News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Thursday December 18th 2025
Running Wolf Exercise/Excuse alike
By Jeane Moore
My name is Jeane and I hate to exercise. I am 71 years old and overweight and diabetic. Being a diabetic, of course, puts me at a higher risk for kidney and cardiovascular problems. My mother and father both died of heart-related disease. So did one of my grandmothers and one of my grandfathers.
But I let myself get to the age of being an elder without learning how to take care of myself, even with all those object lessons. Well, I knew how in my head but not my gut. Then a series of good-luck events happened to me. First, I ran into a neighbor, Jake, at a meeting and saw him without a coat on for the first time in months and he”'d shrunk! By half! He had lost 100 pounds. He gave me a ride home and I said what did you do and he explained his diet to me (he eats less”“who knew? But he had some very useful information on how to accomplish that) and mentioned his support group. I asked, very casually, if I might go to his support group. Well, he”'d see. And he did and I started attending A-POD meetings.… Read the rest “Running Wolf Exercise/Excuse alike”
Circle of Healing CHAT
The Circle of Healing Practitioners CHAT is a collaborative of Backyard practitioners which includes complementary healers, elders, representatives from different cultural traditions, conventional health professionals and community care givers. Members of this CHAT come together as practitioners interested in creating a more formalized network of people operating in a Community Care-Giving system around Backyard residents. This will be done by providing a better information and support for healing and reflection about the message of dis-ease. This network serves both the Backyard community receiving care and the healing practitioner community in the Backyard.
The vision behind the Circle of Healing Practitioners CHAT is grounded in cultural health practices and ways of knowing that honor the reciprocal and holistic nature of healing. In order to meet the health needs of the people living in the Backyard, this CHAT aims to empower health practitioners and community members and to connect the community care giving system to the conventional health care system in a more formal and integrative way.
Related Images:
Highlights of 2011: Strategies & Activities
Community Engagement & Leadership
Community Engagement in the BYI is lead and facilitated by the Cultural Wellness Center. The community infrastructure for the initiative consists of three “pillars”:
- Citizen Health Action Teams (CHATs)
- Community Com-mission on Health
- Community Resource Body.Â
CHATs are formed by residents to design, implement and evaluate prevention and wellness projects. Each project targeted barriers to health, weaknesses in achieving health, and followed the recommendations outlined in the 2009 community health needs Assessment. In 2011, the CHATs held 173 activities in which 1285 residents participated. The following key themes were identified and implemented across the CHATs:
Strategies to increase social support within their identified communities;
- Strategies to increase social cohesion within the Backyard community;
- Strategies based on their knowledge of problems and solutions and based on their skill set;
- Inventory of assets based on their social and cultural capitol.
Related Images:
Keep citizen journalism alive!
