Policy and Action Roundtable: Social Prescribing in Southwestern PA

Across the country, health systems, policymakers, and people-centric organizations are turning to social prescribing, connecting people to non-clinical, community-based resources, including the arts, as part of how we support health and well-being. Southwestern Pennsylvania has the ingredients to build something real here: a strong arts ecosystem, engaged health systems, and policymakers ready to listen. On November 4th, we are convening a room where we hope to bring those pieces together.

We're bringing together leaders from the arts field, policy, philanthropy, and healthcare to move past the concept and into specifics:

• Where, and in what ways, can social prescribing deliver real impact in our region?

• What could social prescribing mean for our regional arts ecosystem?

• What policy and funding infrastructure needs to be built to support it?

This is the second in the Arts Council's Policy and Action Roundtable series, designed not just as a conversation but as a working session, panel insight, small-group discussion, and shared next steps, so that everyone in the room leaves as a thought partner rather than a spectator.

Featured Panelists:

• Chris Appleton, Founder & CEO, SocialRx

• Representative Jessica Benham, PA House of Representatives - Chair, Mental Health Subcommittee; Chair, Aging & Older Adult Services Programs & Benefits Subcommittee

• Courtney Abegunde, Managing Director, Steel Smiling

• Matt Hurford, President of Community Care Behavioral Health at UPMC Insurance Services Division

• Sushma Kola, Director of Integrative Neurosciences with the AHN Neuroscience Institute