This episode celebrates the success of two recent graduates of UM’s program in Public Health: Julie Cahoon, who completed her Masters last December, and D’Shane Barnett, who completed his doctorate in Spring 22. Listeners will hear about their academic and research journeys, which demonstrate the value of resilience in pursuing their graduate degrees. They share details on how their team deployed Indigenous Research Methods to draw on existing cultural strengths in Native communities to create public health interventions on addiction. 

STORY TRANSCRIPT

Ashby Kinch: This is Confluence where great ideas flow together, a podcast of the Graduate School of the University of Montana. On Confluence, we travel down the tributaries of wisdom and beauty that enrich the soil of knowledge on our gorgeous mountain campus. 

Annie Belcourt: What a wonderful person he was in many different domains. He, as a student, has faced a lot of challenges that many of our American Indian Alaska Native students face here on our campus. But he has done that with a real courage and grace in ways that have really informed his scholarship. 

Blakely Brown: I was instantly drawn to Julie and her work and passion in research areas similar to my own. Julie and I also infuse a lot of laughter and storytelling in our work together and just find that helps deepen our relationship with each other, both on a professional and personal level. 

KINCH: You just heard the voices of Annie Belcourt and Blakely Brown, talking about their students D’Shane Barnett and Julie Cahoon, recent graduates from UM”s program in Public Health.  

On Confluence, we like to highlight graduate student accomplishments. In this episode we celebrate D’Shane and Julie as winners of this year’s “Best in Conference” award for an oral presentation in the Humanities and Social Sciences at GradCon. Open to all graduate students, GradCon is hosted by UM’s Graduate and Professional Student Association, providing an opportunity for graduate students to present their research and creative activity, and compete for awards in 5 categories.  

Julie and D’Shane won for their paper addressing the role of Traditional Ceremonial Practices as an intervention for Substance Use in Native communities. We talk with them about their graduate student journey, and their perspective on the importance of their research in addressing the needs of our Native communities. They are shining examples of the importance of graduate education in the state of Montana, as both have taken up positions that directly impact the lives of Montanans every day.  

This conversation will give you a rich sense of how their research, and their professional careers, developed. You’ll hear a snippet from D’Shane’s dissertation defense, which we thought would highlight his talent, while also allowing folks to listen in on an important ritual of academic culture, the transition from D’Shane Barnett to Dr. D’Shane Barnett.  

But we start the episode, as we like to do when we can, by hearing a passage from a poem set on the shores of the Jocko River on the Reservation lands of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, which is Julie Cahoon’s tribe. It’s also the tribe of her relative Heather Cahoon, whose poem she reads, so we are delighted to share this literary texture with our listeners.  

Welcome to Confluence, where the river is always with us! 

Julie Cahoon: The following is a passage from “Horsefly Address” by Heather Cahoon.  

“Your father lies buried in the jocko beneath birdsong, the sorrow of snowmelt. His body decayed, yet I feel self-conscious, revealing his unbounded behavior. It is possible he hears me.” 

D'Shane Barnett: (speaking in Native language) [TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE SOON] 

BARNETT: (speaking in English) Hello everybody. My name is D'Shane Barnett. I'm Mandan and Arikara, which are two tribes from the Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara nation of Fort Berthold, North Dakota. In addition to my role as a PhD student here at the University of Montana School of Public and Community Health Sciences, I also have the honor of currently serving as director and health officer for the Missoula City County Health Department. 

KINCH: So thank you for joining us on Confluence, D’Shane and Julie.  

CAHOON: Thank you for having us.  

BARNETT: Yeah, thanks. Glad to be here. 

KINCH: So you're here because we're celebrating the winners of this year's best in con for the Grad con. And you all won in the category of humanities and social sciences oral presentation. I was there for the talk. It was really, really engaging. Congratulations, first of all. 

CAHOON: Thank you. 

KINCH: Yeah. Have you done the Grad CON before or been involved in other graduate conferences before? 

CAHOON: This is my first experience actually working with D’Shane has been my first major research project. So everything related to this project before, during, and after is all new. So it's been really exciting. 

KINCH: Fantastic. Was it a good learning experience for you, the research part especially? 

CAHOON: Yes, it was. I mean, I've dabbled in research for my job, but nothing it's a very different type of research work, and this was definitely more academic, and it was a very different process that was really exciting, and I learned so much, so it was really cool to be a part of the process. 

KINCH: And so he kind of played a mentor type role in this case, kind of helping guide you through it. 

CAHOON: Yeah, absolutely. The whole team, really. Blakely and Jeff and D’Shane. So each week we met during our research teams and we just had these really great conversations. And the discussions that we were engaged with throughout has been just a really interesting perspective of being very thoughtful about the work that you're doing and just really trying to adhere to the indigenous framework that we're guiding our efforts. 

KINCH: Yeah, and let's dig into that because that's such a core part of this project. And the Shay, maybe you can speak to us as well, but who came up with, in this particular case, the idea to make sure we were focused on the indigenous research framework, but also the cultural landscape, using cultural practices as an intervention. In other words, not just doing the research according to IRM principles, but actually bringing the practices into the intervention. 

BARNETT: When I was applying for PhD programs, I had the opportunity to interview at a couple different schools and looking at there was a medical sociology PhD program, a couple of public health PhD programs. When I mentioned indigenous research methods, IRM, as part of my interview at all of those other schools, I could just really see a reaction of like, oh, I don't really know what to do with that. And even one of the programs, honestly, would have been until the interview would have been my first choice. During the interview, the director of that program said, oh, that's great. You'll also have to use real research methods. And I was like. 

KINCH: Oooh, you just touched a button.  

BARNETT: Obviously not a good fit. My interview with the faculty at University of Montana for the PhD. When I mentioned indigenous research methods was like night and day compared to that other. They were so on board with that. And they were like, we think that not only is that really cool, but we want to see how we could maybe even take that a little further. And I think that the faculty here so Blakely was our faculty principal investigator, faculty Pi on this program. 

And there was always that challenge too. It's not just Indigenous research methods, but it's critical Indigenous research methods. And so it's how are we reflecting the voice, the role, the needs of the community, not just in determining the research question and the methods, but in every facet of this project, how is that being reflected? And that was an amazing experience. 

KINCH: And so that part of it was kind of new for you to have had it be completely comprehensively in every level of the research, be integrated as. 

BARNETT: A principle to not only have someone let me do that, but to have them support and encourage and yeah, that was a different experience than any other research project I've been on. 

KINCH: Fantastic. One that's, um it's something that, especially in the graduate school, we like to elevate that this is a unique talent and culture mesh that we have here that, frankly, is unparalleled in the country. There's only one or two regions in the country that can even come close. So we're very proud of it, and it's good to elevate it and lift it up. So the paper addresses substance abuse, which is a major concern across the state of Montana and many communities. In other words, it's not just unique to the Native communities, but it is a particularly large concern in Native communities. So the project kind of bridges how to address that issue using cultural practices. Can you say a little bit more about why that was important and what you learned through the process of research? 

CAHOON: Yeah, absolutely. So integrating culture into any sort of prevention or treatment approach that involves Indigenous communities is integral to the success of any such program. And oftentimes you'll see that culture is not existent, it's not even considered. And so it's really just focused on Western based medicine practices, which is not designed for Indigenous communities. And so there's often gridlock in terms of sometimes the effectiveness of those programs. And so this whole project is really starting to explore how can we start to integrate that in a way that makes sense, in a way that connects with people for Indigenous communities? 

KINCH: Yeah, one thing really resonated for me personally when I was watching your presentation, is the way that model also then has in other words, in a way, it's not just a health intervention. It's also amplifying all these other cultural models of language resuscitation, culture resuscitation. In other words, it's amplifying a community strength model, not just in health right. But then saying there are these really positive health benefits for locating culture at the center of the intervention. I find that very inspiring because that's a model that we probably ought to be looking at again in nonnative communities. Right? 

CAHOON: Yeah, because I think this is a culture based approach. And so the term culture that touches all of those elements, it's talking about spiritual, it's talking about mental, it's talking about language. And so integrating culture into how you're working with individuals, whether that's for substance use, whether that's for intimate partner violence, whether it's for just general mental health, it really is going to touch the core of that individual based on their upbringing, based on their history. So it is really powerful. 

BARNETT: And that's in the research world, you're often told that you need to operationalize, you need to look at a particular relationship, a particular association. So we did that. But we know that this model is not designed just for substance use. That what we are doing is bringing the protective factor of our culture to address effects of historical trauma, which do include substance use, but also include violence, also include mental illness. And honestly, that approach is probably just as likely to be as effective for any one of those symptoms because that's not the problem. What we're doing with this intervention is we're aiming at the root problem, not the symptom, which is so different than Western medical science. 

KINCH: Yeah, that's great. And I think it also sort of hits on this other thing that we other aspect of graduate education that we really like to lift up. And both of your stories kind of are interesting this way, interdisciplinarity. You come from a business undergraduate degree, which I think really interests me, like how you made that shift and then you did sociology and public. So both of you are doing graduate degrees in a field other than the one you did your undergraduate. I mean, sociology and public health are a little bit more integrated, but still I kind of want to hear each of your stories about that, about what drew you to that particular kind of graduate work and how your undergraduate background in a totally different field might have informed it. Maybe start with you, Julie. 

CAHOON: Yeah, I was just thinking how far back to go. I did my undergrad here at the University of Montana and at first I really didn't know what I was going to focus in. And at the end of the day, I knew that I needed to support myself. And so I saw that business was something that touched everything. So I saw that as an avenue for a way for me to support myself. And so I pursued that and I was able to actually join the American Indian Business Leaders, which is a program that was founded here at the university. And so that was a really great program that kind of introduced me to management and community engagement and being involved in community and particularly our native community here on campus. And so that was really exciting. And so then I just stepped into that, and I completed my undergrad with Business Administration for Management and International Business. 

KINCH: And you had some interesting international experience. You went to Berlin. 

CAHOON: Yes, that's right. That was one thing I wanted to accomplish in my undergrad, is I wanted to study abroad. I didn't know when I was going to do it, but I was like, I need to have this experience. And so it wasn't until my last year where I was like, okay, this is it. I have to go. I have to make this happen. So I worked with the department that coordinates the study abroad, and that was a really wonderful experience. And so I got to go to Berlin, Germany, because for my international degree, you had to have two years of foreign language. So I took German. So that was a really exciting experience, meeting international students. And actually, I still communicate with those that I met during that time. And it was a short study abroad, but it was still so powerful and impactful. I mean, it was really, like, confidence boosting, and it just was a really great experience. 

KINCH: Yeah. And then you've been in the business world, and you've worked in the business world, but then at some point, you decided you want to come back and do a public health degree. 

CAHOON: Yeah. So after my study abroad, I didn't know what I wanted to do after my degree, so I wanted to intern, or I thought internship would be a good way to kind of get a sense of what I wanted to do, explore different avenues. And so there was this program called the Washington Internships for Native Students, and that was based out of American University in Washington, DC. So I applied for that program and was accepted. And so that program placed you with a federal agency to intern for a semester. And so I started that in the summer and did a summer internship with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which was just an absolutely incredible experience. I learned so much about the federal government and then also the advisory committees that I worked on in that particular department. And then I also didn't know what I wanted to do, so I kept doing the program. So I got to work at the Social Security Administration and two different offices. And so I just knew I wanted to stay in DC. And I wanted to do more work related to indigenous communities. And so I got word about a job opening at a private consulting firm, and so I applied and got the job. 

And this consulting firm is American Indian Woman owned, and they work with tribal communities across the nation, primarily contracting with federal and state and tribal governments. And so I really just got this huge deep dive into Indian country. 

KINCH: Yeah. And it's okay to name them. Kaufman okay, you seem like you're trying to avoid that, but let's go ahead and say it. Shout out to Kaufman. 

CAHOON: Yeah. 

KINCH: So Kaufman and Associates, and they're still your employer. 

CAHOON: Yeah. 

KINCH: So you've been able to maintain that kind of while pursuing this degree. 

CAHOON: Joanne Kaufman is the president, and so I've been working with her and the team since 2014. And so after a few years, you really just start to immerse yourself with the different communities that you're working with, and you're seeing a bridge between federal government work and how they're trying to engage with tribal communities. You see that there are glaring gaps and errors and miscommunications, and it's really frustrating. And so I just know that I want to help to mediate those types of relationships. And so I worked a lot at the federal level and indirectly, and I really got a sense of what that was like. And I was like, I need to work in communities because that's where the conversation starts. So I had done a lot of public health related contracting work, and so I knew that public health was a space that I wanted to do more work in, and I wanted to come home. So I identified the University of Montana's public health program and came back. 

KINCH: Well, welcome home. 

CAHOON: Yeah. 

KINCH: Thank you. You, D’SHANE, have had a really intense professional work life while continuing your PhD. How has that been balancing out the needs of delivering and actually running an organization, providing health services while doing this. 

BARNETT: Research during COVID? I'll be honest, it sucked. It wasn't fun. Yeah, we made it through, but yeah. 

KINCH: And that counts as success, right? 

BARNETT: Exactly. We made it through, and that's a success. So yeah. I had accepted the position as executive director at All Nations Health Center knowing that I had already been also accepted into the PhD program, so I knew I was going to be doing those two things concurrently. I knew it was going to be rough. What I didn't know was that this would have been in 2018. Was that right as I was about to get the research project off the ground. So Blakely and I actually wrote the proposal to do this research in February of 2020, knowing what happened in March 2020, and had to really pivot and be like, wow, our entire world looks different now. So we worked to adapt the research program, and I had to try to lead an Indian health program through an unprecedented pandemic while trying to be a student during a pandemic, where I had to finish two pretty intense quantitative classes online for the last six weeks of the semester. Yeah, but I would say spring 2020 was not my favorite. 

KINCH: Was that the low point for you? Because there had to be subsequent tough times as well. But then for all of the different things you were juggling that spring 2020. 

BARNETT: Was maybe that was the beginning of the rough time. And I would say we're just now over the peak of the rough time. I feel like we've done a lot of work as a team that now we can look back and be really proud of. I don't think it was really fun in the moment. So originally our intent was to actually explore rates of participation in ceremony with substance use behavior. And we couldn't do that because ceremonies weren't being held because of Covad. And so then we had to adapt and go back. And we looked at in research, your work always has to be grounded in theory. So we had to look at, okay, if we can't measure the actual behavior, what can we measure? And so we had to completely reframe our research around COVID, like COVID literally dictated how our lives went for the last two years of this project. 

KINCH: So a lot of people have that story, but nobody I know has been more on the front lines of that story than you've been. And then just recently pivoted to a totally different role, let's say a little bit about more about that. That's a big change too. 

BARNETT: Yeah. So then a year ago, it's actually next week it will be exactly one year, moved into the role of health director and health officer for the City County Health Department. So then not only am I trying to lead an Indian health organization through an epidemic, but I'm leading a countywide health department. Allen Lehman had been there for many years, really took the brunt of when COVID first came, handed over the reins, retired, because at the time we really thought we're over this hump. That was before Delta, that was before Omaka, that was before we knew that, wow, this virus was going to keep spiking and returning, not going anywhere. And so I've had to then work through two really big spikes as the health officer and health director for the City County Health Department while trying to get research done in time for Julie graduated. She graduated in winter of 2021, and then I'm graduating tomorrow in spring of 2022. 

KINCH: Now, listeners may not hear this for a few months, but tomorrow's graduation, and I'll have the great pleasure of calling your name and your station title as you walk across the stage. That's a big moment. 

BARNETT: Yeah. And I don't know, COVID was rough, but I just wasn't willing to let Julie or I compromise our goals or not graduate just because COVID yes. 

KINCH: Good for you. And thank you on behalf of Missoula County for the service. It's really been an incredible stalwart team that has led us through this. And I think we've got a lot to be proud of in Missoula County and at um in terms of how we've handled a pretty tough situation. 

BARNETT: Yeah. And what I've really enjoyed is getting to bring the perspective in the world of Indian health to mainstream public health. Because I think what a lot of people don't realize is that Indian health is public health. It's a subset of public health, but all of the things that public health does, we also have to do, but we have to translate them for a community that experiences very high rates of trauma, that is not seeing themselves in the messaging that's coming from federal agencies, state agencies, county agencies. So we have to find a way to still preserve and protect their health, do it with fewer resources and with. 

KINCH: Greater challenges, with more of a message filter that you have to work. 

BARNETT: Exactly. 

KINCH: Well, what's next for you, Julie? 

CAHOON: So I'm going to continue working for Kaufman and Associates for now. The work that the company does is just it's really amazing, and I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be able to work with so many different tribes and communities on very different projects. Each day I'm meeting someone new. I'm learning something new, and not just about tribes from Montana, but across the country. So it's just every day the learning experience. And so I really appreciate that. 

KINCH: That's the best job ever, isn't it? It is one where you can feel both like you're learning and that you're making a contribution. 

CAHOON: Exactly. Yeah. I do know that I'm going to hit the PhD road eventually, hopefully in the next couple of years. So that's going to be down the road. 

KINCH: Would that also be in public health, you think? 

CAHOON: Yes, definitely. 

KINCH: Stay with the you've got a mentor, got a few mentors in the pipeline that you can follow in that great journey. 

CAHOON: Yes, exactly. I mean, you kind of saw D’Shane do it all, so I definitely know it's doable. 

KINCH: Made it look easy, huh? 

CAHOON: Yeah, he did, actually. So I'm going to follow his liaison, his example, and try to do the same for myself. 

KINCH Well, for the listeners. It isn't easy. Right. It's hard work. But you both are great examples of why the resilience matters, why it matters to buckle down and do the work. And that's one of the things we really like to elevate on this podcast, is resilience and kind of demystifying the imposter syndrome. All of us feel it, even those of us who have got our PhD 20 years ago. We still remember how hard it was to go into our first class. Everyone feels like an imposter, right? So it's good to model how important it is to overcome those barriers and just keep plugging along. 

CAHOON: Yeah, absolutely. Every time I do, like a mini accomplishment, I've been able to since my undergrad, I always have, like a five-year goal setting kind of thing that I do. And each time I hit a milestone, I always try to reflect and then also as much as I can when I talk to younger people or even just siblings, to really encourage them to do the same, because I did feel like I couldn't do most of the things that I ended up doing at first. It took a lot to get over the hurdles and a lot of self doubt, but I just knew I wanted to try and that was all that it took, was just trying and having someone help me. So mentorship was so important, and for each of my accomplishments, there's always been someone who encouraged me or at least talked me through situations. And so that was just so important and the university provided that, so it was really great. 

KINCH: 100%. Thank you so much for saying that because I actually think that's one of the, again, key message for the graduate school. It doesn't matter what community you come from, but you have to see a trajectory. You have to see that you have the next step, you have a path ahead. And it's so important to have graduate student mentor models that someone else in your community can look at and say, D’Shane did it, Julie did it. And that gives them a pathway forward that lets them see there's a place for them to go.  

BARNETT: I was born here in Missoula and I was accepted and enrolled as a freshman in 1994 and I graduated with my bachelor's in Sociology in 2015. So if you do the math, 21 years. And there was a lot of lived experience in that 21 years where I went and had a 20 plus year career in Indian health and I was in California for many years. I worked for six years with the tribes down there and then ten years on urban Indian Health and decided that I wanted to get my Masters in Healthcare Administration. But I didn't have my bachelor's and so that's why I came back and finished my bachelor's. It's funny, I was just home for the holidays in 2013 and stopped by the university just for fun and said, you know, I was a student here. It's been more than ten years, I'm sure you don't have my records. If I wanted to re enroll, what would that take? And the lady said, well, if you were a student, you are a student. Like you're still a student. And I was like, no, you don't understand. This was 1994. I said, at that point, almost 20 years ago, they went down to the. 

BARNETT: She said, well, what's your name? And she typed it into the computer and she was like, you're right here, you can register for classes. And I was like, Are you kidding me? So I went right away and met with an advisor, Nathan Dimitrovich, who is amazing and awesome. Shout out to Nathan and to Emily Ferguson, who I was like, I don't know how I'm going to pay for this. I don't know how I'm going to do this. And Nathan and Emily literally said, we are going to get you to graduate. And they did. And so I got my bachelor's so that I could go do my Masters in healthcare administration. 

KINCH: But in the meantime, you had all this momentum around your work. So you might know now you have a goal, now you have a target. 

BARNETT: Yeah. My job was to be a better healthcare administrator within Indian Health. I just happened to choose a healthcare administration program that was an Ms. So it was a research program. So I had to do research as part of my Masters, and that's when I got the research bug. And then I was like, you know what? What has always frustrated me as a healthcare administrator, if a patient comes in with a substance use problem, I can have them see my doctor, I can have them see one of my counselors. And insurance, the federal payers, they'll all reimburse me for that. The minute I want that same patient to see a traditional practitioner, nothing money's off. They're like, no. And I knew that this work was effective. I knew that it worked, and I just needed to get the data behind it. And that was really the impetus for this PhD dissertation work, which then we got the funding we're able to bring on Julie, Jeff Peterson. So there was a four person team really digging in and getting the data that we needed to. 

CAHOON: Shane's background is absolutely fascinating. Just generally made me excited when I learned that he was going to in his current role, that he was taking that on, because he just has a very fresh perspective, and I like a reality based perspective on what people are dealing with. And so I just knew he'd be and he's been a good leader. He is a good leader. So it's just really exciting that he has this role and has been really incredible to work with him. So just plug that here for D’Shane.  

KINCH: That's great. 

BARNETT: Now I have to give her the $50. 

KINCH: So thank you so much for that and thank you for joining us on Confluence. It's been lovely to talk to you both. 

CAHOON: Yeah, thank you so much. It's very cool. 

BARNETT: Great to be here.