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American Indian Veteran Newsletter

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American Indian Veteran Newsletter VA Office of Tribal Government Relations Newsletter ~ Summer 2020 Hello and welcome to the combined late summer edition of our VA Office of Tribal Government Relations newsletter. I hope this finds our readers healthy and safe during these continuing difficult days of the Covid-19 pandemic. We know that there are communities and families who have suffered losses in recent months, and we extend our sincere condolences to all who have been affected. We are making adjustments to our communications and outreach efforts during this time, and although much of our travel, in-person training and outreach work has been temporarily suspended, we continue to be available on a daily basis to the tribes, Veterans and service providers who earned and rely on VA benefits and services. If you have questions, concerns or just need to touch base, please don’t hesitate to contact myself or any member of our team. [email protected] is my direct email address. A major focus of those adjustments for us has been the need to “go virtual.” We launched a “WebEx Wednesday” series that will run through the fall and into next spring. The topic of each WebEx session will vary from one week to the next, and we plan to expand and add more topics as the weeks go by. Our first three Web Ex Wednesday topics included “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women,” presented by staff from the HHS Administration for Native Americans; “Presumptive Conditions and Blue Water Navy,” presented by James Connolly from the Oregon Department of Veterans Affairs; and our most recent, “Tribal Veteran Service Officers/Tribal Veterans Representatives Panel – Best Practices,” where our presenters included Jim Miller, Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs, Kerry Metoxen, Oneida Nation Veterans Department, Michael Robbins, Choctaw Nation Veterans Department, Geno Talas, Hopi Veteran Services and Palmer Miller III, Gila River Veterans & Family Services. Initially, we weren’t certain as to what the response to these WebEx sessions would be, but we’ve had well over 100 participants each session. If you have a topic you would like to see covered, please send us an email with your recommendation to: [email protected]. Sometimes “virtual” meant WebEx, Skype, Zoom, Teams, other times it meant old fashioned phone calls. From March of this year forward, our team participated in White House Intergovernmental Affairs-hosted Indian Country COVID-19 weekly calls with tribal leaders and federal partners including (get ready for ‘alphabet soup’ acronyms): HHS, IHS, CDC, VA/IGA, BIA, ACF/ANA, DOE, DHS/FEMA, and USDA. These regular calls provided a forum for tribal leaders to raise concerns regarding the impact of Covid-19 on tribal communities nationally and ensured direct communication with senior federal agency officials. VA stepped up and offered support during the pandemic as part of the agency’s “fourth mission” which I’ll explain more a bit later in this note. VA health care staff served on special detail assignments supporting tribal communities’ need for additional personnel and the VA New Mexico Health Care System provided decompression services, accepting patients from the Indian Health Service to offset the impact of the volume of patients suffering with Covid-19. VA continues to extend its resources and support during the pandemic and if there are any tribes seeking additional information or support from the VA, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team directly and we can help make connections to the best contacts, if needed. In April, VA launched the Alaska Native Vietnam Era Veterans Land Allotment Act Implementation Integrated Project Team (IPT). The IPT process ensured consistent communications with DOI and DOD as well as internally within VA, on all efforts pertaining to implementation of the legislation. Additional information about the effort was shared during a “Borne the Battle” podcast hosted by Tanner Iskra which originally aired in July. https://www.blogs.va.gov/VAntage/77393/borne-battle-205-alaska-native-veterans-program/ In May, we teamed up with the VA Center for Minority Veterans (CMV) to provide virtual “working with tribes 101” training to VHA, VBA and NCA Minority Veterans Program Coordinators. VA tribal government relations specialists Mary Culley and Homana Pawiki were the lead trainers for this training session. In June, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie was joined by IHS Director Rear Admiral Michael Weahkee, in a joint visit with VA and IHS officials at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center. Discussions focused on existing as well as possibilities for joint efforts by both organizations to meet the needs of Veterans as well as non-Veterans. The visit was both productive and informative. We look to leadership from both VA and the IHS to visit more IHS, tribal and urban Indian health program locations, with a focus on better understanding the needs and concerns that Veterans have regarding health care and benefits, as well as increasing the number of collaborative partnerships between VA and Indian health providers. VA Secretary Robert Wilkie and Rear Adm. Michael Weahkee at Phoenix Indian Medical Center, June 29, 2020 On the VHA, Office of Community Care front, VHA held working calls with the newly-formed VA Tribal Care Coordination Advisory Board and hosted virtual Tribal Consultation focused on care coordination for Veterans receiving care under the VA’s Indian Health Service/Tribal Health Program (IHS/THP) Reimbursement Agreement Program (RAP). The virtual consultation was held on August 25, 2020 and the comment period remains open through September 25, 2020. There are other ongoing projects the OTGR team is supporting. Including working closely with Dr. Jay Shore from the VA Office of Rural Health on their “Rural Native Veteran Healthcare Navigator” pilot program. Dr. Shore and ORH is interested in interviewing tribal representatives, Veterans and Indian health subject matter experts with a focus on how this type of organizational function could improve access to care and the Native Veteran experience in navigating the VA and Indian Health systems of care. Stay tuned for more updates regarding the project and tribal/Veteran engagement. 2 At the regional level, over in in the Southern Plains/Southeast, Mary Culley participated in the Southern Plains Tribal Health Board Quarterly Board meeting. This is the first board meeting since the pandemic hit in March 2020. She also participated via conference call in the National Indian Health Board: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) Broken Promises webinar, an interactive call between the NIHB Civil Rights representative and the tribal leaders presenting on the GAO USCCR Report. Mary also participated in the OKC Area IHS Tribal and Urban Healthcare call where she was invited to speak to the VA’s fourth mission to the tribal and IHS CEOs participating in the call. The VA’s “Fourth Mission” is to improve the nation’s preparedness for response to war, terrorism, national emergencies, and natural disasters by developing plans and taking actions to ensure continued service to Veterans, as well as to support national, state, and local emergency management, public health, safety and homeland security efforts. You can learn more about VA’s Fourth Mission at https://www.va.gov/about_va/ . Mary engaged in more virtual events as we moved to the latter part of the summer. She participated in the VA National Center for Women Veterans Virtual Partners Meeting, which included 300 participants, followed by the Kansas Virtual Tribal Health Summit. For more information about these events and activities, please contact her at [email protected]. Meanwhile, over in the Southwest, Homana Pawiki has been hosting monthly calls entitled Outreach, Education and Services in New Mexico House Districts 69 and 39: Update and Gap Identification. During these calls, federal, state and tribal representatives meet with NM House Representative Harry Garcia to discuss programs and services available for Veterans residing in these districts. These calls improved coordination among different service providers during the Covid-19 pandemic. The latter part of the summer was busy for Homana. She participated in an event hosted by the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., and facilitated by the Arizona Indian Council on Aging. Her presentation covered “5 Things Every Veteran Should Do: VBA Topics for Older Veterans, VHA Topics for Older Veterans, NCA Topics for Older Veterans” and offered an overview of the work of the VA Office of Tribal Government Relations. A bit later on the calendar, she made a presentation to 75+Veterans from the Navajo Nation Shiprock Agency area where she covered topics such as VA extending relief for Veterans who submit claims to VA (in the Covid-19 environment) and an overview of how Veterans can start applying for benefits from the VA. Homana also participated in the Navajo Nation Veterans Administration (NNVA) open house planning meeting to discuss an upcoming open house for the opening of a new location of the NNVA office from Window Rock, AZ to Tse Bonito NM (located about 4 miles away from Window Rock). Various local, state and federal government representatives as well as non-profit Veterans organizations participated in planning for the open house which is scheduled to occur on October 15, 2020. Homana has also been busy assisting the VA Center for Women Veterans (CWV) in their preparations for a virtual site visit meeting to Tucson, AZ that will occur the latter part of September. The CWV plans to host a virtual roundtable meeting for American Indian/Alaska Native women Veterans residing in Arizona as part of their virtual site visit. For more information from Homana’s region, don’t hesitate to contact her directly at [email protected]. Looking further west to the Pacific District, tribal government relations specialist Terry Bentley stayed busy with virtual presentations, which included assisting the VA Walla Walla with concerns regarding a MOA for demolition of a building on the VA Walla Walla campus that was of concern to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR).
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