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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 2012)
8 JULY 15,2012 Smoke Signals Grand Ronde Health and Wellness Center institutes Broken Appointment Policy In an effort to make medical services more efficient, the Grand Ronde Health and Wellness Center (H&WC) has approved and instituted a broken appointment policy for medically-related ap pointments at the H&WC. To qualify as a broken appointment a patient must either not show up for their appointment, show up more than 10 minutes late or give less than 24 hours notice of can cellation. When any of these events occur, the patient is notified in writing. After the third broken appointment in a six-month time frame, the patient will not be allowed to schedule routine appoint ments. However, they will be offered a "sit and wait appointment" the chance to sit and wait for an opening with a provider. This probationary period will last for six (6) months. The H&WC has a process for reminding patients of appointments and strives to notify patients of appointments the day before. The broken appointment policy is very important as broken or missed appointments create unused time in a provider's schedule, which is inefficient financially and leads to barriers to accessing care. Ultimately, a broken appointment policy exists to improve access tq care for all patients and is critical to providing responsive, cost-effective health services. B EFFECTDWE MOW Changes to Social Services Emergency Assistance and Medical Gas Voucher Program For all income criteria programs, wage verification for past 60 days (wage stubs) will need to be submitted. If client has not worked for a period of time, client will need to submit a printout from their State Employment Office or printout from Oregon Self-Sufficiency Office as verification of income. Rentaldeposit or utility assistance may be utilized only one time in a 24-month rolling calendar pe riod and is not to exceed the maximum contribution of $1,000 per household within any 24-month rolling calendar period. Medical Gas Vouchers Social Services will not provide gas vouchers for medical ap pointments, counseling or drug & alcohol treatment. The only exception to this is for scheduled treatment plans, (i.e.: radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, etc.) and has caused hardship on the fam ily, medical gas vouchers can be distributed to meet the need of the circumstances. A copy of all scheduled treatment plans must be received before client is eligible to receive this service. Assistance will end on the date of the last treatment appointment. For a complete copy of policy or questions, please contact Tammy C. Garrison at 503-879-2077. D BOW continued from front page the finished bows and arrows over their shoulders. Bringing Back the Bow is an Oregon nonprofit funded for this summer's three-day camp by a $3,500 grant from Spirit Moun tain Community Fund, the Grand Ronde Tribe's philanthropic arm. Founded and run by lifelong bow hunter Jack Holthaus of Spring field, Bringing Back the Bow also brings bow-making camps to Tribes in South Dakota. After his third retirement, Holthaus said, "I wanted to hunt with a traditional bow." From that experience, he turned to teaching bow making to a select few and grew the camps from there. As a corporate turnaround specialist in his business life, his interest was in growing companies, he said. With the bow camps, his interest is similar. "Ideally, I want to put myself out of a job and hope that the people of the Tribe will take this camp and make it bigger and better every year," Holthaus said. From Krehbiel's point of view, "It's beautiful. I couldn't ask for anything better. Everybody here helps every body else. They put what they're working on aside to help somebody else. Everybody's made a bow al ready, if not two or three." The camp was a joint venture be tween the Cultural Resources and Natural Resources departments and volunteers from Traditional Archers of Oregon. At different stations, bow staves were shaped with the help of a band saw and string was wound and waxed by longtime bow mak ers from the Traditional Archers group. Three kinds of wood were used and templates helped the new bow makers refine the ends where the string was hooked and tightened ",'"? A (' -V ".. " :' :.; r .-.... l Photo by Grayson Winters Bobby Mercier, Tribal Culture and Language specialist, helps his son, Kaikanim, align his arrow during the Bringing Back the Bow event at Uyxat Powwow Grounds on Friday, July 27. on the bow. Kaleb Reid, 11, son of Erica Mer cier, carried his bow over his shoul der with the string loose. "I'm keeping it slack," he said, "or the string will loosen." He had sanded his bow and paint ed it, then thought of a better idea and sanded it again. "I like the natural look," he said. "I was better at making the bow than my mother," said Elizabeth Watson-Croy of her mother Glenda Croy, who sat across the table. "Don't rub it in," said her mom. "But she shoots straighter than me," said Watson-Croy. Jeremy Lane, 16, gave his first bow to his uncle because "it's tradi tion to give away the first bow you make. He hunts with a bow and I thought he'd like it." "For a lot of kids, this is where they came from," said Bobby Mer cier, Tribal Cultural and Language specialist for the Tribe. "Our grand father (Jessie Smith) was a bow maker." "It took a lot of work," said Da kota Ross, 11, of the sanding, shap ing and painting he had done. The shooting, he added, "was hard at first, but I got the hang of bring ing the arrow back." After maybe five rounds of shooting, he said, he started hitting the targets. In addition to bow making and shooting, the camp brought youth to see the local woods from which bows are traditionally made. There is a year or more of drying that goes into the wood staves before they are ready to become a bow, but lo cal hazel (nut) wood is plentiful in the area. Bows also are made of a bamboo species called rattan and service berry wood, neither of which are local, said Krehbiel. Vine maple, however, is local and makes some of the best bows, said Mercier. Cultural Protection Coordinator Eirik Thorsgard gave a presenta tion on flint knapping to show how early arrowheads were made. Stone blades were used until Lewis and Clark came through, said Mercier, and Native Ameri cans switched to metal blades. Even earlier, in the late 1700s, Native Americans bartered for metal with Canadian traders, he said. The camp pierced the hearts of Tribal interns and staffers, too. "They're so excited to be shoot ing," said Kiana Leno, 16, a summer intern with the Cultural Resources Department. "It's really cool that they get the experience, and for me, too. I made a bow yesterday." "I got into it," said Melisa Chan dler, a site monitor in the Cultural Resources Department. "I took my time and was working on it all day, off and on." As for the youth, she said, 'They're seeing what can hap pen when the work on it, and how they can shape things." Before it was over, Rick Thomp son, president of Traditional Ar chers of Oregon, honored the Tribe with a bow he had made. He pre sented it to Tribal Council member Toby McClary, who said he knew how successful the camp was even before he showed up because he was seeing a continuous feed of photos on Facebook. Then everybody headed over to the targets. "Nock your arrows," said Kreh biel. The arrows went up in the bows, pointing every which way. "Fire away," he said, and a hail of arrows came down on half a dozen targets set at six different distances. That was the only place in camp you didn't want to be over the weekend. B