S moke S ignals
SEPTEMBER 1, 2016
11
Behavioral Health adds two counselors
By Brent Merrill
Smoke Signals staff writer
The Tribe’s Health & Wellness
Center continues to grow and be-
come an overall “wellness center”
as more professionals are hired to
complete the staff.
The latest additions are two
new counselors in the Behavioral
Health Department.
Jackie Weasel is the new post
treatment support counselor who
will be working mostly out of the
Women’s Transitional Home with
clients returning to the community
after rehabilitation or incarcera-
tion.
Weasel is an Assiniboine Tribal
member from the Fort Belknap
community near Harlem, Mont.
And Maria Ulery-LaFriniere,
who started working for the Tribe
in July, is the new chemical depen-
dency counselor. She is a member
of the White Earth Band of Chippe-
wa who previously worked for the
White Bison organization and for
the Siletz Tribe.
“They both have very solid A and
D (alcohol and drug counseling)
credentials, but they also have that
cultural piece that really brings the
whole thing together in my mind,”
said Behavioral Health Director
Jan Kaschmitter. “I think they will
be great in terms of itting in. My
whole team has a passion for what
they do.”
Kaschmitter said Weasel came
to Grand Ronde and hit the ground
running and hasn’t slowed down yet.
“She does have great experience,”
Kaschmitter said. “Jackie is a Na-
tive and she has a passion for what
she does. She’s very positive. She’s
very motivated. We’re getting a nice
program developed at the house. I
feel really good about where we are
at this point in time.”
Weasel, who will be providing
support services for residents of
the Women’s Transitional Home,
said that she has been going strong
since beginning her position with
the Tribe on July 25.
“Sometimes when you jump into
a position that you have a passion
for you have no problem going full
force because you have the skills
and the abilities and the passion to
do it,” said Weasel. “I support their
short- and long-term goals they
are working toward. I coordinate
their cultural and sobriety events
that it their individual plans and
I help them get to and from their
meetings.”
So far, Weasel has taken a client
for an overnight stay in Olympia
to support the Tribe’s recent Canoe
Family journey and she took a cli-
ent to a one-day Native American
Rehabilitation Association confer-
ence in Portland.
“That was nice,” said Weasel. “I
like to support them in that way
because I like to show them there
are a lot of things you can do in
the sober world and a lot more
opportunities for you. It makes the
program that much stronger when
you have that compassion for the
clients you work with, but also the
job that you do.”
Kaschmitter said Weasel is al-
ready doing exactly what she wants
Jackie Weasel
Maria Ulery-LaFriniere
the person in the post treatment
support counselor role to do — be
present and attentive to the client’s
needs.
“She’s upbeat and she’s engag-
ing them,” said Kaschmitter. “We
want to be able to support a solid
recovery.”
Weasel said she was raised in a
very traditional family and that her
grandmother was from Canada and
her grandfather was from the Fort
Belknap Reservation 60 miles south
of the Canadian border. She said
her grandparents met at a powwow.
Weasel graduated from Northern
Montana University in Havre with
a bachelor’s degree and worked for
her Tribe in human services and the
Indian Health Service.
After working for her own Tribe
for years, Weasel gained a case
manager position at Chemawa In-
dian School in Keizer in 2009.
“It was an awesome experience,”
said Weasel.
Weasel said her focus will be the
health and well-being of her clients.
“I want to continue to be that
strong support for individuals,” said
Weasel. “It is always rewarding
knowing that you’re a part of their
journey of getting where they need
to be or where they want to be. In
Indian Country we are all related
and I have not only the empathy,
but the compassion for those that
are coming through the house.”
Weasel, who lives in Salem, said
she is here to help clients in their
recovery.
“Everybody’s been through hard
times in one way or another and ev-
erybody heals in different ways and
in different stages,” said Weasel.
“I’m here to see the good in people
and hopefully I can help them.”
Kaschmitter said she is pleased
with the abilities that Ulery-LaF-
riniere brings to Behavioral Health.
“She has a signiicant amount of
experience,” said Kaschmitter. “She
also has a lot of experience with
White Bison and Wellbriety. That
is huge because that is a culturally
based program. We’re really excited
that she has tons of experience with
that and we will have the ability
to offer related groups within the
community.”
White Bison Inc. is an American
Indian/Alaskan Native nonprofit
charitable organization operating
out of Colorado Springs. White
Bison offers sobriety, recovery,
addiction prevention and wellness/
Wellbriety learning resources to
the Native American and Alaskan
Native community nationwide.
White Bison is a facilitator of the
Wellbriety Movement. Wellbriety
means to be sober and well. The
“Well” part of Wellbriety is the in-
spiration to go beyond sobriety and
recovery by committing to a life of
wellness and healing.
Kateri Coyhis, who took over as
White Bison’s director of Wellbriety
after Ulery-LaFriniere left, said she
wished her well in her new position
with Grand Ronde.
“Maria has a very big passion for
working with Native communities
and she has a lot of experience that
will help her to be able to assist oth-
ers in their healing,” said Coyhis.
Ulery-LaFriniere said her father
taught her Native American spiri-
tuality when she was growing up
on the White Earth Reservation in
Minnesota.
“We had a sweat lodge in the
back yard,” said Ulery-LaFriniere.
“That is where I gained most of my
connection to Mother Earth.”
Despite the large family upbring-
ing and connection to her culture,
Ulery-LaFriniere began drinking
as a teenager and had issues with
substance abuse and domestic vio-
lence that shaped her life when she
was still young.
Ulery-LaFriniere made her way
off of the reservation in her early
20s and graduated from Interstate
Business College in Fargo, N.D., in
1996 with an associate degree. She
said that she has a wide variety
of work experiences from being a
deputy court administrator to work-
ing in restaurants to being a data
collector to now being a chemical
dependency counselor.
In 2013, Ulery-LaFriniere earned
certiications from Duke University
in Durham, N.C., and from The
Pacific Institute in Seattle. The
Duke certiication was for nonproit
management and the Paciic Insti-
tute certiication was for thought
patterns for high performance.
Along the way she experienced
many of life’s ups and downs and it
was when she was taking a White
Bison treatment training that she
began to put in place some of those
negative experiences and using
that progress to repair and com-
plete important relationships in her
life that needed her sober attention.
“I had been falling apart on the
inside,” said Ulery-LaFriniere.
“When I started doing the work
I found an overwhelming sense
of peace I had never known. I
learned about thought process and
it changed my life. I have been do-
ing it ever since.
“All my experiences that have
happened in my life help me to
help others. If that hadn’t have
happened to me I probably wouldn’t
be as effective.”
Ulery-LaFriniere and her hus-
band, Chuck, recently moved to
Willamina and she said she couldn’t
be happier to be working in Grand
Ronde for the Tribe.
“I’ve always wanted to work in
Native American communities.
I’ve been doing it for years,” said
Ulery-LaFriniere. “It has been
fulilling in the fact that there are
so many things I can relate to with
people and it brings about a trust
so that they can go ahead and talk
about their own issues. I believe that
if you can talk about them, it might
be painful at irst, but eventually it
gets less and less painful the more
you talk about stuff. I’m grateful for
all the experiences I’ve had.”
Kaschmitter said she likes the
idea of Ulery-LaFriniere joining
forces with Joe Martineau, the
program’s current chemical depen-
dency counselor.
“I feel incredibly blessed because
our other A and D counselor is Joe
Martineau and Joe is also very
connected within the community,”
said Kaschmitter.
Kaschmitter said she thinks hav-
ing Weasel and Ulery-LaFriniere
on board will make the Behavioral
Health team more complete and
better able to serve clients.
“I think they will be great in terms
of itting in,” said Kaschmitter. “We
want somebody that we think is go-
ing to be able to relate to the people
we serve and provide a good service. I
hope the community recognizes that
we have people that have the life
experience that they are going to be
able to relate. They understand his-
torical trauma and they understand
inter-generational trauma. It’s not a
cultural shock for them. The wait has
very much been worth it.” n
Clothes Closet open Monday, Friday
The Clothes Closet is open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday and Friday on
the Tribal campus near the Elders Activity Center at the end of Blacktail
Drive. It accepts clothes, small appliances, small pieces of furniture, elec-
tronics and household goods that are clean and in good condition. It does
not accept books, large TVs or large furniture, but there is a community
board where people can post those items.
Donations are accepted during regular business hours.
For more information or emergency clothes, contact Lori Walker-Her-
nandez at 559-847-7565 or Daniele Powley at 503-917-8732. n