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Wind River Cares Piloting School-Based Program For Preventative Care

Erika Yarber

Wind River Cares, a community-based health organization that serves the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, is piloting a program in schools to provide proactive care for eligible students.

The facility is partnering with School District #25 and St. Stevens School to better reach young students as a way to catch health issues early.

Erika Yarber, programs coordinator for Wind River Cares, said that the program will address the student's dental, behavioral and visual needs.

"Sometimes we have kids that come from trauma," Yarber said. "Parents that come from trauma. Grandparents that come from trauma. Obviously historically. And so we just want to make sure our kids are just healthy on all levels."

The program is now leasing space in school buildings while also hoping to have mobile units up and running by the end of the year.

Yarber said she hopes those mobile units will provide important preventative care on the go.

"Everything we want to do is prevention," said Yarber. "We have mobile units ordered. They should be here within the year and so once our mobile units actually arrive we will be able to provide services anywhere. For now, we need to see what the whole process will look like basically."

The school based program pilot is up and running at Riverton High School, Rendezvous Elementary and the Aspen Early Learning Center.

Taylar Dawn Stagner is a central Wyoming rural and tribal reporter for Wyoming Public Radio. She has degrees in American Studies, a discipline that interrogates the history and culture of America. She was a Native American Journalist Association Fellow in 2019, and won an Edward R. Murrow Award for her Modern West podcast episode about drag queens in rural spaces in 2021. Stagner is Arapaho and Shoshone.
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