December 30, 2003

 

To:       Attendees

From:    Gayle

 

Wellness meeting

 

Paul Verhagen	Shelly Citron	Aaron Hodges	Dana Stephens
Bear Ketzler	Milt Haken	Ricky Martin	Jason Moore
Lois Law	Virginia Young	Rose Allen	Josh Titus
Jason Mayrand	Gayle Ramey	Kat McElroy	Teresa Mayrand

 

Bear started discussion regarding the lack of spirituality both in our meetings and Nenana as a community. Considerable discussion followed regarding spirituality and religion in government and organizations. Several others stated they feel there is a need for a spirituality component to our meetings.  It was suggested that we allow time for a non-denominational prayer at the beginning of every meeting. Kat talked about the medicine wheel. Arron Hodges will work on brining the pastor from an Anderson church to our meetings.

 

Bear felt that it would be a good idea to work with the school and start a discussion group with juniors and senior to talk about things that he felt should have been a topic of discussion when he was in high school and weren’t.

 

Our group discussion turned to the fact that so many young people leave the community after school and do not return. We need to focus on changing that mindset and promote the idea that Nenana is a good place to live and the need to both create jobs and make people aware of potential jobs.

 

Milt stated that he thought the adults were leaving too not just the high school graduates.  Milt also stated that he felt from his experience in different communities Nenana is a good place to live and we have a good school but need more employment opportunities.

 

There was considerable discussion from all members in attendance but the general consensus was that we need to promote employment opportunity.

 

Bear reported that TCC is sponsoring a Financial Literacy training program.

 

The January public meeting date was changed from January 15^th to January 13^th.

 

Reports due at the next meeting are:

            Newsletter                                Shelly

            Recreation Center                     Bear

            Oxford House                           Bear

            Hockey Rink                             Shelly

            Mission Statement                     Paul

            Alternative Sentencing               Milt

            Grants  Denali Comm.               Bear

            Strategic Planning reports          Jason

            Meeting Notice                         Gayle

            Electronic monitoring                 Endil (not at the next meeting)

 

Guest speakers                          Bill Bailey

Planning for our January 13^th meeting and assign duties.

 

If you have any additions or corrections to these minutes or other agenda items please let me know. Our next meeting is January 6, 2004.

Gayle

Nenana Wellness Coalition Minutes

 

16 December 2003

 

 

In attendance:

 

Bear Ketzler	Endil Moore	Jason Moore	Joshua Titus
Alvina Fowler	Kat McEroy	Tracy Wiggins	Paul Verhagen
Roy Smart	Ricky Martin	Patty Adkisson	Shelly Citron
Virginia Young	Lois Law	Gayle Ramey	Dick Farris
Christina Sunnyboy	Milt Haken	Ginger Albert	Brenda Dow
Ruth Ritenski

 

Meeting convened at noon.

Bear introduced Dick Farris who has been asked to assist us with his grant writing skills and then asked Milt to give a report on the conferences he attended in Seattle

 

Milt Haken

 

Drug Impairment Recognition Conference. Several states are passing laws that require drivers of vehicles involved in a motor vehicle accident to be tested for drug use - prescription or otherwise. Preliminary statistics indicate that the problem of driver impairment is much greater than expected. Some states have begun training officers as Drug Recognition Experts (DRE’s).  Alaska will have 12 of them by this summer and Milt (Nenana’s Chief of Police) is one of them. A DRE has been trained to recognize the indicators of drug impairment through tests similar to field sobriety tests for alcohol. Examples were given of impairment by such seemingly harmless drugs as caffeine which if taken on an empty stomach in sufficient quantities can cause driver impairment as reported by an incident involving a truck driver who took large numbers of caffeine pills on top of high caffeine content drinks in an effort to stay awake after too many hours of driving. Judges have convicted people for causing accidents if they were driving while using medications that cause drowsiness and, of course, more and more people are being convicted of driving while under the influence of illegal drugs.

 

Alternative To Incarceration Conference. As a result of dwindling budgets and other social concerns more and more states are seeking alternatives to incarceration. One jurisdiction that Milt learned about three programs offered in the Seattle area - DUI Alternate Sentencing, Day Reporting, and Work Crew. Under the DUI Alternate Sentencing program offenders are given the option to participate in a 24 hour alternative DUI Education Program that takes the place of the mandatory 24 hour jail sentence. Participants are not released before the 24 hours (Cots are provided for those who wish to sleep for some of the 24 hours). No information was given regarding the other two options but he will make the brochures available to us.

 

Education Components. Milt shared information with us on a program called What’s a Life Worth wherein drivers must watch a CD on the subject before receiving a driver’s license. He provided a copy of the CD for our review. Another innovative program  includes a DUI simulator that consists of goggles and a go-cart wherein the driver and a passenger enter onto a race track in the school gym and attempt to drive while their vision is ‘impaired’ through the goggles and the reaction time of the go cart is slowed to simulate the reaction time of an impaired person. The biggest effect has been on the passengers who realize that they have no control whatsoever when driving with a drunk driver. Cost is $8,000.

 

Enhanced 911 Teleconference. Milt attended a statewide teleconference regarding implementation of enhanced 911 throughout Alaska. GPS abilities are likely to be mandated so that location of 911 cell phone callers can be immediately determined.

 

Endil Moore.

 

Endil reported on the visit that four of our members (Chief Haken, Captain Moore, Mayor Mayrand and Bear Ketzler) made to FCC to check out their electronic monitoring program. They visited with Ron Winkleman who showed them the B.I. Guard Center product. FCC has the capacity of monitoring up to 15 bracelets at a time. They demonstrated the use of the bracelets as well as the breathalyzer and voice print components. Amazingly, by requiring the individual to speak just three words - Yukon, Chena, and Willow - the voice recognition is very high. Defendants must apply to participate in the electronic monitoring program and must not be sex offenders or have been convicted of domestic violence. They must have a dedicated phone line to their residence. They were also shown a tracking component that allows police or probation officers to drive by a location where the defendant is supposed to be and receive a signal from their bracelet as long as it is within 600(?) feet.

 

Endil further reported on another system called Shadow Track which is cheaper and appears to be as good or better. He will provide us with copies of the literature he received.

 

Lastly, Endil discussed having seen the felons lined up in a hallway before being moved somewhere else and at that moment he decided that we should do everything we (Wellness Coalition) can to prevent any of our people from having to spend any time in the same facility as felons.

 

Paul Verhagen

 

Paul shared some thoughts (attached) on coming up with a mission statement. Forms were then distributed upon which we were asked to take five minutes to write down our thoughts of just what our mission is. He suggested that we not discuss the results yet, but instead repeat the process at another meeting or two in order to allow all to participate or for additions to our prior thoughts.

 

Paul also shared thoughts (attached) on development of non-medical emergency response teams who would be available to respond to calls regarding individuals who are at a point of crisis that needs immediate intervention but have not yet crossed the line wherein an ambulance would be dispatched. Endil Moore expressed concern that crisis intervention teams should work together with EMT’s and other first responders because there is often such a fine line between what is and isn’t a medical emergency. What might not appear to be a medical emergency at first could become such within seconds. On the other hand, a situation that might be called in as a medical emergency could be declared as a non-medical at the scene and yet it might still not be wise in many cases for the individual to be left alone when the emergency medical providers leave. Endil offered to act as a ‘bridge’ between the groups because he already works with the medical responders and is willing to work with non-medical responders as well. Patty A. said that she has information on crisis intervention that she thinks will be helpful and will get that information to us. Tracy Wiggins offered to follow up on this by working with Endil, Patty, Shelly C., and Ricky M. - each of whom expressed interest in seeing such a program developed.

 

Paul invited the Wellness Coalition to meet at his house for next week’s meeting. The invitation was accepted.

 

Bear Ketzler

 

Bear reported on his visits to the two Fairbanks Oxford houses. Things are progressing nicely for the newest house which is accepting applicants right now. He told about a conversation that he and Paul had with Luki(?) the coordinator of one of the two Anchorage Women’s Oxford houses. Luki has offered to come and speak with us any time that we would like her to. The agency she works for has funds for such travel.

 

General Announcements and member comment

 

Our Nenana A.A. group held their second meeting. Six people attended the first meeting and seven people attended this last week.

 

Christina S. would like to re-start Little Dribblers but needs help with funding. Tracy, Endil and Bear each said that they can come up with some funding. Gary E. suggested that it would be fun kids and adults if we held five minute Little Dribbler games during half-time of our J.V. games. That would be a logical time to do it because most people would already be there for the J.V. game and would not have to come again at another time. Christina will follow up on this. Shelly offered to help.

 

Bear introduced Rick Ferris and suggested that we might want to brainstorm some more about development of our proposed Regional Behavior Center. We talked about the concepts that we have previously discussed and at the end of discussion Rick said that he thinks we are already well on our way and probably don’t need his help with the brainstorming part. He went on to congratulate us and said that he believes what we are hoping to put together will serve as a model for other communities. He offered to help us obtain funding - an offer that was gratefully accepted as Rick is acknowledged as being very good in this field.

 

Bear reminded us that we have talked about methods of making our programs self-supporting, including the therapeutic aspect of growing, raising and catching one’s own food. Paul suggested that we consider using the old mission model. Beat told about a stand alone wood burning heating system that will be tried out on George Hall. It is a stand-alone system (similar to the HASHA’s that are common in Healy). If successful we may want to consider incorporating it into any facilities that we build, especially in light of our intention of making them as self-supporting as possible.

 

Ricky M. suggested that our programs need to be less coercive than some other models and that there needs to be a ’seamless’ flow into aftercare. He suggested that we use the same people who serve in the in-patient portions of our program as transitional counselors into the aftercare program.

 

Paul suggested that in order to accomplish the things we have been talking about we will need to develop various components to our program that are each self-standing but fully integrated with each other. That will allow us to meet the requirements of the many agencies who may wish to send people to us but who could not if we didn’t provide for their concerns (such as Nygren credit, jail-like facilities, etc.) on one hand, and less coercive programs on the other hand.

 

Shelly C. suggested that we need to prepare participants in our programs for full reintroduction into society by exposing them while they are still in treatment to some of the kinds of risks they will face when they are finished with treatment in order to help them develop the skills they will need.

 

Kat M. expressed concern that we not become part of the problem we are attempting to fix. She suggested that if we are not careful we could inadvertently develop a program wherein people are very successful at not relapsing - but only if they remain in Nenana. She suggested that we don’t want to contribute to further drain from rural communities throughout Alaska.

 

Paul suggested that we must co-develop our programs with as many other communities as we can. He suggested that we work with communities like Tanana and work with people like Dr. Gooding and the Tanana Counseling Center, and others.  Then when participants are released they will be returning to their own communities but still be participating in sister programs that exist in their own community. He talked about the need to continually look at the holistic aspect of our proposed program.

 

Kat called it Whole Family Healing.

 

Ricky suggested that we re-evaluate the Alkali Lake model.

 

Kat said that RMHA has copies of all their material available for review.

 

Endil expressed concerns that we not wait too long in the process before addressing the property needs of our program. He suggested that we begin now looking for a large tract of land sufficient to meet our current needs as well as our needs well into the future. He stressed the need for us to be able to expand.

 

Bear mentioned that Huna is doing something similar to what we are trying to do and that Senator Stevens has really gotten behind them. It was suggested that we inform his office of what we are working on as soon as possible so that he might keep us in mind for some of the available funding - which he can’t do if he doesn’t know about our efforts.

 

Bear introduced Brenda Dow and Ruth Ritenski who work for the state as Public Guardians. They congratulated us on the progress we are making and said that our programs will be of great benefit to some of their clients.

 

Meeting adjourned at 2:35 PM.

 

Minutes distributed on 12/22/03

 

Please review the above minutes and notify me if there is a need for any changes or corrections at paulverhagen@prodigy.net. Thank You.

Win -The Nenana Wellness Coalition

 

Nenana Wellness Coalition

-

Emergency First Responders (EFR’s)

 

I recently received a call from a service provider friend of mine from one of the villages that I cover asking for help. A friend of ours, a local woman with serious addiction problems, recently pled out to a crime and at sentencing, while she was sober, agreed that she needs help with her problem. She agreed to enter a treatment program in lieu of going to jail but, as sometimes happens, never made it into the treatment program because she took a detour to the bars in Fairbanks on the way to treatment. After several days of drinking she tried to kill herself. My service provider friend from Tanana received a frantic call from someone who found the woman. She called the police and asked them to take her to the hospital under the protective custody statutes and at the same time, called some other women from Tanana who happened to be in Fairbanks and asked if they would go to where this woman was and be there with her while the police were en-route because the service provider knew from prior experience that it might be hours or even days before the police got there. When the police did finally arrive our friend was transported to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital for a 72 hour hold but again, as often happens, she checked herself out before the 72 hours was even up.

 

My friend from the village was calling me to see if there was anything that the courts can do to intervene before this woman succeeds at taking her life or dies from drinking and drugging. The answer to that question is - maybe. The courts can take action, even emergency action, but the process involves multiple agencies and takes time. It involves the court system, the district attorneys’ office, local law enforcement and sometimes other agencies. All of the agencies are very busy and are each day being asked to do more and more all the while their funding is being cut. People like our friend from the village could be dead by the time the machine that we call government gets gears up to respond.

 

There has to be a better way and I believe that the Nenana Wellness Coalition can play a part in helping develop a better way. We might consider the idea of fostering an Emergency First Responders (EFR) program (perhaps a cross between the EMT program and the A.A. model of service). Such a program could be duplicated in any city or village anywhere and could consist of teams of first responders made up of people who are very familiar with addictive behavior from first hand experience, people who have been in this woman’s shoes, people who work to keep themselves healthy by serving others - others who are now where they once were. There are lots of people who fall into this category. People who want to serve, and will serve, if someone informs them of the need and helps them get started with organizing themselves.

 

The Nenana Wellness Coalition need not, nor should we, do all the work. We don’t need to, nor perhaps should we, fund the program, they are capable of doing it themselves (like A.A. and Oxford House) if we but help get things rolling. To do this we might want to facilitate meetings to discuss the situation and help those who are interested get started. Perhaps we could begin by doing something as simple as compiling a list of people who have previously been helped whose goal for their own sobriety is to help others. Perhaps with their permission we could distribute this list to our local service providers and other agencies so that they will have someone to call when they receive calls like my friend received. We might ask them to invite others to a bigger meeting to discuss the problem and ask them if they would be willing to respond when a call comes in as the two women from Tanana did.

 

As Emergency First Responder Teams they might be called upon when someone is in a non-medical crisis (threatened suicide is not considered a medical emergency) as a means of helping prevent a medical crisis. Such a team doesn’t need expensive equipment in order to help people keep from relapsing, committing crimes, or even suicide. They might help provide transportation to AA meetings, treatment programs, doctor’s appointments, etc. They could be available to take calls from the person in crisis, the court, police, friends, family, etc.

 

We needn’t design the program in details ahead of time - just encourage its creation and give it a helping hand. Who knows - it might be one of us, or our own, whose life is one day saved by that which we help to start.

Win -The Nenana Wellness Coalition

 

Nenana Wellness Coalition

-

Mission Statement

 

            A wise bit of counsel tells us not to run faster than we can walk. Whenever I hear this saying I envision a toddler who is just learning to walk who gets so excited that he leans forward and starts to run only to crash headlong into the couch! I also think about another saying that tells us “That which we persist at doing becomes easier – not because the nature of the thing has changed but because our capacity to do it has increased”. Thus as the toddler’s muscles grow and he gains a better sense of balance and gets a little more experience it isn’t long before he is running to and fro!

            One thing that I have enjoyed about our work as the wellness committee has been that we have taken the approach of the tortoise in the story of the tortoise and the hare. We have been meeting steadily and, slowly but surely, we have been making progress. We have not yet tried to run even though we, like the toddler, have gotten excited about the potential that we see for ourselves. No one has been overly pushy. Anyone who has wanted to has been able to participate, all speakers have been treated with respect even when there were clear differences of opinion, and our numbers have grown steadily.             From my perspective our ability to “walk” is improving. Some day we may find ourselves running like the wind and great things may be accomplished, but in the meantime we must work slowly and carefully to increase our abilities so that we don’t end up crashing headlong into a “couch”.

            At our last meeting we agreed that we will be able to accomplish more if we refine our focus. We talked about the need for good records of our meetings, about reviewing the things we’ve talked about doing, and laying out plans to get them done. We also talked about developing a mission statement as a means of having something that we can look to in order to ensure that our actions are fulfilling our intentions.

            In the spirit of continuing forward with a slow but steady pace I suggest that we NOT attempt to develop a mission statement in hurry. I suggest that we work at it for a while so that all who desire can be involved in the process. I have written on a piece of paper the phrase “The mission of the Nenana Wellness Coalition is:” and have left a blank space behind it. I suggest that we take a few minutes for each of us to fill in the blanks with whatever comes to mind. I have written the same phrase three times because we may each have in mind more than one idea of what the Nenana Wellness Coalition should be working to accomplish.

            I suggest that we not discuss our answers today. In fact I suggest that we do this same exercise for the next few meetings and that we spend no longer than three to five minutes each time doing it. Doing it this way will give those who can’t be here today the opportunity to have some input. It will also allow us to think about our mission during the intervening time. Perhaps next time your answers will be the same and you will choose not to add anything but, on the other hand, if you’ve thought about something else you will be able to add it.

            After we’ve collected all the answers we can compile the results and then would be a good time to talk about them. Only then would it be appropriate to decide on our mission statement.

            If you are agreeable with this approach we’ll pass out the forms and take three to five minutes today and then move on to our next item of business.

 

The Nenana Wellness Coalition

-

Mission Statement

 

 

The mission of the Nenana Wellness Coalition is:

 

 

 

 

The mission of the Nenana Wellness Coalition is:

 

 

 

 

 

The mission of the Nenana Wellness Coalition is:

 

 

 

Wellness meeting

December 9, 2003        

 

To:       Attendees

From:    Gayle

 

 

Cindy Ronander and Michelle Opbrock gave a presentation on the Nenana City Public School Character Standards (Goals). They presented a handout with a rough draft – asked for input and extended an invitation for anyone to join the committee. Very good presentation.

 

Will Mayo – Will gave a presentation on the faith based seminars that he and his wife have started -Healing Hearts. The groups are kept small around 8 participants but no more than 10. The groups meet once a week for 2 hours and continues for 6 months.  It is a counseling group to deal with personal issues in a persons past – internal “woundedness” and shame.  The greatest emotion that Will sees in villages is ‘shame’.  People hide in many ways from there past such a reading (obsessively), drugs, alcohol or any other obsessive behavior that might be used to ‘drop out’ of life. Many people don’t connect their abuse with their ‘drop out’ behavior.

 

In January the wellness group will host a cover dish with Will as the guest speaker to let the community know about the opportunity to participate in the seminar. Will can come to Nenana to conduct one meeting per week for a 6 month session starting in January.

 

Cliff Wilson – Cliff came to Nenana to tell us more about the ‘Oxford House’ sober living program. Oxford House was started 28 years ago and boasts an 80% success rate. It is self-run and self-supporting the average stay at the home is 15 months. ‘Family’ members pay rent, buy their own food, attend mandatory weekly meeting and must remain sober. Cliff will come to Nenana and help us get started.

 

Endil Moore – Has learned more about electronic monitoring devices than the average city cop and he gave a very informative talk.  It appears that this is an affordable option that Nenana should continue to explore.  Endil will bring more information to our next meeting.  The cost to purchase one bracelet and a monitor is $995, rent is $5 a day and the monitoring service is $2.50 a day. There is also a device that is $800 that could be in a car that would report as to where the ‘bracelet’ is. A group of 4 will be having a tour of the FCC and the monitors they use.  Fbks has 20 sets and Anchorage has 200.

 

Paul – Handed out copies of his list of local resources, people, organizations, programs and the list of goals that we have discussed at our meetings. We all brainstormed and added to the list.

 

We need to revisit the development of our mission statement and consider our options for formalizing our group.

 

Dr. Gooding will be at our next meeting.

 

Next meeting December 16th same time – same place!

 

Please let me know if there are any errors, additions or name misspellings.

Nenana Wellness Committee

Minutes for 12/02/03

 

In Attendance:

 

Special Guests:  Jane Franks and  Bill Bailey from Ch’eghutsen

 

Regular Members and Community Members:

 

Al Ketzler, Jr.                           Gary Edwin

Lois Law                                  Pattie Adkisson

Ricky Martin                            Roy Smart

Paul Verhagen                          Shelly Citron

Ralph Lindquist             Kat McElroy

Ken Eggleston                          Rose Allen

Endil Moore                             Jason Moore

Keri Frazier                              Josh Titus

Moses Paul                              Sam Verhagen

Merrily Verhagen                     

 

Welcome by “Bear” Ketzler

 

Bear spoke about Mike Daku, Prof. at UAF and his assistant Larry Roberts who Bear has been talking to out our plans. Mike will make a good consultant.

They agreed with our concept of Nenana being a regional center and suggested the title Regional Behavioral Center.

Bear suggested modeling it after the Rimrock Center that he attended many years ago.

He shared information with us about the center from their brochure. It is a Center for the treatment of addictions, family addictions, clinical care, severe eating and compulsive addictions. Bear envisions us being more of a tailored behavioral center. Bear said that Mike Daku thought that Judge Funk would be interested in working with us. Mike could help us to secure long-term funding for the center.

 

Lois L.  introduced guests from Ch’eghutsen – Jane Franks is the director of Ch’eghutsen, and Bill Bailey handles their social marketing.

They shared their pamphlet and described their organization. They work to promote mental health, to create a system of care in each community. They are very happy to work with us and would like to attend our meetings at least once a month and will be back in January. They gave us handouts and asked us to fill in a survey for them. Bill is willing to help our young members spread the word among other young people through use of computer media. Paul Verhagen commented that he has worked with Bill in the past and that he is really good at what he does.

Jane commented that Lois has graduated and will now be able to really get to work promoting their program in our community. Jane commented that they will continue to send Lois out for more training on a regular basis and that they expect she will be a real help to our efforts.

Lois said that elders are concerned that disorders are not being properly treated but instead are being improperly labeled.

 

“Bear” asked Jane to describe the referral process. She described it in some detail and made clear that referrals can be made even if the referrer doesn’t identify any of the criteria on the brochure because Ch’eghutsen will assess to see if their criteria is met. She encouraged referrals if it appears that the help is needed.

Bear asked who the program was targeted to serve. In Fairbanks it is targeted to serve native kids from birth to age 22 but in the rural areas all kids can be served regardless of their race or cultural background. Consent must be given by the parents, or in the case of the boarding school it can be given by the parents local representatives but that they would still try to contact the parents and work with them.

 

Ricky M. asked how the kids in the boarding school can be helped if their families are in remote locations. Lois will get with the family, which can be done via teleconference, (and in some cases the families can be brought in even from outlying areas) and in conjunction with Jane they will decide together what services can be provided.

 

“Bear” reported that school had a Lynx Den meeting that he attended. He felt that it was a good start and that he expects much good to come from future meetings.

 

Jane said if you combine the service plan throughout the communities it becomes a case management program.

 

Bear suggested that perhaps Lois could be the main file management person for the combined service entities in the community.

 

Paul suggested that we will need a main file system regardless of who is in charge and perhaps that needs to be further discussed in these meetings.

 

Jane complimented us our wellness team and its organization.  It is amazing that it has come so far in such a short amount of time.

 

Bear recently submitted a proposal for an Oxford House and housing proposals.  Meeting every week has been of help.

 

Ralph L. said that the staff at the Student Living Center is considered the students family, but weekly contact with their real family is encouraged.  Many of the students that come to school from the outlying villages are at high risk.  There is substance abuse by students and they are finding different ways to deal with it.  We don’t have the ability to deal with a high risk student because of the effect it has on the other students but we want to help them to have the opportunity to have a better education than what might be offered in their village.

 

A number of suggestions were made concerning this situation.

 

Jane suggested that if their organization was able to get parental consent then they could help students with their “Wrap around” approach to help deal with the student’s problems.

 

Lois suggested a mentor family for each student to get them occasionally into a real family atmosphere and more involved with the community and perhaps even having them remain in the community with a family to finish their schooling.  Not close the door to them.

 

Bear felt that there was a need to have the school become more willing to have the school open to letting the community members be able to have access to how we can co-ordinate in order to better help.

 

Bill - said that there is a need to have an elder mentor or grandparent mentor to be there to help the students. 

 

Ken E. said some community families have already helped out by taking students into their families to help them finish the school year.

 

Jane said that a mental health assessment (clinical) needs to be done so that professional help can be given. 

 

It was suggested that Keri Frasier, could be of assistance to help in many areas.

 

Bill - said that a 5 year plan should be started to get things going according to their organization.

 

Jane said that their organization can make arrangements through the Wellness Coalition for appointments to be made for individuals that need help and forms were passed out so that everyone could get an idea of what the applications are like.

 

Ken said perhaps a S.A.S.S.Y evaluation needs to be done in an application or a series of appointments to the new students who want to go to the boarding school.  If possible a screening assessment should be done ahead of time if a student is at high risk so that a mentor can be recommended and help can be in place at the beginning of the year.  It might need to be a requirement.

 

A group discussion on this followed.

 

Ralph said that the rubric would stay the way it is but if done right an assessment can be given as early intervention.

 

Lois thought it might be good to have the students attend the wellness meetings and activities with communities and families.

 

Gary E. talked about an activity at Mt. Edgecombe designed to help the students break the ice from holding things in.

 

Bill - suggested talking circles.

 

Ralph said that presently the new students come three days early for this at the Living Center.

 

Talked about the need for an activity this time of year (during the holidays) or right afterwards in January.

 

Pattie A.- Asked community members to make sure that the committee is made aware of meetings and activities that go on over the holidays so that they can be apprised and help.

 

Jane – Money is available for families in need of fiscal necessities such as stoves, heating, roofs, etc.

 

Gary – Asked how to make a referral if no indicators are in place but there is an evident problem?

 

Pattie -  Suggested that workshops be held on how to help using different approaches or in helping teach lifestyle skills.

 

Roy S.- needs a written release to have ability to help with his part of the program.

 

Shelly C. – Feels that the Student Living Center kids have an advantage over the local students who have no alterative families.

 

(Group discussion on how in extreme cases the tribal court could help persuade parents to be willing to get help.)

 

Bear- Need to stretch it to get money to do the job or go to another agency who could cover that area.

 

Bill – Asked everyone to fill out questionnaire forms to help them better access things when they come back on Jan. 6.

 

Annoucements:

 

Dec. 7:  Anchorage Annual Native Tribal Native Coalition to represent Nenana.  Lois Law volunteered to attend.

 

Referrals for needy families and kids for Santa’s Clearing House by next Thursday.

 

Milt Haken called from Washington to ask about how things were going with the committee and sent a couple of brochures for consideration.

 

Dec. 4 – Dance group from the school is putting on a spaghetti feed to earn money for travel.  Ken E. spoke about the success of the dance group.

 

Four Nenana Young men are now in the Oxford House in Fairbanks.

 

Paul – Introduced new attendees Moses Paul and Sam Verhagen (Paul and Merrily’s) and read a letter that was a synopsis of what the Wellness Coalition is all about and what the coalition hopes to accomplish. The Letter passed around as a hand-out and seemed to be well received.

 

Endil M. talked about the monitoring device and the research he did.  Program for 1^st offenders to do in-house arrests so they don’t have to go to jail but have to still be in a confined area at all times.  Hopefully there will be funding to cover this.

 

Ken - Might be able to get it written into a school grant as part of healthy organization.

 

Bear read the name of different companies- Lee’s Home Confinement System

                                                                        Shadow Track

                                                                        Radio-based tracking system

                                                                        Electronic Bracelets

 

Jane - Might be able to get funding through their program for this also.

 

Endil said that the community would be more willing to accept this as a sentence than being released into parental custody.

 

Jason Moore said that it helps to get the kids out in the community doing thing that keep them active rather than just to entertain them with a movie or something.

 

Ricky - No parameters to measure where they are at but they still may be at high risk because they are so good at covering up.

 

Ken - Puts school presenters on DVD’s so that other people in the community can have access to this information.  Like to have youth that have overcome problems become traditional youth leaders.  Explain their stories to the other youth.  Peer mentors.

 

Gary - talked about keeping kids busy and supported.

 

Roy - Passed out booklet from a convention he had been to on how to heal a community (proven plan and steps) and recommended that the pamphlet be used.

                                                                       

Next meeting: December 9, 2003 at noon at Nenana Native Council.

 

Note: If you see errors or omissions in these minutes please send the information to Merrily Verhagen.