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Lifeways plans to protest
the county’s decision, accord-
ing to Liz Johnsen, chief oper-
ating offi cer for Lifeways. She
said Lifeways has concerns
over the decision, but declined
to say what those concerns are.
Merging services
The county’s own alcohol
and drug treatment services
cover substance abuse, while
Lifeways handled mental
health care for the county.
But patients in crisis often fall
under both categories at once,
offi cials say, at times leaving
it unclear which entity should
respond to someone in need.
“What you see is two
(community mental health
providers) pointing their fi nger
at the other one,” Shafer said.
Community Counseling
Solutions is going to handle
both.
“For us, the bar is high,”
said Lindsay. “We put a lot
of thought into it before we
decided to respond to the
(request for proposal) because
if we’re going to do something,
we have to do it very well or
die trying.”
An independent consultant
determined the county would
be better served with a single
entity covering both services.
That prompted the county to
put out a request for proposals
for a community mental health
provider to combine these
services under one umbrella,
said Shafer, who was one of
the fi ve people on the commit-
tee that recommended CCS
over Lifeways.
Mark Royal, the interim
director of Umatilla County
Health and Human Services,
said he felt confi dent in the
county’s decision to go with
CCS as its new provider. He
said the proposal held strong
indications that Community
Counseling wanted to work
well with the county as a part-
ner, saying “that was the most
important piece.”
Lifeways employs more
than 120 people in Umatilla
County, most of whom are
county residents, Johnsen
said. She said this transition
will “have a huge impact on
them” and that “their lives are
in fl ux because of this deci-
sion.”
Transition concerns
Johnsen described the
county’s decision as a “pretty
large blow to a workforce that
Grad:
Continued from Page A1
member of the school’s jazz
band and with the A Sharp
Players, a preparatory orches-
tra with the Oregon East
Symphony.
What stood out more to
Cary than Valera-Vega’s musi-
cal aptitude was his character
and drive, marking Valera-
Vega as a leader in the jazz
band.
In addition to the piano
and trumpet, Valera-Vega
also knows how to play the
violin and is learning guitar in
his free time. With his family
originating from Venezuela
and Chile, he’s even exper-
imented with Latin Ameri-
can instruments, such as the
charango and the cuatro.
One of Valera-Vega’s other
great passions lies on the pitch.
“I’ve had a ball at my feet
since before I could walk,” he
said. “Soccer has been a really
big part of my life. It’s defi -
nitely been like therapy for me,
and when I’m going through
tough times … soccer has
been there for me to release
my stress.”
Valera-Vega has been
on the varsity soccer team
since his freshman year, but
the COVID-19 pandemic
threw off his senior year. The
state eventually off ered high
schoolers a truncated season,
but Pendleton’s season became
even shorter when a COVID-
19 exposure caused the team
to miss several games as the
whole team quarantined.
Valera-Vega said it was a
challenging year for the team,
but he still felt like Bucks
worked hard to compete
with some of the top teams in
the league.
Spending most of the year
taking classes from home gave
loves their work and really are
experts in their fi eld.”
“It’s a difficult thing to
think about,” she said. “It’s not
just employees to think about.
It’s families.”
Shafer said he expects “a lot
of Lifeways personnel becom-
ing employees with CCS.”
Lindsay said she has
reached out to Lifeways to
begin the transition process.
She added she “feels very
badly” about the “awkward
and probably stressful state”
for the Lifeways employees.
“I was told once to make
very few promises but to keep
every promise that you make,”
she said. “So I’m not going to
promise that this is going to
be the best job of their life, or
that it’s all going to be oatmeal
and honey. But what I can say
is that most of the people who
“I WAS TOLD
ONCE TO MAKE
VERY FEW
PROMISES BUT
TO KEEP EVERY
PROMISE THAT
YOU MAKE.”
— Kimberly Lindsay,
executive director for CCS
work for CCS enjoy their
jobs.”
The decision comes
just weeks after Lifeways
reopened the former Aspen
Springs Psychiatric Hospi-
tal in Hermiston as a secure
residential treatment facility
on May 4. The facility, which
served patients in need of
acute psychiatric care, closed
in early April due to staffi ng
challenges exacerbated by the
pandemic, after being open for
just seven months.
Joh nsen cou ld not
comment about what Life-
ways plans to do with its
county facilities. She also
said the transition for patients
at Lifeways will be “quite a
change,” but refrained from
commenting on specifi cs.
“Our goal is to make
sure that whatever transition
occurs, to have them at the
forefront and their needs at
the forefront,” Johnsen said of
Lifeways patients.
Lindsay recognized the
transition will have its inher-
ent challenges for patients.
“There will be some people
that it’s going to be uncomfort-
able for,” she said. “There’s
going to be some people that
him more time to think about
his future, solidifying the path
he’s set out for himself.
Despite receiving some
attractive fi nancial aid off ers
from in-state schools, Valera-
Vega is committed to attend-
ing Arizona State University.
He said he has some familiar-
ity with the university through
his cousin, who attended
school there. His cousin
gave him an informal tour of
campus once, where Valera-
Vega was introduced to one
of the less savory aspects of
campus life.
“It was kind of funny
because I think they had a
party the night before,” he said.
“There were tables flipped
over, red Solo cups thrown all
over the fl oor and weird stains
on the wall. A microwave, just
like hanging out, on the fl oor. It
was pretty interesting to see.”
But Valera-Vega’s primary
motivator for selecting
Arizona State was its neuro-
science program. He wants to
become a doctor who special-
izes in treating brains, and
the university’s neuroscience
program sold him on moving
more than 1,000 miles away
from home.
Once he completes his
bachelor’s degree, Valera-
Vega plans on returning to his
home state to enroll at Oregon
Health & Science University
for medical school. And to pay
for medical school, he intends
to join the Portland univer-
sity’s Scholars for a Healthy
Oregon Initiative, a program
that pays for a student’s tuition
in exchange for working in a
rural or underserved commu-
nity after graduation.
As he readies himself to
move to Tempe, Arizona,
Valera-Vega said it will be
tough to leave his family and
friends behind in Pendleton.
But he plans to keep them in
mind as he ventures forward
are not going to like it, even
though their counselor might
remain the same. We just
need to provide as many reas-
surances as we can. You lose
people when you make prom-
ises that you cannot keep and
you operate without integrity.”
Shafer said he doesn’t
anticipate there being any
problem for the transition
for patients between the two
providers. He added that offi -
cials with Greater Oregon
Behavioral Health Inc. and
the Oregon Health Authority
have off ered to assist in the
transition.
“The last thing we want to
do is to upset anyone who’s
in treatment for addiction or
mental health or whatever,”
Shafer said. “We don’t want
to interrupt their treatment.
We want it to be smooth and
as seamless as possible for
them.”
Reliability matters
Shafer, who worked for
the Umatilla County Sheriff ’s
Offi ce for 18 years, said he was
more confi dent in the ability of
CCS to respond quickly and
consistently to people in crisis
than Lifeways.
“Their philosophy is, when
somebody is in crisis and
law enforcement calls them,
they go, period, no questions
asked,” Shafer said.
“CCS shows up,” Lindsay
said. “So if law enforcement
is out on the scene, and they
want us to come, we come.
That’s the bottom line.”
He said too often Lifeways’
response to law enforcement
requests for help required
prolonged questioning that
sometimes ended in Lifeways
declining to send help entirely.
“Meanwhile, now the law
enforcement offi cer is stuck
dealing with someone who
is in crisis and needs help,”
Shafer said. “And law enforce-
ment offi cers are not equipped
to deal with that.”
Shafer said CCS will take
over addiction services in
the county in September and
mental health services some-
time around December.
“It will be a slow transition
for them to get up to speed,”
Shafer said.
Lindsay said she is looking
forward to building a relation-
ship with the county, holding
and attending meetings and
getting to know community
partners. However, she said
the task before CCS is daunt-
ing.
“The bar is high,” she
said, “which means the fall is
great.”
on a path toward success many
people at Pendleton High
School feel is already there for
the taking.
Saturday, May 29, 2021
Schools:
Continued from Page A1
“I think our precautions
and safety measures are
working, defi nitely,” she said.
Vaccinations helping
Teachers who are vacci-
nated don’t have to quar-
antine if a student in their
classroom tests positive, so
Mooney said it has been help-
ful that as more staff have
gotten vaccinated, there
have been fewer instances
of teachers needing to quar-
antine. She said the district
doesn’t know the vaccina-
tion status of all its staff and
students, but in accordance
with OHA guidelines, if a
staff member presents proof
of vaccination to the district
they are able to go without
a mask in settings where
students are not present, such
as meetings with other staff .
Umatilla Superintendent
Heidi Sipe echoed Mooney’s
comments.
According to OHA
data, Umatilla School
District has had a total of
10 students test positive
for COVID-19 between its
three schools, with the latest
cases attributed to May 11 at
McNary Heights Elemen-
tary School and Umatilla
High School. Sipe said
cases reported have so far
appeared to come from expo-
sures students had outside
the classroom, and have
not spread to the rest of the
students’ classmates. That’s
an indicator masks, social
distancing and other safety
measures are working, she
said.
“To our knowledge we
still haven’t had any school
transmission,” she said.
Schools want clarity
One thing the district has
run into is sibling groups
getting sick at home, caus-
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
Students settle into Michael Bittorf’s Advanced Placement
English class at Pendleton High School on March 31, 2021.
Students and staff in the spring had to learn to navigate
COVID-19 outbreaks and vaccinations.
ing, in one case, about 100
students to be quaran-
tined across all three of the
district’s schools.
Sipe said when a student
tests positive for COVID-19
and the school is notifi ed, the
school then submits a list of
the student’s classes, the seat-
ing chart for those classes,
the attendance record of the
students in those classes and
their contact information
to Umatilla County Public
Health. The health depart-
ment then makes a determi-
nation of which students need
to quarantine and contacts
those students directly.
The result is the district
does not know who was
asked to quarantine unless
the parents or students let
them know. The district
asks for students to show the
letter from the health depart-
ment to be excused for their
absence, so students can’t
claim to be quarantining
when they’re really just skip-
ping school. But Sipe said she
is concerned there could be
students the health depart-
ment asked to quarantine but
showed up at school anyway.
She said it has been frus-
trating that in some cases
people have made false
statements on social media
about COVID-19 cases at
the schools, but she has been
unable to correct the record
because she does not want to
share personal medical infor-
mation about a staff member
or student. She encouraged
parents to contact their
child’s school directly if they
have questions.
Fritsch, the Pendleton
superintendent, compared
making decisions on
COVID-19 issues like being
a referee at a football game:
Half of the audience is going
to cheer the decision while
the other half will disapprove
of it.
Heading into next year,
Fritsch said he hopes the state
will make some changes to
its COVID-19 rules so they
better align with each other.
For instance, the school
social distancing standard
is 3 feet, but whenever there
is a suspected exposure, the
county is required to contact
trace all children within 6
feet of the potential exposure.
While the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education has yet to
publicly release its COVID-
19 guidance for next year,
Fritsch said he expects it to
more closely align with the
recommendations made
by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
———
Reporter Bryce Dole
contributed to this feature.
“Scramble for Scholarships”
Friday, June 11th
1pm Shotgun Start
Big River Golf Course - Umatilla
Golfers of all skill levels are invited to participate in the 28th annual
“Scramble for Scholarships” golf tournament. Four person teams
can sign up together or individual pairings can be made by the
tournament committee. Your $70 entry fee covers green fees,
a box lunch, and makes a charitable donation to the foundation
to use in awarding scholarships to local medical students.
Register at gschfscramble.eventbrite.com or call
541-667-3405. Entry deadline is June 9th.
Great prize holes and Hole-in-one on #1 & #9
WINS $25,000 towards a new car sponsored by
ROGERS TOYOTA of HERMISTON