WSU inspires native youth to see themselves in health careers

Indian Country urgently needs more doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals.

It's not a new problem, and Washington State University has long offered programs for Native American middle and high school students to open doors to careers in health professions. Now, WSU is taking that message of possibility to younger kids.

The Little Birds program came about at the suggestion of the Tribal Advisory Board, said Jerry Crowshoe, director of Native American Health Sciences at WSU.

"They told us, you're starting way too late, high school kids have already made up their minds," Crowshoe recalled. "From 0-12 a child's mind gets hardwired how they're going to see the world."

Right now Little Birds is offered at five elementary schools in Spokane Public Schools and at the Columbia School District elementary in Hunters, Washington. It's held after school once a month, with WSU students from a different health sciences program visiting each time.

"One of the things Elders said, too, is that you can't be doing this one time a year, you need to be consistent with whatever you deliver," Crowshoe said.

The WSU students come up with games, puzzles, and experiments that reflect their specialty. So, for example, pharmacy students had the Little Birds compounding medications with whipped cream and food coloring, and counting M&Ms and Skittles pills to treat a condition. Nutrition & Exercise Physiology students had the kids doing frog-hop relays to learn about food groups and throwing foam dice to see how many pushups or burpees to do.

WSU Nutrition & Exercise Physiology student Chloe Bleakley describes food groups for a Little Bird student (photo by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services). Kids taking part in the Little Birds after-school program at Spokane Public Schools play with equipment brought by Nutrition & Exercise Physiology students from WSU (photo by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services). WSU Nutrition & Exercise Physiology student Chloe Bleakley leads a group of Little Birds in exercises (photo by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services). WSU Nutrition & Exercise Physiology students Tayeb Wilson (left), Chloe Bleakley (center), and Victoria Sadler led the Little Birds in games and exercises (photo by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services). Students learned about food groups and took part in various exercises and activities during a recent session of the Little Birds after-school program led by WSU Nutrition & Exercise Physiology students Tayeb Wilson (lower left), Chloe Bleakley (lower center), and Victoria Sadler (lower right). Photos by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services.

Hannah Tomeo Maguire (Colville, Yakama, Nimiipuu, Sioux), the K-12 coordinatorat WSU's Center for Native American Health, developed Little Birds. She'd seen teddy-bearclinics used to help quell kids' fear of doctors and medical procedures, and used that as a loose inspiration. But Tomeo Maguire and Crowshoe say they believe Little Birds is unique.

The name comes from Crowshoe's heritage as an enrolled member of the Piikani Nation (Blackfoot Confederacy), where Tribal members are grouped in age-based societies. One of the youngest societies he remembered learning about was called the Little Birds Society.

Two tribes that are financial sponsors of the pilot program - the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and the Squaxin Island Tribe - have expressed interest in bringing a similar program to western Washington and incorporating Native language and plant medicine, Tomeo Maguire said.

At the end of the Little Birds event for Nutrition & Exercise Physiology, the kids nominated each other as amazing teammates and each got a sports ball or water bottle to take home, along with their Little Bird t-shirt. They also have white medical coats that they'll wear when students from the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine take their turn. At the end of the program there will be a graduation ceremony from Little Bird Medical School, Crowshoe said, along with a traditional blanket ceremony.

Little Birds is more than just a career pathway program - it's a free resource for struggling schools, and could help kids be more comfortable around health professionals as they go through their lives.

Little Birds is more than just a career pathway program, he and Tomeo Maguire said. It's a free resource for struggling schools, and it could help kids be more comfortable around health professionals as they go through their lives.

But Crowshoe added, "if the kids' mind and experiences up to age 12 says, 'you know what, I had a lot of fun with health sciences,' and they go into adolescence carrying that with them, and our WSU students get the experience of working with Indian Country and working with Tribes and young people, that's the exchange."