By Paige Willett
Citizen Potawatomi Nation Public Information Department
February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, and bringing the issues that often remain in the dark into the light provides the opportunity to stop cycles of harm. Citizen Potawatomi Nation House of Hope Prevention Specialist Kayla Woody believes education is the best tool.
“We as a society have normalized it,” she said. “We have got to get the information out there to our communities. We’ve got to get it out there to our parents, to our teens, our teachers, youth pastors and community leaders so they can start showing our children what healthy relationships look like.”
Keeping it ultra-cold: CPNHS rolls out COVID-19 vaccines
Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton
One arm at a time.
One shot at a time.
Within days of emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, Citizen Potawatomi Nation Health Services began receiving and administering vaccines to combat the coronavirus in central Oklahoma.
Along with the other self-governance tribes across Oklahoma, CPNHS opted to get its primary vaccine doses through the Indian Health Service rather than through the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
CPNHS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Adam Vascellaro said the decision to go through IHS was deliberate. This move increases the chances of both the tribe and its pandemic vaccination partner, the Pottawatomie County Health Department, having dual distributor access to the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine for the populations they serve.
Oklahoma healthcare training built to improve dementia patient care
By Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton, Citizen Potawatomi Nation Public Information Department
An education program through OU Health is attempting to shore up access to care for the state’s dementia patients.
In 2019, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center received a five-year, $3.75 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Service Administration. Among the objectives of the grant was to provide community-based training and educational opportunities to improve health outcomes for the state’s dementia patients.
“We know people are living longer than ever before,” said Terence Gipson, Oklahoma Dementia Care Network program evaluator. “With an increasing elder population, particularly here in Oklahoma and in our rural communities, there’s a need to provide more community-based services for our elders, particularly in the realm of Alzheimer’s disease and
By Paige Willett, Citizen Potawatomi Nation Public Information Department
With a decade and a half of experience, Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member Amanda Bradley finds satisfaction in working hard in the challenging public health sector.
She began her career with the Indian Health Service three years ago. As a health systems specialist and area project officer, Bradley oversees communication between IHS and its grantees for substance abuse and suicide prevention projects and domestic violence prevention projects in the Oklahoma City area.
The IHS district serves Oklahoma, Kansas and portions of Texas through eight service units with federally operated hospitals, clinics and smaller health stations. Bradley advises 26 SASP projects in Oklahoma and Kansas and eight DVP projects in Oklahoma, helping them facilitate their outreach and assistance to their communities.