The Flourishing Care Ecosystem
◐ IN DEVELOPMENT · A CARE MODEL, NOT A CURRENT SERVICE 🩺 PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
💧 Nurse Coaches Are Our Flourishing Care Connectors™
The certified nursing assistant reaches the roots. The Nurse Coach brings the water. Together, Flourishing Nursing helps the whole person grow.
🌳 Flourishing Nursing is an ecosystem, not a hierarchy. Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants™ are the root system, close to everyday life. Nurse Coaches are the water, flowing through those roots to connect, encourage, and nourish. The patient and family are the living plant, and the whole interdisciplinary team provides the soil, sunlight, and care that help it grow.
ℹ️ What this means for you: this page describes a care model Kitchen Monk is developing. Nothing here is a service you can book or enroll in today. If you need care now, please contact your own healthcare professional, or see free education and resources available now.
Celebrating Chef AJ
Good food. Shared laughter. A moment worth keeping.
Chef AJ, thank you for the joy, encouragement, and love of whole plant foods you have shared with me. This memory from TrueNorth Health Center in 2023 still makes me smile.
Nathanael & Chef AJ · A carotenoid-scan moment · Tap the video to play or pause.
Thank you, Chef AJ, for being part of this chapter of my flourishing journey. Here’s to nourishing food, human connection, and making room for joy.
Stay connected with Kitchen Monk™ & Flourishing Nursing™
KEEP THE JOY GOING · CHEF AJ’S OWN YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Keep watching Chef AJ
Enjoy the recorded celebration below, then explore Chef AJ’s own uploads, newest first.
On YouTube, choose Play all to start at the newest available upload and continue through the collection. Use the playlist menu to choose another video; turn shuffle off to keep the order.
The collection opens on YouTube because its current player restricts playback on other websites. Continuous playback depends on YouTube, video availability, and your browser. YouTube updates the uploads list as new public videos become available.
Our vision: make nourishment visible — read Nathanael’s story
Our vision: make nourishment visible
“An ultimate goal of Flourishing Nursing™ and Kitchen Monk™ is to help everyone enjoy God-made whole plant foods so consistently that their nourishment is reflected in their carotenoid scores.
Thank you, Dr. Alan Goldhamer, for making the scanner available to help people learn about their carotenoid status. My hope is that more healthcare organizations and certified lifestyle medicine clinicians will explore carotenoid screening as a routine nutrition measure alongside traditional vital signs. That’s this lifestyle medicine nurse practitioner’s vision.”
Nathanael Elijah Smith, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, DipACLM
Skin carotenoid scores can help estimate carotenoid-rich fruit and vegetable intake. They do not measure overall health or prove someone’s complete dietary pattern; this vision is not a claim that carotenoid screening is an established vital sign. Read the research.
More about this memory
This is what Flourishing Nursing™ aims for
This joyful 2023 moment with Chef AJ captures what Flourishing Nursing™ aims for: nourishing food, compassionate encouragement, human connection, and room for joy. We want people—and the nurses who care for them—to have the support they need to flourish.
Watch the video and read the TrueNorth 2023 story →
A personal memory and an expression of our aims. The scanner reading is one part of the story, not a measure of whole-person flourishing.
🌳 The Flourishing Tree
Read it from the top down to see the goal, or from the roots up to see how it grows.
☀ PEOPLE FLOURISHING
Not simply completing visits. Not merely checking boxes. Not simply treating diagnoses.
🍎 LEAVES & FRUIT: what people experience
Greater confidence · greater connection · better access · healthier habits · more independence · better quality of life · stronger families · healthier communities
🌲 BRANCHES: the interdisciplinary team
Primary care & nurse practitioner care · lifestyle medicine · registered dietitian services · culinary medicine · movement · restorative sleep · behavioral & emotional wellbeing · healthy relationships · purpose · community connection · preventive care · chronic disease management · home and community-based care
🪵 TRUNK: Flourishing Nursing
The nursing infrastructure that holds the whole model together.
💧 WATER: Nurse Coaches, our Flourishing Care Connectors™
Coaching + education + communication + encouragement + coordination + escalation + resource connection + relationship-building, flowing through every root.
🌱 ROOTS: Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants™ and everyday life
Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants · caregivers · community health workers · peer supporters · families · neighborhoods · kitchens · food access · transportation · housing resources · community relationships
🌱 Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants™: The Roots
Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants may be among the people closest to patients in everyday life. They help healthcare reach the place where health actually happens: the home, the kitchen, the neighborhood, and the family.
They notice the practical realities an office visit often misses:
- 🥕 Is nourishing food actually in the home, and can the person safely prepare it?
- 🧊 Is the refrigerator working, and is the home safe?
- 🪑 Is loneliness, declining mobility, or trouble following the care plan becoming a barrier?
- 🚌 Are transportation, finances, literacy, or caregiving responsibilities getting in the way?
- 🌤️ Is the person becoming more engaged and hopeful between visits?
🤲 A Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistant is never “just completing tasks.” Their presence matters to the whole person’s flourishing.
💧 Nurse Coaches: The Water
Water travels throughout the root system. That is why the Nurse Coach is our Flourishing Care Connector™.
The Nurse Coach helps information, encouragement, education, resources, and human connection flow between the patient, the family, the Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistant, the nurse practitioner, the registered nurse, the registered dietitian, culinary medicine, behavioral health, the pharmacist, movement and rehabilitation professionals, community health workers, social services, and community organizations.
“What does this person need in order to flourish, and who needs to be connected so that it can actually happen?”
The Flourishing Care Connector’s question
The Nurse Coach can help people understand their broader care plan, set meaningful goals, build confidence, navigate resources, identify barriers, and celebrate progress. They also communicate relevant observations back to the clinical team through established workflows. They are not simply another person making phone calls; they help connect the whole ecosystem of care.
🤝 A Partnership, Not a Ladder
The Nurse Coach does not replace the Certified Nursing Assistant, dominate the Certified Nursing Assistant, or sit above the Certified Nursing Assistant as just another supervisory layer. The Nurse Coach waters, strengthens, connects, educates, and encourages the roots so that frontline care can grow.
💧 Strong roots need water. Flourishing Certified Nursing Assistants bring care close to everyday life. Nurse Coaches connect, encourage, coordinate, and help those roots grow. When the roots are supported, the whole person has a better opportunity to flourish.
The roots matter. The water matters. The soil matters. The sunlight matters. Every member of the team helps the person at the center grow.
📚 Where the water comes from
Flourishing Care Connectors help people find trustworthy learning, then turn it into action, with recommended resources such as NutritionFacts.org and Plantrician University.
📋 Current Status & Scope
- ◐ Stage: In development (care model concept)
- 🩺 Clinical service currently offered: No
- 📝 Enrollment currently open: No
- 📅 Last updated: October 2, 2026
The garden imagery describes the philosophy of the model. It does not mean every team member performs the same clinical functions. Each person’s responsibilities depend on their professional licensure or certification, scope of practice, organizational protocols, payer requirements, and applicable state and federal regulations.
Written by Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM, with artificial intelligence–assisted drafting.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 
