en English
ar Arabiczh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanja Japanesept Portugueseru Russianes Spanish

North Sound ACH

North Sound Accountable Community of Health

Blog

Network Dispatch: The Way Station

by Leave a Comment

Before the pandemic, people experiencing homelessness lacked access to primary medical and behavioral health care, and services we don’t always think about: toilets, showers, and laundry. COVID-19 created even more barriers to accessing these services. The Way Station provides a safe place to recuperate after a medical event, access to hygiene services, and comprehensive medical and behavioral health services that are currently lacking in our community.

The Way Station facility manager, Don Cook. Photo provided by Unity Care NW.

The Way Station celebrated its grand opening on November 12 – open Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in downtown Bellingham, 1500 N. State St. Partners instrumental to this facility include Unity Care NW, PeaceHealth, Whatcom County, and Opportunity Council, in addition to North Sound ACH Collaborative Action Network funding.

“We recognize that good health extends beyond the walls of our hospital and clinics,” said Chuck Prosper, chief executive at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center. “By investing in these community organizations, we are helping address the impact of social drivers of health and creating pathways to a healthier, more equitable future.”

Conversations about this idea started at Unity Care NW in 2017, and the project partners came together in 2019. The planning phase included site visits to similar facilities in other communities, and they recently hosted a group of representatives from Langley BC, WA Representative Joe Timmons, and Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu to learn about The Way Station. 

They have stayed consistent to the original vision for The Way Station based on their 2018 needs assessment, with some additions to the services planned, including a hot box for cleaning items affected by body bugs, and providing clean socks, shirts, and underwear. PeaceHealth is working on advocating for Medicaid reimbursement for respite services (they will be the referrer; Opportunity Council will manage those services at the Way Station). However, they are facing challenges finding funding for ongoing operations: many funders want to support launching new programs, fewer will help sustain work that is ongoing and will be transformative in the long term. Unrestricted operating support is the most pressing need, especially for hygiene supplies. 

Rachel Lucy, director of community health for the Northwest Network of PeaceHealth, said supporting The Way Station aligns with PeaceHealth’s core values of respect and social justice, and the facility meets a very critical need in northwest Washington. “There are few circumstances more morally distressing for our health care workers than knowing that someone they just cared for in the hospital will be returning to life on the streets or unstable housing,” she noted.

The Way Station is located at 1500 N. State Street in Bellingham. Photos provided by Unity Care NW.

“In Whatcom County, this is the reality for patients experiencing homelessness following a hospital stay. This was the driving motivator” that brought PeaceHealth and its partners together to establish the new facility, she said.

Unity Care NW led public engagement through listening sessions and panel discussions with businesses and residents located around The Way Station site, helping them see the facility as one of the solutions to the challenges they expressed about the concentration of unhoused folks in the neighborhood. For example, Unity Care NW staff explained that The Way Station will offer a private and dignified place for folks to use bathrooms, reducing requests from individuals experiencing homelessness for use of businesses’ restrooms.

There will be acute walk-in care at The Way Station (addressing immediate health needs onsite and then refer them to a regular provider for primary care), as well as substance use disorder treatment. Don Cook is the new facility manager; a Unity Care NW employee of 20 years, who has built a great rapport with his clients and is highly skilled at de-escalation.

Changing Seasons

by 1 Comment

First off, what a wonderful way to start November (Native American Heritage Month) after being in space with Children of the Setting Sun Productions at the launch of the Setting Sun Institute and the inaugural celebration of Netse Mot: One People Gathering in October. I hope you will check out their website, watch the videos that reside there, and keep them in your bookmarked list of places to visit again and again.  Their work will inspire you today and for generations to come.

After election day, a funny thing happened. I shared a poem from Venice Williams, director of Alice’s Garden Urban Farm in Milwaukee, ordained minister, and Cultural & Spiritual Midwife at CLARA Healing Institute and a few of you graciously responded as if I had written the poem, expressing appreciation for the power of her words in turbulent  times. So it seemed only fitting that this month I share one written actually by me, with prompts from Quaniqua Williams (her artist name is Khemistry).

Khemistry has been a poet/artist in residence with North Sound ACH for the past year; working with our team, partners, and community members to connect art with healing, resilience, and health. A few weeks ago, Khemistry led our team through a couple of exercises that included each of us writing a poem around the theme of “I am,” and then working in teams to make dreamcatchers. Expressing ourselves in ways that we don’t often get to touch – from our hearts – was pretty powerful. So here goes my poem:

I am a daughter
I wonder what my mother saw in my eyes
I hear her voice every day
I see her in my grandson
I want to carry her always
I am here.

I pretend I am not bothered
I feel the energy of others
I touch the air, the ground, the raindrops
I worry I am not enough
I cry when I am alone
I am alive.

I understand we need each other
I say what I mean
I dream of a ribbon connecting us all
I try to be honest with myself
I hope for a future that embraces us
I am part of creating that future.

As we head toward the winter solstice, a special time of year for this part of the planet, we turn from the shortest days of daylight and see the magic of the seasons change. Please join us in being the best stewards of this place that we call home. Hearing the wisdom of elders in my ear, we get to choose what type of ancestor we will be to future generations. Let’s hold onto that with our words and our actions as we end one year and move to another.

Wishing you all well –

CEO Search Launches

by Leave a Comment

The Seventh Generation Principle is shared by many Native American nations and tribes, which emphasizes the importance of thinking ahead and making decisions that will benefit future generations. North Sound ACH has benefited greatly from learning from the eight tribes in the North Sound, upon whose land we sit and work.

With that in mind, Liz has let us know that it’s time to begin the search for the next CEO for North Sound ACH. There will be opportunities for partner engagement as we launch the search, please see below to learn more about the recruitment and search committee processes. You can view the job description here on our website, and hope that you will share it within your networks. We are working with Diversity Recruiters to manage the search, a firm we worked with in a prior successful search. We anticipate the search process taking approximately six months.

I want to thank Liz for the thoughtful way she is approaching this pivotal transition, and for her extraordinary tenure from the early days with two staff, to where we are today: post pandemic and growing with a new Medicaid waiver. Liz continues to advocate for a stronger network of regional partners, working together to innovate in their work today, in ways that result in a transformed region for the next generation and beyond.

– Cheryl Rasar
Board Chair

“It is such an honor to shepherd the work of North Sound ACH and its partners, leveraging resources to strengthen the work across the region. Over the next six months, I’m looking forward to helping the board identify an incredible leader ready to carry this work and grow opportunities to make this a region where all feel they belong.”

– Liz Baxter

There are a few ways that you can participate in the search for the North Sound ACH CEO.

  • Read updates in newsletters and emails, and share the job posting within your personal and professional networks. Investment of time = 3 hours
  • Respond to online surveys regarding interview process design options and creation of sample interview questions. Investment of time = 3 hours
  • Participate on an interview panel. This will require consistent commitment to prep sessions, debrief sessions, and the interview sessions, which will be virtual and in-person. Investment of time = 8-10 hours
  • Participate on the formal search committee. This will require commitment to attend roughly 10 meetings (primarily virtual) over the course of late November – early April. The tasks that the committee will engage in are as follows: design interview process, review top six candidate profiles and select who will be invited to interview, participate in 1-3 round of interviews. Investment of time = minimum of 20 hours, not to exceed 40 hours over four months. 

If you would like to learn more about these opportunities or want to be considered for the search committee or interview panel, please send an email to Nicole Leckband at Diversity Recruiters (nicole@diversityrecruiters.com). The deadline for consideration is Wednesday, November 27, 2024.

From left, Board Chair Cheryl Rasar, CEO Liz Baxter, CEqO Hallie Pritchett, COO Nicole Willis, and CTO Arlesia Bailey.

Leading with Love 

by 1 Comment

I see this phrase a lot now, so maybe it is a new trend emerging. But trends pass, so I’m curious what will stay in the long term. 

I remember when Leading with Love was first discussed with the board in 2022, half expecting that they would say “oh, Liz, isn’t that nice.” Instead it led to one of the richest discussions that year, with board members diving deep to unpack what it meant to them and why it aligned with the culture of North Sound ACH and the work we do in the region. 

We have multiple frameworks that guide our approach. Separately each is critical, but when intertwined they are incredibly powerful – honoring tribal sovereignty, advancing equity, using targeted universalism, centering belonging, using the vital conditions for health and well-being, and leading with love. It is the last one – love – that is on my mind this month. 

Leading with love can sound soft or even passive – a ‘nice to have’ concept when you’re sitting singing songs around a campfire. But it takes commitment to embed and use love every day. Especially when things are hard, confusing, or we feel like we, or someone we care about, is under attack (whether real or perceived). Our innate human tendency is to defend, counter-attack, and to look to active allies for protection. 

Embedding the notion of ‘leading with love’ emerged from listening to a podcast featuring john powell about grief. What I took away was this: you cannot grieve without love and you cannot get to belonging without love. The next week, we had our first draft of five principles – compassion, care, community, courage, and curiosity. But we recognized that it would be easier to lead in this way when in a room of like-minded people who are enjoying each other’s company. We would be tested when things got difficult. That is when we know whether we took the principles seriously or not, and were willing to spend time on them when pushed. 

Love is intentional, a choice we make, and it takes just as much work to embed as any best practice or new tool. We can lead with suspicion, or fear, or anger, or our own past experiences. And we can choose to lead with love even when those other emotions or experiences want to crowd out love. That is the opportunity we have within our network and within our own relationships. How do I want others to act toward me if they hear a rumor, a story, someone’s challenging experience with me? 

My mom had a phrase that she used when we were growing up – ‘there but for the grace of God.’ She didn’t say it in a religious way, but in recognition that any one of us could be that person on the news, the person being arrested, the person who lost their apartment, was facing illness without insurance, etc. Coming from a very large family there was always something going on with someone. We didn’t distance ourselves from hard times, we circled around the person and made sure they did not feel isolated, but instead surrounded by love.

We have colleagues, partners in the Network, who we hear things about, and when we do we reach out to them hoping to hear from them firsthand what they are experiencing, and offer support where we can. I’m probably not surprising you, not all Network partners support the open nature of the Collaborative Action Network. People know things about organizations, practices and people in personal ways that our team may or may not. The door to the Network is broadly open, and we think that those who stay in the Network do so because of the opportunity to build relationships, meet new partners and collaborate on work. 

We ask everyone in the Network to commit to the same things. Their actions will show how they embrace and embed those commitments. But we get asked “how do you hold members of the network accountable?” The truth is that we don’t have accountability measures. The Network is an opportunity for transformative change. North Sound ACH helps facilitate those opportunities, but assessing and measuring partners in their commitments happens when an organization is selected by the Review Committee for capacity building dollars. Then we have a role in assessment, monitoring, and reporting. 

The past month has been challenging for many to watch polarization around a partner organization play out in the media. It has caused pain and heartache. And it has allowed staff and partners to step in and lead with love. Not judgment, but compassion. Not assumption, but curiosity. Not shunning, but care and community. And that takes courage when others expect you to do one thing only. 

The past 10 days have also been nourishing when it was most needed. Infusions of energy helped sustain the weary days. Some examples to share:

  • – Being present for the launch of the Setting Sun Institute was inspiring and generated so much hope, not only for the future, but for now. Young leaders stepping into leadership roles, guiding us to a future that they co-design was incredibly powerful to witness. (see their release down below!)
  • – Alongside was an event hosted by Children of the Setting Sun at the Paramount Theater in Seattle – Netse Mot: One People Gathering. All I could think was how I wanted more of this! If you were not able to attend, you can watch the recording here. 
  • – Our colleagues at Thriving Together North Central Washington held their first partner convening, and invited Cynthia Andrews and I to be on a panel to talk about the North Sound experience. Being in space as they launched their journey was so powerful and we learned a lot from them throughout the day. Having space that allows collaborative discussion is a courageous thing to do, and the richness of dialogue and desire to work together around the Vital Conditions was amazing to experience. 
  • – And lastly, last night Nanc and I went to see a performance of “Come from Away,” a musical retelling of what happened on 9/11 when 38 flights were directed to Gander Newfoundland, a community of about 9,000 people that welcomed 6,800 stranded passengers. Going back to the emotions of 9/11 was hard, but imagining what it would be like for my community to replicate what Gander accomplished – providing shelter, supplies, food, medications, health care needs, in multiple languages – while dealing with their own fears and biases during that traumatic week. I don’t know that I can imagine Bellingham doing that same thing, yet I can hope that we could. 

All told, I’m reminded that most of us can choose whether we lead with fear, suspicion, distrust, or we leave ourselves open to opportunities for connection, humanity, and profound relationships. I hope that we continue to choose the latter, but it requires trust in each other. That is where transformation can occur, and lead us to all communities thriving. The past week of connections came when I most needed them. (I’m sure there is a message from the universe in that somewhere.) I hope you get to be infused with connections like that as well. 

Thanks for being on this journey with us – 

Belonging, Civic Muscle, and Voting

by Leave a Comment

North Sound ACH has multiple frameworks that guide our work, and sometimes folks feel like they are separate and duplicative, but really they are intertwined. They are connected, build upon each other, and amplify what is possible. We are guided by:

  • Honoring tribal sovereignty, not only recognizing that we are all on Native Land, but also appreciation and gratitude for how tribes steward the land, air, water, wildlife because we are all connected in this ecosystem; 
  • Equity, with this description from PolicyLink as our starting point;
  • Targeted Universalism, because we are situated differently, in order for all community members to reach the same goal we need specific strategies to be available and used;
  • Belonging, an evolutionary next step from discussions of equity, leading us to imagine co-design, shared decision making, co-ownership of planning, implementation and results; and 
  • Vital Conditions for Well-being, (with belonging and civic muscle at its center) that moves from the standard definitions of ‘social determinants of health’ to what we are moving toward in key areas that cross clinical and community care and services.

This led our region to adopt principles around what we call ‘leading with love’ – seeing the humanity in each person and recognizing that they (we) all deserve to be loved as full human beings and have our needs met.
So, this is on my mind because of the current election season, and the work it takes to get eligible voters to turn out. For us, all of the above principles come into play. Voting is essential to belonging, and as communities we can either create barriers to voting, or we can enhance paths that encourage community members to vote. The choice is ours. Please, use whatever ability you have to encourage community members to vote, and point them to resources like IWillVote.org or Vote.gov. In Washington you can register to vote all the way through election day.

One shining example of enhancing paths to voting comes from partners in Skagit County. More than a year ago we were contacted by their County Auditor as they discussed offering election materials in English and Spanish for the 2024 election cycle. (FYI – There are federal laws that require election materials to be produced in languages other than English when certain conditions are met, and Skagit is not yet required to offer these materials in Spanish.) Skagit County was not required to do this, but still chose to do so, offering a brilliant model of how belonging and civic muscle can be operationalized in counties. Please check out the County’s  press release here.  We’re so proud to be a partner in their efforts and hope other counties follow their path.

No one sector or entity can do this alone. The Collaborative Action Network continues to grow (now more than 170 organizations!) and these frameworks ground us as we envision what we want to become as we move forward. 

None of us can achieve this alone, so thank you for joining us in this work!

Be well –

Network Dispatch: Mobile Mama Grows Internship Program

by Leave a Comment

Recently celebrating 10 years in the community, the perinatal therapy practice Mobile Mama is growing thanks to community support, such as the Collaborative Action Network Review Committee. Mobile Mama provides counseling services from conception through motherhood.

In 2017, a group of partners in Whatcom County formed a perinatal mental health task force to build community capacity to support families during pregnancy and the transition to parenthood Mobile Mama Therapy, Whatcom County Health and Community Services, Bellingham Center for Healthy Motherhood, and a parent advocate. Becoming fiscally sponsored by Whatcom Family & Community Network in 2021 allowed the task force to apply for and braid funds for a variety of specific projects. One project is Mobile Mama’s Master’s Level Clinical Counseling Internship in Perinatal Mental Health. In 2023, the ACH CAN and the Mount Baker Foundation funded the expansion of this program from a one intern pilot project to three internship slots. In 2024, the Healthy Children’s Fund contracted directly with Mobile Mama to support three more interns over the next two years. Read more about this program at Whatcom Talk [click here].

The recent grant from the ACH includes funding to conduct a feasibility study on replicating the Mobile Mama internship program and expanding the perinatal mental health workforce to other areas in Whatcom County and into Skagit, and San Juan counties. These three counties share perinatal mental health capacity-building work with support from Perinatal Support Washington and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, as well as have access to PeaceHealth infrastructure, including hospitals, clinical practices, and community benefit grant opportunities.

The internship program directly increases access to care by developing a local mental health workforce skilled in addressing perinatal mood and anxiety disorders who work with Medicaid enrollees.

2024-2025 Interns shown here – Meredith LaPlante, Melody Eastman, Aliya Qadri, Rachel Jones. Photo provided by Mobile Mama.

At a recent visit by ACH staff, Mobile Mama shared the internships are going well –each intern provides intakes and counseling for up to 12 clients per week, and receives advanced training in perinatal mental health and supervision hours each week. Applications for this internship have “skyrocketed” as word has spread! Mobile Mama hopes the upcoming applicant pool will include more students culturally and linguistically matched to the community.

Because there are more clients than capacity to serve, Mobile Mama continues to seek sustainable funding to support the internship program, as they cannot bill insurance providers for internship services.

Mobile Mama is looking to partner with the Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) and others, to better understand how to advocate for Medicaid changes, negotiate rates, and support programming, as well as being part of discussions on navigating the issues around credentialing, reimbursement rates, and billing for interns under the supervision of trained clinical supervisors with MCOs. To connect, reach out to Michelle@MobileMama.com.