Honoring Indigenous Health: Past, Present and Future
Occurred on Sept. 29, 2022 from 3-6:30 p.m. in the Health Sciences Learning Center (HSLC) at 750 Highland Ave.
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This event was proudly presented by the Office of Diversity and Equity Transformation and Native American Center for Health Professions
An event co-sponsored by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and UW Health
Event photos
Learn more about who spoke at the Diversity Summit
Welcome
- Invocation by Elliot Funmaker of the Ho-Chunk Nation
- Welcome song by MadTown Singers, UW–Madison's Student Drum Group
- Welcome message by Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, MA, CDM
- Opening remarks by Dean Robert N. Golden, MD
Elliott Funmaker, Sr. is the manager/singer of the Wisconsin Dells Singers & Dancer Troupe. His father Kenneth Funmaker formed the Wisconsin Dells Singers in 1976. He is an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, with ties to Meskwaki Settlement in Tama, Iowa from his mother Ruby (Keahna) Funmaker.
Elliott believes that there are so many misconceptions at Native Americans and feels educational and cultural presentations can change that. For example, most people call Native Americans’ attire costumes (which is the wrong term), the correct terminology is Regalia. Elliott is a third generation performer, started dancing as a Grass dancer when he was two years old, moved onto a Fancy dancer, Singer, Traditional dancer at Stand Rock Indian Ceremonial.
He has over 57 years of singing and dancing experience. A majority of the performers are Funmaker family members. He currently manages and performs with the Wisconsin Dells Singers Dance Group. He has been the head singer since 1999. The troupe has performed at many venues such as the Overture center, Kids in the Rotunda, Mt Horeb Festival, Wild West Days, and numerous schools, conferences, and more. His main passion is singing at Native American PowWows.
MadTown Singers is a student-led powwow drum group that started in the 1960s. MadTown performs at UW–Madison powwows, events, graduations, and various community gatherings.
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, MA, CDM, is the associate dean for diversity and equity transformation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public health and leads a comprehensive effort to embed equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism as imperatives in the school’s missions.
Bidar-Sielaff is also the UW Health Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and leads a cross-functional office that consists of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health Office of Diversity and Equity Transformation and the UW Health Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She facilitates alignment and progress in areas such as learning and education, faculty and staff support, equity in systems, policies and processes, support for basic science departments and their training programs, and programmatic accountability.
Bidar-Sielaff is an established leader and effective champion for advancing equity and diversity at the individual, organizational, and community levels. She has served as an alder on the City of Madison Common Council and has experience serving on the Governor’s Health Equity Council, as a co-chair of the Latino Health Council of Dane County, and as a member of the Madison Community Foundation Board. Her many accolades include being named as a 2019-20 UW–Madison Outstanding Woman of Color.
Dr. Golden has served as the Dean of the School of Medicine and Public Health, Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs, and the Robert Turell Professor in Medical Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2006. He is also Chair/Vice Chair (alternating 2-year terms) of the Board of UW Health, the university’s integrated academic health system. His current and past national appointments include: Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers; President of the American College of Psychiatrists; and Board Vice Chair/Director of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Golden received his BA cum laude with honors in psychology from Yale, and his MD from Boston University School of Medicine. He completed a residency and chief residency in psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, followed by a research fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1985 he joined the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he served in a series of leadership roles, including Associate Director of both the General Clinical Research Center and the Mental Health Clinical Research Center, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, and Vice Dean for the School of Medicine. His honors include selection as a Ginsburg Fellow of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, a Laughlin Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, the Eugene Hargrove Mental Health Research Award, the American College of Psychiatrists Mood Disorders Research Award, the Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award from the UNC School of Medicine, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Boston University School of Medicine.
Plenary session
- Spotlight on Statewide Indigenous Health by Amy DeLong, MD (Ho-Chunk Nation)
- Introduction of keynote speaker by Bret Benally Thompson, MD (White Earth Nation)
- Keynote address by Donald Warne, MD, MPH (Oglala Lakota)
- Question & Answer session
Dr. Amy DeLong is a family physician and a Ho-Chunk tribal member who works for the Ho-Chunk Nation Department of Health and has for over sixteen years. She received her Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Michigan, completed medical school at the University of Minnesota and completed her training in family medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. She earned her Master’s in Public Health in the maternal child health track while completing an adolescent health fellowship through the University of Minnesota Department of Pediatrics.
Dr. Amy DeLong was appointed as the Chief Clinical Consultant for Family Medicine in the Indian Health Service in 2021. She was appointed to the Governor’s Health Equity Council in 2020. Her passions include public health efforts to prevent chronic disease like obesity, especially in childhood, promoting healthy pregnancy outcomes, adolescent health care, and being outdoors with her family.
Dr. Bret Benally Thompson is a member of the White Earth Nation. He is an Associate Clinical Professor and a palliative care physician in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Benally Thompson has been involved with the Native American Center for Health Professions (NACHP) since its inception and currently serves as the principal investigator for the Indians into Medicine (INMED) grant from the Indian Health Service and Faculty Advisor. He and his wife, Antoinelle, serve on the Council of Elders for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). As an alumnus of the University of Minnesota-Duluth School of Medicine, he was part of their program to support Native American students during medical school. He completed his Family Medicine residency and a fellowship in Palliative Care and Hospice Medicine in Alaska. After fellowship, he served as a hospitalist and palliative care specialist for the Indian Health Service (IHS) at the Red Lake Hospital. He was the National Clinical Lead for Palliative Care for the IHS. His experience, passion, and service are invaluable to our students and community.
Donald Warne, MD, MPH, is the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health and Provost Fellow for Indigenous Health Policy. Dr. Warne is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and comes from a long line of traditional healers and medicine men. He is also an educational leader who created the first Indigenous health-focused Master of Public Health and PhD programs in the U.S. or Canada at the North Dakota State University and the University of North Dakota, respectively.
Donald Warne received his MD from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1995 and his MPH from Harvard School of Public Health in 2002. His work experience includes: several years as a primary care physician with the Gila River Health Care Corporation in Arizona; Staff Clinician with the National Institutes of Health; Indian Legal Program Faculty with the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University; Health Policy Research Director for Inter Tribal Council of Arizona; Executive Director of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board; and Chair of the Department of Public Health at North Dakota State University. Dr. Warne is also a member of the Stanford University Alumni Hall of Fame.
Professional activities include:
- Member, Health Equity Advisory Committee, HeatlhAffairs;
- Member, Culture of Health Advisory Committee, National Academy of Medicine;
- Member, Framing the Future 2030 Initiative, Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health;
- Member, Group of Diversity and Inclusion, Association of American Medical Colleges;
- Member, EC 50 People Changing the World, Explorers Club;
- Member, Health Disparities Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC);
- Member, International Advisory Committee, Australian Journal of Rural Health;
- Member, Indigenous Health Research Fund Expert Advisory Panel, Medical Research Future Fund, Australia; and
- Member, Diabetes in Indigenous Populations Special Interest Group, International Diabetes Federation.
Moderator
Danielle Yancey, MS (Menominee and Santee Sioux) serves as the director of the Native American Center for Health Professions (NACHP) at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She was raised on the Menominee Indian reservation in north-central Wisconsin and is a graduate of UW–Madison. Her studies include bachelor of arts degrees in social welfare and women’s studies, master of science in urban and regional planning, and a graduate certificate in sustainability leadership. Yancey has many years’ experience serving tribal communities in college readiness, intergovernmental affairs, and community and economic development.
Panelists
Dr. Amy DeLong
Dr. Benally Thompson
Dr. Donald Warne
- Traditional Healing: A Land Based Perspective
- Engaging Tribal Communities: Stories of Meaningful Collaboration with Community Partners
- Food is Medicine
Description
Allison Kelliher, MD, will explore aspects of models of Traditional Alaska Native and American Indian healing techniques that are land based and apply themselves to the therapeutic setting. This includes harvesting of plants, and animals and other lifeways, language and knowledge bases as well as ceremony such as medicine lodges.
Moderator
Bret Benally Thompson, MD, is a member of the White Earth Nation. He is an associate clinical professor and a palliative care physician in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Benally Thompson has been involved with the Native American Center for Health Professions (NACHP) since its inception and currently serves as the principal investigator for the Indians into Medicine (INMED) grant from the Indian Health Service and Faculty Advisor.
Presenter
Allison Kelliher, MD, is Koyukon Athabascan, Dena, from Nome, Alaska. She is the Director of the American Indian Collaborative Rural Research Network (AICoRN), a Practice-Based Research Network at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences where she is also an Assistant Professor. She also serves as faculty at the University of Washington School of Medicine and University of Alaska Anchorage and serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of American Indian Physicians. She is the first and only physician trained as a Traditional Healer in a Tribal Health setting and weaves this into her practice as a Family and Integrative Physician.
Description
This session will explore indigenous approaches to working with Tribal communities in ways that honor tribal sovereignty, governance, and culture and traditions. Panelists will bring community perspectives, best practices, and highlight examples of strong partnership building and collaboration.
Moderator
Melissa Metoxen, MS, is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She has worked with NACHP for nearly 10 years and serves as its Assistant Director. Melissa leads the Tribal Engagement Office for NACHP, which is located at the Oneida Community Health Center. She has been working on campus for 12 years, in various roles supporting American Indian students. In her current role she works with students in health fields, but also does outreach to pre-college students. She also collaborates with tribes across the state in developing academic partnerships that benefit our tribal communities. She is an advocate for ensuring the university community understands the important impact our tribes have within the state. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in sociology and a master of science degree in educational leadership and policy analysis, both from UW-Madison.
Panelists
Annie Jones, PhD
Annie Jones, PhD, and enrolled member of the Menominee Nation, is a Professor, Organization Development and Tribal Nations Specialist with UW Madison’s Division of Extension. She is also affiliate faculty with the Departments of American Indian Studies and Community and Environmental Sociology. Annie has worked with Extension for nearly twenty five years serving in a variety of capacities including Associate Dean, Special Assistant to the Dean for Strategic Directions and as a Community Development Educator based in Kenosha County. Annie’s areas of research include indigenous methodologies like the use of the Native American medicine wheel and cultural teachings to enhance planning and evaluation. Annie specializes in participatory and community-based action research and co-leads UW Madison’s Native Nations UW effort along with Aaron Bird Bear and Omar Poler.
Marlene Summers
Marlene is an elder member of the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin. She retired from her profession as an Alcohol and Drug Counselor in 2008 after specializing in Adolescent treatment for 20 years. After retiring, she said “you can only go fishing so many times with your sister and clean your house”. Boredom set in, and she went back to work. She worked for “Wise Women Gathering Place” as an Education Advocate and taught school in Public schools and her Tribal School as well as the Neopit and Keshena schools for the Menominee Nation. She taught a curriculum “Discovery Dating”. After that Marlene worked for the Tribal Social Services. She was elected to the Oneida Commission on Aging Board and served for 9 years. She served on several boards within her Tribe. Currently she is Secretary for the Great Lakes Native American Elder Association, also she sits on the Oneida Alzheimer’s Community Advisory Board (CAB). Most recently, She has become a Community Alzheimer’s disease Researcher, working on the I-CARE project (Indigenous Cultural Understandings of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias – Research and Engagement). She conducts interivews with traditional knowledge keepers and those affected by the disease, gathering data on how Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are viewed and discussed within the Oneida community.
Lois Strong, MSW
Lois Metoxen Strong, MSW, is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation. She has been employed with the Oneida Nation for over 30 years and her vocation emphasis has focused on tribal elders since 2000. Through her advocacy for Oneida elders, she was elected as a board member to the Oneida Nation Commission on Aging (ONCOA) for two 3-year terms by the Oneida General Tribal Council. Since 2019, Lois has worked as an Oneida Community Research Coordinator for the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center/Gleason Lab and is a member of the Oneida Nation Alzheimer’s Community Advisory Board (CAB). She is currently working on the ICARE (Indigenous Cultural Understandings of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias—Research and Engagement) Project. This research project consists of conducting interviews with Oneida community key informants, health care professionals, and focus groups with health care workers and collection of community level data (population, health status, services, economy, social supports and community life. Lois sees ICARE research as a way to increase awareness of Alzheimer’ Disease and related dementias with Native American populations. This type of qualitative research is invaluable to Indigenous people.
Amy DeLong, MD
Dr. Amy DeLong is a family physician and a Ho-Chunk tribal member who works for the Ho-Chunk Nation Department of Health and has for over sixteen years. She received her Bachelor’s of Science from the University of Michigan, completed medical school at the University of Minnesota and completed her training in family medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. She earned her Master’s in Public Health in the maternal child health track while completing an adolescent health fellowship through the University of Minnesota Department of Pediatrics.
Dr. Amy DeLong was appointed as the Chief Clinical Consultant for Family Medicine in the Indian Health Service in 2021. She was appointed to the Governor’s Health Equity Council in 2020. Her passions include public health efforts to prevent chronic disease like obesity, especially in childhood, promoting healthy pregnancy outcomes, adolescent health care, and being outdoors with her family.
Description
In this session participants will learn about the importance of food sovereignty and the reconnection to our food relatives across Indian Country, and ways in which communities are revitalizing traditional food ways as a means of healing and improving health of Indigenous communities.
Moderator
Laura Hiebing, NACHP alum (BA ’13, MSW ’15), currently serves as the Indigenous Student Services Coordinator in Academic Coaching and Tutoring Services and as a co-lead of the Native Nations_UW Indigenous Student Wellbeing Subcommittee at UWMadison. She has enjoyed participating in NACHP activities over the years, including visits to Tsyunhehkw^, and is honored and excited to moderate this panel as well as learn from an important conversation about Indigenous food sovereignty.
Panelists
Arlie Doxtater (Oneida Nation)
Arlie Doxtator has been known as an Indigenous professional chef of 35 years from the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin. He now takes a new role as the Community Outreach Coordinator for the WPP Grant that has been awarded to the Oneida Nation.
In the past 20 years he has done research on many of the Indigenous foods of the Lotinuhsyo=ni= – People of the Long House, with an emphasis on Oneida Nation specific foods and cooking techniques, specifically cooking in Lotinuhsyo=ni= clay pots. He has worked with many staff members in the Oneida Cultural Department in Oneida and with some of the world-renowned Mohawk clay pot makers as well as others from the Six Nations, to reintroduce their Indigenous foods and cooking techniques to his people and shares his journey of Shiakwa> shutlané yukwakkwa> – reconnecting to our foods.
Arlie has served as a mentor to many of the younger generation of Original Peoples’ chefs and culinarians. He has been an advocate to those that have taken the call to secure Food Sovereignty in Indigenous Nations across Turtle Island.
Today, you can find him working in the gardens, presenting at Native food summits, or cooking alongside some of the best cooks in Lotinuhsyo=ni= Confederacy, preparing meals for the recitation of The Great Law of Peace and the constitution of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and doing outreach work for the Oneida Nation.
Vanessa Miller (Oneida Nation)
Vanessa has worked for the Oneida Nation Environmental Health, Safety, Land, and Agriculture Division for 12 years, with 11 years of experience in Environmental and Public Health as a Registered Sanitarian in the State of Wisconsin. Acting in a regulatory role for the Nation under Oneida’s own Food Service Law, Vanessa has experience in tribal food code and policy development and advocating for self-regulation. Recently, Vanessa has transitioned to the Food and Agriculture Area to work in helping to create and implement a long-term food sovereignty strategic plan, recognizing the significance food plays in the overall health of indigenous communities.
Marlon Skenandore (Oneida Nation)
Marlon Skenandore is the Manager of the Oneida Nation Emergency Food Pantry (OEFP). He has been in his role for over 5 years and has grown an expansive network of partnerships throughout the State of Wisconsin and the Midwest. OEFP has grown tremendously since opening its doors in January of 2017 to becoming a hub food for the Oneida community, locally, and regionally. Serving and partnering with clients, distributors, grocery stores, internal Oneida programs, other food pantries, farmers, etc. Attending the Oneida Nation School System and growing up on the Oneida Reservation has brought passion into the Pantry that has grown beyond just passing out food but fighting for hunger related issues, advocacy, and creating equity of Indigenous/traditional foods to the Oneida community.
Reception
- Indigenous foods and caterer
- Indigenous Health and History Installation
- Closing song by MadTown Singers
Catering of Indigenous foods provided by Wild Bearies, led by executive chef/founder Elena Terry.
Wild Bearies is an educational, community outreach nonprofit that strives to bring ancestral foods to communities in a nurturing and nourishing way. With goals of building stronger tribal communities through food, we are also a mentorship program. We work with our ingredients from seed to table, while promoting traditional food systems and farming techniques.
Elena Terry
Elena Terry is the Executive Chef/Founder of Wild Bearies, a non-profit community outreach catering organization that services participants overcoming Alcohol and other Drug Abuse Issues or emotional traumas. Developing the Native American Food Sovereignty Association’s Food and Culinary mentorship program in 2020, A 2021 NDN Collective Changemaker Fellow (Great Lakes Region) Elena emphasizes the healing nature of working with traditional indigenous ingredients while building community. Elena is a proponent for a holistic approach to traditional food systems and advocates for sustainable Indigenous Agriculture on an international level. As a seed to table chef, Elena develops relationships with tribal and local/community organic growers and producers. After being inspired by the work happening in her community, Elena started the “Honoring our Farmers, Foragers, Growers and Producers” tours. On these tours, she’s represented Indigenous Foods in spaces such as Farm Aid, Taste of Madison and Femmestival. She also took a cross country journey to deliver ancestral seeds to tribal farms, interviewed foragers, and highlighted the work from Native salmon, wild rice, maple, corn and tea producers. She is a butcher and wild game specialist and prefers open fire, outdoor cooking.
An exhibition timeline highlighting Indigenous health and the 10-year anniversary of the Native American Center for Health Professions will be on display.
MadTown Singers is a student-led powwow drum group that started in the 1960s. MadTown performs at UW–Madison powwows, events, graduations ,and various community gatherings.
Questions about this event? Contact SMPH Signature Events at smphevents@med.wisc.edu.
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