On April 3, the Seattle Indian Health Board announced its intention to open a 92-bed inpatient treatment center on Vashon, rooted in Native cultural practices and traditional Indian medicine, for those seeking recovery from addiction.

The facility will be housed in the former home of Vashon Community Care (VCC), a building that the Health Board purchased on March 31 for $11 million from Transforming Age, the nonprofit owner and operator of the long-term care facility from 2017 to 2021.

The $11 million purchase of the VCC building came years after the closure, in 2019, of the Health Board’s nationally-recognized Thunderbird Treatment Center, a facility located in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle for 33 years.

At the time, the Health Board said the aging facility was no longer suitable for its needs and also announced it would seek to reopen and expand the facility in a new location.

Since that time, said Esther Lucero (Diné), the president and CEO of Seattle Indian Health Board, the Health Board has been looking for that location, with its intensive effort to purchase the VCC property taking place in the last six months.

In an interview on Monday, April 10, Lucero said the Health Board had created a legislative task force to assist in the search, drawing on the Health Board’s close contacts on county, state, and national levels.

A federal appropriation of $5 million for the new facility, announced in late December 2022, she said, was a result of the Health Board’s work with the offices of U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who Lucero said was most instrumental in the approval of the appropriation.

On the county level, she credited King County Councilmember Joe McDermott as having provided important support for the Health Board’s plans.

Now, Lucero said, the Health Board has begun the work of reaching out to the broader Vashon community to further detail its plans to operate the treatment center, with its opening anticipated to take place in approximately 18 to 24 months.

“We feel like relationships are really important right now,” she said. “The reason we didn’t want to share information early is that we wanted to make sure that the closing on the property actually went through and was completed before we actually spoke about it. So we literally started speaking about it the day we received the keys.”

Lucero said the first steps in this outreach would be to forge relationships with other island healthcare entities, including Sea Mar Community Health Center and the Vashon Health Care District.

Lucero plans to speak directly to the community about the facility and the work of the Health Board, joining the hosts of Voice of Vashon’s The Brown Briefly show at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 18.

She also said that the Health Board was “blessed” to have longtime islander Shelley Means (Ojibwe/Lakota) serving as a member of its board of directors. Means, she said, was already engaged in meeting with islanders about the facility.

“Our approach is a lot of listening, openness and transparency,” she said. “Honesty goes a long way.”

In her interview with The Beachcomber, Lucero laid out a broad and inclusive vision for the facility — saying it would serve, as do other Health Board clinics and programs, people of all races, offering healing based on traditional Indian medicine.

She said it was likely that the new facility, like the one operated by the Health Board in Seattle, would be named Thunderbird Treatment Center.

“The name is very meaningful to folks,” she said, adding that she had been told, by many in tribal communities as well as those who had recovered from addiction at the former facility, “You have to carry that forward.”

Access to treatment, and staffing

Current residents of Vashon would have the same access as all others to treatment at the facility, Lucero said, adding that the Health Board realizes there is a need for addiction treatment on the island.

“We hope to be that resource,” she said.

Lucero also said the facility could become a place of employment for islanders, while also acknowledging the workforce issues posed by its island location.

A staffing plan, along with many other operational considerations, was currently being developed, she said, adding that she had confidence in her organization to meet the challenges of operating the Vashon facility.

“We have been building capacity for this within our current organization for years,” she said.

The Health Board was established in 1970. Currently, it operates three healthcare clinics in Lake City, the International District and its newly opened Pioneer Square Clinic. In 2022, it also launched its Mobile Dental Clinic.

In 2020, the Health Board served 4,600 patients, more than 60% of whom identified as American Indian or Alaska Native.

Expansion of programs

The facility on Vashon, as described by Lucero, will significantly expand upon the services and programs offered by the Thunderbird Treatment Center in Rainier Beach, which was a 65-bed, in-patient facility.

The new, 92-bed facility, combining traditional Indian medicine and cutting-edge therapeutic programs, will dedicate ten beds to serving the needs of patients who are pregnant or the parents of young children — offering those “relatives” (as the Health Board refers to all their patients) an opportunity to be in the facility with their children.

These children, Lucero said, would have access to daycare and other programs in the facility during their parents’ treatment.

Additionally, through its mobile program already established for its work in Seattle, the treatment center on Vashon will provide mental health and dental care to its residents — offering holistic and culturally-centered treatment for those affected by historical trauma, Lucero said.

In discussing the meaning of historical trauma, Lucero cited Dr. Maria Horse Brave Heart’s definition of the term — “the cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over one’s lifetime and from generation to generation following loss of lives, land and vital aspects of culture.”

The Health Board’s programs on Vashon, she said, will address that trauma by embracing Native healing with such traditional medicine as a sweat lodge, a sunrise ceremony, and drumming — cultural practices that she said she believes that current islanders will find meaning in, as well.

Calling its work in strengthening cultural identities “a key to healing,” Lucero said that the Health Board had achieved the lowest recidivism rate in the state at its former treatment center.

Safety

When asked about some islander’s concerns about crime and safety connected to the treatment center, and told that the Vashon-Maury Island Community Council had invited a King County Sheriff’s Office captain to speak at its next meeting on the general topic of crime concerns connected to rehabilitation centers, Lucero said that there had never been an incidence of criminal activity by a patient of its former facility, in Rainier Beach, during its years of operation.

The new facility, she said, would have extensive security protocols in place.

The measures, she also emphasized, would be undertaken to ensure the safety of the vulnerable people receiving treatment in the facility — protecting them from any harm that might occur to them in the wider Vashon community.

“We take great responsibility for our people on a pathway to healing,” she said.

Benefit to Vashon — 24-hour access to the island?

Without providing extensive details, Lucero said that she was also working on a “creative way” to provide Vashon with 24-hour access to the mainland, through either private or public water taxis — a transportation service needed by a 24-hour-a-day treatment center, and also, one that could greatly benefit islanders in many ways.

“I’ll keep working on that,” she said. “I’m not done yet, but I’m working on it.”