| Tribal nursing home providers UNITE!
Uniting Nursing Homes in Tribal Excellence (UNITE) seeks to ensure Native elders in nursing homes will live in an environment that honors their culture. It:
- Builds connections among tribal nursing homes and their stakeholders
- Establishes best practices
- Provides evidence-based education and training
Learn more and sign up.
Listen to the most recent UNITE meeting (51 min.)
|
|
|
| Alaska facility builds tundra garden for residents
Photo credit: Val Kreil/Utuqqanaat Inaat on the Alaska Dispatch website.
The residents of Utuqqanaat-Inaat—an 18-person long-term care and elder nursing wing of the Maniilaq Health Center in the town of Kotzebue in northwest Alaska—find it difficult to visit the tundra to gather berries and other plants, an important part of their subsistence activities. So the facility assembled a tundra garden with wheelchair-accessible planters made from broken-down boats, seal oil barrels, and dog sleds and filled with transplanted vegetation. The center regularly serves caribou, moose, and other traditional foods to residents. It has received national recognition for cultural sensitivity. |
| Funding opportunity: Title VI program grants
The Administration for Community Living is now accepting grant applications for Title VI programs, with funding set to begin April 1, 2017.
- Title: Grants for Native Americans and Native American Caregiver Support 2017
- Funding Opportunity Number: HHS-2017-ACL-TITLEVI-1701
- Applications due Dec. 5, 2016
Go to the ACL website to read the program announcement and download the grant package.
|
| New CMS newsletter: Covering Indian Country
“Covering Indian Country,” a new monthly e-newsletter from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Division of Tribal Affairs, is for health care navigators, patient benefits coordinators, and other enrollment assisters. It features success stories from the field, best practices, communications and education resources, and upcoming events. You can sign up now to begin receiving the newsletter in December.
|
|
| What Gramma taught me about Aging Services
|
|
“I’ve always thought that my relationship with Gramma, and my tribal heritage, led me to do what I do now. I learned about supporting older adults, and learned the value of the many ways they support the younger generations.”
In a recent blog entry, Cynthia LaCounte (pictured left) writes about how her grandmother, Tresa Portra LaCounte Holzmer, (a Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa elder, pictured below) prepared her for work on aging programs as director of the Administration for Community Living/Administration on Aging Office for American Indian, Alaska Native, & Native Hawaiian Programs.
|
|
“I am wholly and passionately committed to meeting the needs of our tribal elders,” LaCounte writes. “I still think of it as ‘taking care of Gramma.’ I also challenge our Native American community to continue expanding efforts to care for our elders, while preserving the traditions of our culture.”
|
|
