Transcript: Ralph Forquera

When Native person leaves the reservation, they lose their identity

[Forquera:]: We deal with a lot of people that come from reservations where on those reservations they’re recognized as being an Indian person, but when you leave that environment, they lose that identity, and it’s not reinforced by the surrounding community, and so an institution that welcomes them and acknowledges them and recognizes them, changes how they then behave, and also how they interact with the kinds of services that we try to provide for them. And I believe that as a result of that, we are improving the health of the population, not so much by the care that we provide, but by the engagement in that care in a way that allows us to move them from acute crisis kinds of circumstances into more of thinking about their health and as a result of that, hopefully, adopting positive behaviors in their lives.