Mohala Liko Lehua, a partnership between Hawaiʻi Land Trust and the Native Hawaiian learning department at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, mixes ʻāina-based practices into behavioral health fellowships.
Six people throughout the state, three with a doctorate in psychology and three with a master's of social work, were chosen for a year-long fellowship for the program's inaugural year. They will rotate between Hawaiʻi Land Trust sites on Oʻahu, Kauaʻi, Maui, and Hawaiʻi Island and at major health care facilities on Maui and Oʻahu.
Through their clinical work and their hands-on work at HILT sites, they will learn to integrate land and community-based lessons into their future practices.
Robin Miyamoto, the director of Mohala Liko Lehua, explained the importance of having homegrown professionals serving the state. She said that a client having to explain generational trauma, cultural values, and other similar things that might be Hawaiʻi-specific could create barriers and a lack of trust in certain cases.
“We just know that ethnic minority folks often feel more comfortable getting these services from someone that they perceive to be very similar to them,” Miyamoto said. “If they go to someone who hasn't experienced those same struggles, there becomes this large space between the provider and the client that’s just another barrier in their care.”
HILT's sites work closely with public school keiki, providing them opportunities to work with and mālama the land.
Denby Freeland, the director of ʻāina education at HILT, said this allows the fellows to work directly with people who mirror the qualities and lifestyles of possible future clients, providing them with unique experiences they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten.
“When students come to us, they're doing activities that are relevant to what they're learning in the classroom, which is what (the fellows) will be doing as well," Freeland said.
“Another part of this program is just trying to see how else outdoor integration can help with promoting health, as well as learning the stories of our different areas throughout Hawaiʻi and using that as integration through promoting good health practices.”
Miyamoto noted that Pacific Islanders, especially the younger demographics, often lack the proper tools to regulate their emotions. She said she wants this partnership with HILT to be a “preventative program” for the kids that are involved, to provide them with the proper toolbox of skills to deal with tough situations.
“We can't keep bad things from happening to people, but what we want to try to do is increase their ability to manage those bad things so that we can potentially keep an adverse event from turning into a chronic health condition,” she said.
“We don't know which kids are going to be affected, but if they can all have this psychological immunization and coping toolbox, then hopefully we can reduce the impact.”
The program is funded by a mix of local and federal funding, which covers the fellows' salaries and travel expenses. Initially, the federal grant was not approved for the program, leaving organizers to rely solely on private and local funding.
“We were still a go for it, even with just funding we collected on our own, mostly through the help of HILT, but it had only allowed us to take on two fellows. Then all of a sudden we get approved for the grant, so we can suddenly supersize our efforts to what it is today,” Miyamoto said.
The federal grant is supposed to give $600,000 to the program annually for the next four years, but Miyamoto worried the funding could get pulled with budget reorganizing at the federal level.
Mohala Liko Lehua is set to teach a total of 24 fellows over the next three years, with the idea that the fellows will go on to be the supervisors of the next cohort. Miyamoto noted that the name “Mohala Liko Lehua” translates to “blossoming expert,” which is exactly what she hopes each fellow emerges as.
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