Featured Intern: Sean Smith, Behavior Health Integration

This week we feature Sean Smith, who serves CCUIH in multiple capacities. As a Behavioral Health Integration Intern, Sean has been valuable in providing clinical prospectives to the behavioral health integration advocacy we engage in on behalf of Urban Indian health organizations. And given his background in providing clinical support as a social worker, he has provided useful context in understanding providers’ role in substance abuse and mental health treatment and how they fit in to the current Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) landscape. Sean has also participated in CPCA Provider Network calls representing Urban Indian programs.

Learn More about Sean in his own words:

I am a recent graduate of the University of Michigan where I completed my Masters in Social Work. At U of M, I studied Mental Health and Integrated Healthcare. As an MSW Intern, I was able to work with the diverse Urban Indian community in Southwest Detroit. Prior to this, I completed my BA at the University of New Mexico in Linguistics where I worked on a team of educators, students, and community activists to advance language revitalization efforts for the Tohono O’odham tribe of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.

I first became interested in CCUIH because of the strength of their advocacy campaigns for Urban Indians. My experience working in American Indian communities, rural and urban, has shown me the depth of health inequities faced by American Indian people. I knew that CCUIH would give me the tools to grow into a better advocate to eliminate these inequities.

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