Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
No Pressure: Willow Glen resident Christa Bradley, a new community health representative at the Indian Health Center, teaches Ross Gritts, a Cherokee American Indian and another community health representative, how to take a patient's blood pressure.
WG's Indian Health Center reaching out for 25 years
Nonprofit serves American Indians, low-income locals
By Moryt Milo
From its small beginnings in 1976, operating out of a school in East San Jose, to its current Willow Glen location, the Indian Health Center has grown into a comprehensive health-care facility for the American Indian community and low-income families.
The Indian Health Center, 1330 Meridian Ave., is the only South Bay location to offer the American Indian population more than outreach services. Besides full medical and dental care on site, the center has a plethora of counseling services, educational programs and federally funded nutrition services for women, infants and children.
Because it is a community health center, the center's doors are open to anyone, including many families in the Hispanic and Asian communities, executive director Mat Kendall says.
But the center's roots and primary focus is to encourage, educate and empower [American Indians] to seek wellness and enhance their quality of life.
The center is one of only three Northern California locations--San Francisco and Oakland are the other two--which address problems unique to the American Indian culture.
High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and substance-abuse issues are unfortunately prevalent in the American Indian culture, Kendall says. The center targets these health concerns through active screening programs and ongoing education and outreach.
"We try to wrap in traditional [American Indian practices] with Western practices," Kendall says. "We want to be there for American Indians making the effort to maintain their heritage and culture."
It is also why many of the staff recruited to work at the Indian Health Center are of American Indian heritage or have spent time working on Indian reservations.
Willow Glen resident Leah Hodge is an enrolled member of the Yurok tribe, which lived along the Klamath River near Crescent City. Since 1991, she has worked as a counselor at the center.
Hodge says she has a diverse caseload, with clients ranging in age from 7 to 72. Her clients often tackle issues of substance abuse, which Hodge says affect all family members.
She adds a unique element to her counseling practice by incorporating a community garden project, which is located behind the health center. She works with clients in the garden, and since she counsels many clients at their homes, she brings the gardening experience to where they live as part of her counseling therapy. The garden becomes a symbol of the continuum of life, Hodge says.
Two years ago she built the flowerbeds at the Indian Health Center and began developing a garden focused on medicinal and traditional American Indian herbs. She planted different kinds of sage, tobacco and sweet herbs, all considered ceremonial in American Indian culture.
"The garden is a precursor for a whole philosophy," Hodge says. "The goal of the garden is to bring back tradition, to re-teach the old ways and to learn to be prepared for the future."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Life Spirit: Willow Glen resident Leah Hodge, a case manager in the counseling department and gardener at the Indian Health Center, grows vegetables and herbs to be used for ceremonial and health purposes.
As the center continues to grow, Hodge hopes more community members will take an interest and become involved in the project.
Since 1977, the Indian Health Center has operated as a nonprofit organization. It moved to its current Willow Glen location in 1993. Yet, from the beginning, the center has offered medical and dental services, counseling and WIC--a federally funded nutrition program for low-income women, infants and children.
During the mid-1990s, it became a federally qualified health center, and a broader range of services became available to the community, Kendall says.
Some of these services include counseling in parenting and jobs, and community health services assistance in areas like teen violence prevention, prenatal education and HIV testing.
The center also wanted to be nationally recognized for its quality of care and applied for and became, in 1999, the first community health center in Santa Clara County to receive accreditation from the Accreditation Association of Ambulatory Health Care and only the second community health center in the Bay Area to receive national accreditation.
With access to federal funding and national accreditation, the center's client referral system began to grow. Federal funding also helped the center's WIC program, which is run by Willow Glen WIC Dietitian and Director Janet Rausch.
"In the WIC department we see between 100 to 140 families a day," Rausch says. "Our program is total dietitian and nutrition assistance."
The program provides nutrition classes, which touch on healthy cooking, high fiber and vegetables, Rausch says. The program also teaches pregnant mothers about breastfeeding and birth control.
WIC offers food vouchers and gives away incentive items like sipper cups to encourage mothers to come to the center and develop good habits.
Rausch, who has been at the Indian Health Center since 1995, says, "It is a great opportunity for a dietitian to use all her areas of expertise, in counseling people with diabetes, weight loss, high blood pressure and cholesterol and work with high-risk children."
Diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol are serious health issues in the American Indian community, and the center is working hard to help American Indians overcome these medical problems, Rausch says.
Teresa Brockie, registered nurse and community health services director, is an American Indian from the White Clay Nation in Montana and does community outreach to educate American Indians on health issues.
Brockie says the problem in Santa Clara County is that the American Indian community is very scattered. Many in the culture, especially the elders, will not voluntarily come to the health center. Brockie says the center works hard to locate and encourage American Indians to come to the clinic for services and learn more about its many community programs.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Teammates: Teresa Brockie, BSN-RN, community health services director, and Mat Kendall, MPH, executive director, together help run the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara County.
One of the ways the center has been able to bring attention to itself and bring the local American Indian community together is by organizing community events.
Every third Wednesday of the month the center has American Indian Care Day from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The center focuses exclusively on the American Indian community, offering them medical appointments, immunizations, health screenings and an opportunity to speak with representatives from American Indian agencies.
It is an all-day event that draws more than 60 people and includes a barbecue and a planned speaker. At the most recent American Indian Care Day, on Oct. 17, a speaker discussed breast-cancer awareness.
Recently the center reached out to the American Indian community by holding its first powwow in San Jose's Roosevelt Park on Sept. 28.
"We had about 2,000 people," Kendall says. "At these events, we try to incorporate all kinds of tribal values and have a tent set up with various services, which include screenings especially for blood sugars and cholesterol."
Dr. Ann Verstraete, the center's former medical director, was the clinic's first doctor and has been part of the health center for more than 23 years. She says, "It is more then just a clinic; it is a real community. We help with housing, work-force needs and parenting. All of us bend over backwards because we love what we do."
It is this dedication and desire to help the American Indian community that brings individuals like Joe Stone, 22, a Pima Indian born and raised on a reservation in Arizona, to the clinic. An undergraduate at Stanford University, he is working in the center's administration office while taking some time off from school.
"People are more comfortable seeing an American Indian staff member because they know we can relate to their living situation and background," he says.
Although the clinic's main outreach is in the American Indian community, it cares about helping all people in need. Monica Ayala, 27, is Latino, assists in health education and is the receptionist for the community health services department. She says she ended up at the center the hard way.
"I used to be on welfare," Ayala says. "I was offered a welfare experience program and started here answering phones because they had no receptionist. I have had tremendous opportunity to learn and grow, and I love working here."
This total outreach of caring for the lives of those working in the clinic and those coming to the clinic is what Verstraete says is the real medicine at the clinic.
"We were really pioneers when we opened," Verstraete says. "And I wouldn't want to stop what I'm doing."
For more information about the Indian Health Center, call 408.445.3400 or visit the website at www.indianhealthsanjose.org. Upcoming events include the center's Healthy Halloween on Oct. 30.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
