Tuesday, September 10, 2024
9/10/2024
As historical and intergenerational trauma have molded the identities of patients, AIHSC will implement decolonized perspectives of honoring and leveraging indigenous teachings to address and overcome ancestral and/or personal trauma and individual chronic disease within our Diabetes Program, The Healing Circle. Through reclamation of indigenous teachings, our community can undergo holistic healing within the four bodies: mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Our ancestors promoted health and wellbeing through a healthy lifestyle, including consumption of a healthy diet, medicinal plant use for healing, and ceremonies; which are integral to our identity and necessary to pass on to future generations. Once the healthiest population on the planet, Natives used to hunt, gather, and lead active lifestyles. It has been estimated that native people expended more than 4,000 calories per day before the start of reservation life. Forced relocation led to the consumption of highly processed diets disrupting the traditional healthy food sources. It is possible to return to a highly nutritious ancestral diet can reverse the effects of metabolic disorders but access to original lands and ancestral knowledge has been nearly lost. Assimilation through boardings schools and relocation where mass trauma from emotional, physical, and sexual abuse along with torture and punishment for maintenance of traditions nearly led to the demise of our ways. Traditional ceremonies are integral to the emotional and mental wellbeing of Native people, yet such potential is unknown to western medicine. Traditional ways involve patient, family, and community in the holistic healing process. Through practice of communal songs, prayer, music, and dance, our patient population can address trauma and collectively heal through cultural connection. Sadly, spirituality and adherence to ceremonies, rituals, and beliefs encompass an aspect of our culture that has been oppres sed and forgotten. The Healing Circle will reclaim these ways and educate all generations, especially our impressionable youth who abandoned or never learned these ways. When comparing the health of our younger generations to elders who are more closely tied to our traditional practices, the consequences of loss of ancestral knowledge becomes apparent. Obesity is rising while physical activity is decreasing. Youth who follow traditional spiritual beliefs alongside loving, caring families are more likely to make positive lifestyle choices as they are empowered with sense of self and increased self-esteem. Reclamation of this knowledge and successful integration within our Integrated Care Model is critical for reversing the damage of colonialism and assimilation while enabling holistic healing of the traumatized mind, body, and soul of our population. The Healing Circle Diabetes Program will also include increasing physical activity on a daily basis when possible, at least twice per week through our health lifestyle change program or participation in our classes led by a Certified Fitness Instructor trained by the Native American Fitness Council which will also help patients lower their A1Cs through increased physical activity. AIHSC will also have two young traditional dancers teach the youth and families how to dance.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
