Announcements

Like you, I have been enjoying the spring weather, allowing us to see each other with some sunshine around our often still masked faces! Overall, we see the ways that COVID is abating, allowing opening of spaces and closer gatherings, but that is still looking through a wide-angle lens. When we zoom in with the telephoto lens, we still see communities struggling with access to testing and vaccine and the ACH is drawn to offer help in those areas.

We’re amazed every day to learn of one more organization or new effort to reach people who don’t connect to the standard ways of outreach. They might be disconnected from the internet, speak another language (that I wish I could quickly learn!), not be able to navigate complex appointment sites, or not feel welcome in traditional clinic and community settings. 

We’ve been honored to share space with tribal partners who are reaching out to surrounding communities to assist with vaccine delivery, trusted community organizations working with community health workers and promotoras – living in, understanding, and supporting their community in immeasurable ways. We are so grateful for them and all they do and continue to search for ways we can support them as they support community.

We also learned that the primary effort we’ve been working on – focused on improving the lives of people on Medicaid – has been extended for another year. That brings us one more year of financial resources to invest in the region through our partner organizations. At the same time, our team continues to receive the maximum scoring on our deliverables to the Health Care Authority, a sign that the work our partners are doing is showing measurable impact. 

Through the last 15 months we’ve also seen the importance of public health, and the burden they carry in responding to a pandemic. Finding linkages between traditional public health and those amazing community organizations has shown itself to be a role for the ACH – bridging and advocating for communities to play a role in how emergency response is planned, organized, and delivered. 

We’ve recently added FOUR new members to our staff! Welcome Cináed, Woody, Rajdeep, and Megan.

Cináed Boyd (They/Them/He/Him) was born in Bellingham and raised in 18 different states. They cultivated a love for electronics and technology from a very young age and began contracting while working in dozens of different industries, from concrete construction to beverage distribution. They earned their Associates of Computer Information Services from Whatcom Community College along with certifications in Information Security and Network Administration, and are currently pursuing a Bachelor of Cybersecurity. Cináed considers themselves a holistically-minded network and system administrator who works to unite all of their experience and education to craft sensible technological infrastructure and solutions.

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Woody Tovar Cano (He/Him) was born and raised in Skagit county. He graduated from Bellingham Technical College with a degree in Computer Network along with a Computer Networking Support Certificate. Woody worked for a managed service provider (MSP) for 4 years where he assisted companies, non-profits, and municipalities with their IT needs, ranging from full network and server deployments to end user support. Working for the MSP gave Woody the opportunity to work with many different industries and expose him to many kinds of technologies, solutions, and standards.

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Rajdeep Atwal (She/Her) most recently worked in Care Coordination at Sea Mar, predominately working with underserved populations. She received her bachelors of science in Psychology from Western Washington Universtiy, then earned her MBA in Healthcare Management.

Rajdeep has a background in behavioral health and substance abuse; her role as Project Manager at the ACH will have her focusing on the hub, vaccine clinics, and care coordination.

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Megan Stephenson (She/Her) comes to North Sound ACH with direct experience as a Community Health Worker, patient advocate, and Washington State insurance navigator. She also worked as a news reporter for many years, and completed an original community health project for her Master’s in Anthropology. She’s excited to bring all her experience together, working for health equity and collaboration in our communities.

On March 13, 2020 we closed the North Sound ACH office, not knowing when our team would again meet in person. We’ve optimized the heck out of remote technologies trying to stay connected, knowing it add some aspects to our connectivity, and diminishes others (think of all the non-verbal ways we communicate, from fidgeting, shrugging, or just sensing someone’s mood change in a room.) The team has done remarkable things, yet we still miss being in common space with each other.

I can’t help but think of the powerful song in the play “Rent” called Seasons of Love.

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure? Measure a year?”

The pandemic soared beyond what we could imagine, and systemic and structural racism was illuminated in places where it wasn’t seen or discussed before. In that same vein, we found ourselves trying to find ways for the ACH as a regional entity, to leverage change in terms of the pandemic response. Most of those conversations happen between the team and the 60+ regional partners who do such important work in the community; recently this has expanded to the North Sound ACH Board of Directors. Please take a few minutes to . The board has been discussing equitable vaccine distribution, and felt it was imperative to weigh in on the the successes and mistakes around access to COVID testing and rollout of the vaccines.

And, as we mark the past year, there is still more we keep in mind … like the death of Breonna Taylor, which was also one year ago. And we see how much we’ve accomplished in a year: identifying a virus, finding a means to test for it, developing vaccines, having so many people already vaccinated. We have both opportunity and challenge, advancement and struggle. They both can – and do – exist at the same time.

We appreciate all you do. Please know you are in our thoughts and hearts.

From Kim Williams, Board Chair (on behalf of the North Sound ACH Board of Directors)

North Sound Accountable Community of Health (North Sound ACH) strives to be a champion for equity and well-being in the region, and across the state of Washington. Our purpose, adopted by the Board, is to create a just and inclusive culture and the necessary conditions required for all community members to thrive. 

We have now lived with COVID in our communities for more than a year, and continue to see signs of exacerbated systemic and structural racism exposed every day. A year later, we still don’t have consistent access to COVID testing in communities disparately impacted by COVID, and now we face unprecedented challenges to equitable access to COVID vaccines.

Around the country – and here in our own region – we have seen conscious and unconscious mistakes and missteps, as providers struggle to manage unpredictable vaccine supply, refrigeration challenges, and vial expirations. Decisions are being made under extreme pressure to assure no vaccine is wasted, while depending on traditional methods of scheduling patients for first and second doses. In our region and beyond, we have seen those with access, money, and privilege have better paths to the vaccine than community members most impacted by the disease, especially communities of color.

The Board of North Sound ACH believes our systems and organizations must do better. Board members committed to a learning journey, encouraging each other to lean in and take risks, even if it means that sometimes the steps will be the wrong ones. Our intention, in the midst of this health crisis and pandemic, resonates with Maya Angelou’s wisdom when she says: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” We recognize that individuals, especially those in communities heavily impacted by COVID, are doing the best they can under unimaginable pressures; institutions must lean in and improve strategies to reach and protect those same communities.

The Board of North Sound ACH is calling upon all North Sound partners, including those represented on our Board of Directors, to embed Targeted Universalism into their vaccine planning. All partner organizations have received information about targeted universalism, which puts the onus on us to identify the universal goal, then find ways that all community members can achieve it.  If the universal goal is to get all those in eligible tiers scheduled for vaccine appointments, we know that one single strategy will not reach everyone. We need multiple and targeted strategies based on what we know about sub-populations that we serve. However, investment in targeted strategies seems to elude us when we are under enormous pressure.

As examples, we are asking North Sound ACH’s CEO to advocate for, support, and assist in setting up: 

• Sites and appointment slots specifically ready for community members where English is not their first language, with interpreters, friendly and welcoming faces who will communicate a sense of belonging.
  
• Alternative ways to schedule appointments, recognizing that some community members have limited or no access to broadband or a device that can track all the possible websites claiming to find appointments.
  
• Transportation assistance, for those who want a vaccine but can’t physically get there.
  
• Designated slots at every appointment site for essential workers in our communities – including grocery workers, field and farm workers, utility workers and others.
  
• Creating mobile vaccine distribution to go where community members gather, bringing vaccines to them. 

Getting to this universal goal will require we all do our part, including having hard and uncomfortable conversations with partners who misstep in operationalizing their approach.

The Board has charged the North Sound team with leading discussions and supporting decisions that will assure all community members can find their way to the vaccine, to expand its work with local health departments, and to reach out to all ACH partners to expand the staffing capacity of vaccine clinics, mobile clinics, and pop-up sites. We are also asking the same of ourselves as Board members, and the of organizations that we work for.

The Board recognizes that while there have been challenges and insurmountable odds to conquer in this process, there has also been heroic, inspiring, and strong community-building efforts and resources currently innovating the way we ensure access and equity for such a vital need in our region. 

We’re excited to share messages from members of different communities on why they chose to get the vaccine. Feel free to share through your organization and networks, far and wide.

We currently have messages in Spanish, Mixteco, Tagalog, Korean, Punjabi, Vietnamese, and English, including videos of members of our region’s tribal communities.

Thank you to PeaceHealth for sharing resources to create these videos, the Korean Women’s Association, Northwest Indian Health Board, and to everyone who shared their voices!

ASL:

Spanish:

Mixteco:

Punjabi:

Tagalog:

Vietnamese:

Korean:

Tribal members:

More Indigenous voices at the Northwest Native American Center of Excellence.

Additional videos by CHW Coalition for Migrants and Refugees

The statewide Community Health Worker Coalition for Migrants and Refugees (operating regionally in Snohomish and Skagit Co) have additional videos to increase awareness of COVID-19. These videos are in Trique Bajo, Mam, Triqui Alto, Q’anjob’al, Mixteco, Nahualtl, Purepecha, and Kichua.

Reflections from Liz —

Fifteen years ago, my oldest son got married in Busan, South Korea, giving us an opportunity to visit, meet new extended family, and explore an amazing country. My two teenage (at the time) sons noticed people walking holding hands on every street corner, and wondered why.

My daughter-in-law explained that in elementary school, children take philosophy classes and learn the importance of care for the community. There is a strong sense of being responsible for the people next to you and around you. If you take care of the person next to you, this ensures that everyone has someone looking out for them. This could be part of the reason that South Korea has managed COVID so well, even in densely populated cities, and this idea has been on my mind as we navigate a fragile vaccine distribution strategy.

As North Sound ACH explores a framework of equitable well-being, I wonder if South Korea, with that shared commitment to each other, has a different capacity to address unforeseen challenges we could learn from as we explore strategies to advance equitable well-being.  

In the past several months, local partners have stepped in to set up mobile COVID testing sites, assuring evening and weekend hours were available, and worked to support multiple language access needs with communications collateral to make community members feel welcome and supported. And now many partners are working to do the same with vaccine distribution strategies. 

But what do we do when we our efforts fall short? How do we publicly acknowledge a mistake or misstep that perhaps caused harm, and learn from it, determining what next step to take? How do we intentionally ‘bridge’ rather than ‘break’ our relationships when decisions and actions negatively impact others around us? 

Our team adopted a term in 2017 – ‘failing forward’ – during a learning session which also introduced us to targeted universalism and opened the door to work with john a. powell and the Othering and Belonging Institute.  But ‘failing forward’ means acknowledging that we (or our partners) have made a mistake or misstepped.  At North Sound ACH we are definitely still learning how to hold true to our commitment to equity and well-being, while trying to create a space where all belong. We know we will make mistakes. What comes after the mistake? 
 
Our team has struggled, and so have I personally. A recent sweep of a homeless encampment in Bellingham was painful for our team, bringing forth discussions on chronic homelessness, people with behavioral health issues, and when cities and counties should or shouldn’t use police and sheriffs to respond. As one of our colleagues, Greg Winter from the Opportunity Council, stated:  “I am frustrated that an effort designed to empower people who are disenfranchised led to a situation that endangered both those who were temporarily camped there and the service professionals who were there to help. However, the source of my underlying outrage is our lack of true courage as a nation. The kind of courage that would actually stop the perpetual “othering” of unsheltered people, the kind of courage that would result in access to decent housing with all the protection from human suffering that housing provides.”
 
How do we model the behavior we want to see in others? 
The North Sound Board voted in December on our ‘reason to exist’, moving from a 6-year old mission focused on improving health, to a restating our purpose: “to create a just and inclusive culture and the necessary conditions for all community members to thrive.”
 
We see injustices every day, and while the incident in Bellingham hit close to home, it is but one of many injustices happening in our midst. We’ll be in some unsettling conversations, both with people who agree and disagree with us on strategies to be used. 
 
I wish it was simpler, that there was a clear and bright light shining over the ‘right’ strategy. Instead, we face messy, often inadequate solutions. However, one thing resonates throughout: If we are to build a community where all feel that they belong, we have to make room for ourselves, with our imperfections as we make mistakes, and remain committed to do better next time. We have to find common ground and values with those who aren’t yet on the same journey. Otherwise, we risk narrowing the community who belongs, rather than expanding it. 
 
We hope you will join us in co-creating the future state we hope to see; it will be harder without you.