topics include:
• Understanding the evidence base for social prescribing
• Practical implementation in healthcare settings
• Creative expression as therapeutic intervention
• Movement and embodiment approaches
• Community connection as medicine
• Scaling social prescribing programs

The summit is FREE to attend and relevant to a broad range of health care professionals and practitioners regardless of budget constraints.

Three of the many programs of the Summit led by our colleagues are featured below:

Learn more and register at https://fromemployee2entrepreneur.live/optin-607435551756263671594

09/09/2025

Social Prescribing USA and several of our key colleagues are pleased to be participating in “Creative Care: Reimagining Well-being Through Social Prescribing” - a groundbreaking virtual summit taking place September 22-26, 2025.

As we constantly promote, social prescribing offers an evidence-based approach to wellness that extends beyond traditional clinical interventions. This summit explores how creative expression, movement, nature connection, and community belonging can become integral parts of patient care plans.

Our friend, Dr. Clarissa Castillo-Ramsey, has assembled an impressive lineup of healthcare professionals, researchers, creatives, and community health advocates who are successfully implementing social prescribing in diverse settings.

Key topics include:
• Understanding the evidence base for social prescribing
• Practical implementation in healthcare settings
• Creative expression as therapeutic intervention
• Movement and embodiment approaches
• Community connection as medicine
• Scaling social prescribing programs

This is particularly relevant for:
→ Healthcare providers seeking holistic patient care approaches
→ Wellness program administrators
→ Public health professionals
→ Healthcare innovation leaders
→ Community health organizations

The summit is FREE to attend, making these insights accessible to practitioners regardless of budget constraints. All the sessions are pre-recorded for your convenience and will be available for 48 hours.

Learn more and register at:
https://fromemployee2entrepreneur.live/optin-607435551756263671594

09/06/2025

Go Blue! We are so excited to see this new arts and health initiative at the UUniversity of Michigan One of the key elements of this effort is a pilot study that integrates a well-designed arts prescribing modality that includes a research-proven screening process, wellness coaches and connections with arts experiences as health interventions. We look forward to sharing information on this important project as it develops

A broad coalition of University of Michigan arts and health units is launching Michigan ArtsRx, a new campus-wide program designed to support mental health and well-being through active engagement with the arts.