The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska provided diabetes treatment and prevention services for many years starting in the early 70s. Chief Whirling Thunder set the precedence of good health and wellness for his people during the treaty agreements in the 1800s. The Whirling Thunder Wellness Center was named after him in hopes to bring his dream to fruition. Many of the SDPI activities take place in the Whirling Thunder Wellness Center, located in the center of the Winnebago community. The tribe received the SDPI grant June 1, 1998 and maintained the grant in good standing to present day.
The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska’s SDPI grant is under the tribal compacted healthcare system, the Winnebago Comprehensive Healthcare System. The Diabetes program is directly responsible for management of the grant. The SDPI program will consist of six full-time staff members and one seasonal staff member. Two of those members have professional degrees, the SDPI, Diabetes Program Director and the RN, Lead Educator. There are also three certified Personal Trainers, a Data Entry/ Office Associate, and a seasonal nutrition educator.
The Winnebago SDPI program chose Diabetes related – Education for a Best Practice. The Target Group chosen for the Best Practice will consist of three different groups of people including, patients with diabetes and patients with pre-diabetes and at-risk participants.
Youth at-risk will be recruited into Youth Diabetes Prevention Programming that has very thorough physical activity, nutrition, and diabetes education components in it. We are working with a smaller group of youth to achieve outcomes such as a reduction in body fat percentage, BMI, A1C, and/or a gain in skeletal muscle mass. The programming with the youth includes high intensity case management and education.
Programming done with the patients that have diabetes, pre-diabetes, or are at-risk will be mostly of high- intensity variety. We will focus on diabetes education, setting and achieving behavioral goals, and helping to form healthy lifestyle habits. Services offered for adult target groups are the Diabetes Self-Management classes, Diabetes and Weight management clinics, and Diabetes Prevention classes. Both classes in Winnebago are Accredited and recognized by the CDC.
SDPI staff members also offer a variety of services related to diabetes prevention outside of the Best Practice. The Diabetes Program, which includes SDPI, manages and operates the Whirling Thunder Wellness Center. Personal Trainers offer weekly group exercise classes, and personal training sessions for all community members at the Wellness Center.
Ultimately, SDPI is focused on offering a multitude of programming options to help community members become healthier. This may include but is not limited to, losing weight, improving fitness levels, lowering A1Cs, lowering blood pressure, and improving blood glucose control.
We are thankful as a community to have funding to be able to offer these services free of charge to the people who need them.