Camai! Welcome!
For thousands of years, Alaska Native people have been working together for the good of the whole community and sharing responsibility for improvements. We continue these traditions today with Southcentral Foundation’s (SCF) Nuka System of Care.
Nuka is built around the value of Shared Responsibility, ensuring systems and services are respectful and culturally appropriate. It is about achieving excellence in customer-owner satisfaction and connecting the Native Community with services that benefit everyone. SCF has a full array of services to achieve our shared vision of “A Native Community that enjoys physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness.”
For example:
- Over 570 Alaska Native and American Indian Elders receive food boxes or lunches at our Elder Program, group visits and in-home visits, transportation for medical appointments and other needs.
- A Men's Wellness Initiative, designed to develop healthy relationships among men of all cultures, provides education and wellness activities.
- Quyana Clubhouse, a program designed for customer-owners dealing with chronic mental illness, provides a gathering place to meet friends working through similar issues, enjoy meals, and receive medication support.
- Our RAISE interns, as young as age 14, are being groomed and trained to achieve success while gaining real-life work experience.
- SCF Improvement Specialists are integrated throughout our system, evaluating and helping improve efforts to achieve our Family Wellness goals.
- Our public relations professionals utilize our website, Anchorage Native News, social media, and other means to communicate about SCF services, health education information, and SCF events and help customer-owners and other stakeholders stay connected.
- Finance employees pay attention to Operational Excellence by improving the management of expenses and improving systems for revenue collection from third party payers like Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance so our services can reach more people.
- The Information Technology Services team consistently improves data support systems, which helps with health care service accuracy and efficiency.
These are just a few of the programs that serve our customers both directly and as internal support. And all this hard work is being recognized! Most recently, we received the 2012 Indian Health Service Director's Award. We have also been recognized by the Alaska Native Health Board, the Alaska congressional delegation, Alaska Public Health Association, Rasmuson Foundation, the Mat-Su Health Foundation, the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, the Alaska Governor's office, the Anchorage mayor's office and many others.
For the last 30 years, SCF has worked with the community toward this vision of wellness. We look forward to the next 30 years of working together!
May we continue to be blessed in our journey,
Katherine Gottlieb, MBA, Doctor of Public Service (h.c.)
Southcentral Foundation President/CEO