Category: Podcast

Podcast episode 26: Mike Matson

Posted on by Nancy McCready

Welcome to the Pioneers in Health podcast. In this podcast, we share inspiring stories of pioneering leaders from our nation and from your backyard who are working to improve health.

In episode 26, we interview Mike Matson. He is a lifelong Kansan whose career has touched various aspects of communications: radio and TV news, press secretary to a governor, systems advocacy, newspaper columnist, deejay and podcast/radio talk show host.

He also has authored two books that center on alcoholism – one a family memoir of growing up in an alcoholic home and one about his own story of addiction.

Today, Mike is semi-retired but hosts a live daily radio talk show/podcast created to foster critical thinking and writes a column for his local newspaper, the Manhattan Mercury.

In this episode, he discusses his journey into broadcasting and his early career as a radio and news TV reporter. He went on to work as a political reporter, which led to a new chapter in his career in government and politics.

That experience and interest in politics ultimately led to a position working in politics himself. He decided to leave a successful career as a journalist to join Bill Graves’ gubernatorial campaign in the mid-90s.

“I was getting a steady paycheck every two weeks. I was doing a great job. I loved the work. And I was giving all that up for something as iffy as a political campaign,” he said. “It felt right at the time, and as it turned out, he did get elected.”

Graves became the 43rd governor of Kansas in 1994, and Mike became his communications director. He shares how seeing that government could serve as a force for good drew him to the public sector and what it was like working in politics at that time.

He also discusses:

  • Working for the Kansas Farm Bureau and his communications efforts for the organization, especially in rural communities
  • The changing demographics in rural Kansas, including communities becoming older and more culturally diverse
  • His experience in advocacy
  • His challenges with substance use
  • The two books he’s authored, including a family memoir called “Spifflicated,” and a book called “Courtesy Boy” about his experience with addiction as an alcoholic

 And much more! Listen now, and learn more about how Mike has been an innovative leader in Kansas.

Listen now

Listen below or on any of your favorite podcast services. Like and subscribe to stay up-to-date with each new episode!

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Please see the Pioneers in Health page on our website for more information on our podcast series and links to other episodes.  

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Podcast episode 24: Becca Graves

Posted on by Nancy McCready

Welcome to the Pioneers in Health podcast. In this podcast, we share inspiring stories of pioneering leaders from our nation and from your backyard who are working to improve health.

In episode 24, we interview Becca Graves, executive director at Perigee Fund. The Perigee Fund is a philanthropy that focuses on increasing support for families impacted by trauma. It invests in systems change to ensure that during pregnancy and early childhood, more families receive healing programs, services and resources that protect and nurture their unfolding relationships. 

In this episode, Becca discusses her economic mindset and a twist of fate that led to her working in philanthropy.

She discusses how in a previous role she was part of many conversations where people discussed the long-term impact of childhood trauma on adults or how to support high school students who had experienced early trauma.

“I was always in the room thinking, why are we not doing something earlier?” Becca said.

And then she was introduced to Lisa Mennet, PhD, and founder of Perigee Fund. At Perigee, they work on addressing perinatal and early childhood mental health.

“Mental health begins before birth, and the well-being of parents as they expect a child is incredibly important.”

– Becca Graves

Becca discusses the importance of this and how it’s critical to address mental health during pregnancy, as it’s not only important for the parents, but it’s also where mental health for a child begins.

“Mental health begins before birth, and the well-being of parents as they expect a child is incredibly important,” she said. “Maternal mental health complications during pregnancy and postpartum are incredibly common. Maternal depression is the one of the original ACEs. And, largely, maternal mental health complications are preventable and treatable.”

ACEs refers to Adverse Childhood Experience score, which is derived from a questionnaire that measures exposure to different types of adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, neglect or household dysfunction.

“Addressing the well-being of children absolutely starts with their caregivers,” Becca said.

Perinatal mental health specialists are few and far between, she said, so she said they’ve invested in perinatal psychiatry around the country for physicians.

She also discussed Perigee’s efforts to affect policies and system change, which often centers on efforts to treat the baby and caregiver as a family unit instead of as individuals. At this stage of life, the relationship between the two is critically important.

“They should receive care that is connected,” she said. “There is a phrase in the infant mental health world that there’s no such thing as a baby on its own. It’s always a baby and a caregiver together. So, a lot of the policy innovation can be very, very specific to changing practice to serve the family as a unit.”

In this episode, she also discusses:

  • Her journey to working at the Perigee Fund
  • Perigee’s approach to mental health
  • How addressing the well-being of children starts with addressing the caregivers’ well-being; she mentions the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up home-visiting program, a model the Health Fund supported to determine its efficacy in Kansas
  • How health insurance, including the public health insurance program Medicaid, is critical for helping mothers and babies
  • The importance of nurturing the bond between parents and their child
  • The benefits of doulas
  • Projects they are investing in
  • What makes her hopeful right now

 And much more! Listen now, and learn more about how Becca is an innovative leader helping improve the health of infants, young children and families.

Listen now

Listen below or on any of your favorite podcast services. Like and subscribe to stay up-to-date with each new episode!

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Please see the Pioneers in Health page on our website for more information on our podcast series and links to other episodes.  

View other episodes

Podcast episode 23: Brenda Sharpe

Posted on by Nancy McCready

Welcome to the Pioneers in Health podcast. In this podcast, we share inspiring stories of pioneering leaders from our nation and from your backyard who are working to improve health.

In episode 23, we interview Brenda Sharpe, president and CEO, of REACH Healthcare Foundation. REACH is a charitable organization based in Overland Park, Kansas, that focuses on improving health coverage and access to quality, affordable care for uninsured and medically underserved communities. Brenda has overseen the organization since its inception more than 20 years ago.

In this episode, she discusses the evolution of her career and what led her to working for a mission-driven organization.

“I am not sure if my career chose me, or I chose my career,” she said. “I have always had a heart for service to other people, and I’ve only ever worked in the nonprofit sector.”

At REACH, her team focuses on a six-county service area in Kansas and Missouri. They provide grants to organizations and governmental agencies to advance REACH’s mission of health equity. She highlighted their efforts to help people enroll in publicly available health programs in order to reduce the number of uninsured residents.

She also discusses REACH’s commitment to racial equity. In 2019, they launched an initiative called Centering Black Voices to learn more about how they could better serve Black-and-Brown led and/or serving organizations. She shared lessons they’ve learned and changes they’ve made to their grantmaking processes as a result of this initiative.

She also discusses in depth the importance of Medicaid, which is a public health insurance program that provides the state’s lowest-income parents, children, seniors and people with disabilities health coverage. Congress is currently considering $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid in order to help fund more than $4 trillion in tax cuts sought by the presidential administration.

To better understand how such deep cuts could impact Kansas, she shared how REACH recently partnered with the Health Fund to commission a report that showed how four different legislative proposals could impact Kansas’ budget and enrollees.

The report and modeling, conducted by Manatt Health, showed the state would lose millions in the first year and billions over 10 years, as well as how thousands — including children — could lose their health insurance.

“I was so deeply alarmed when I heard about the proposed cuts that were starting to be discussed in Congress around Medicaid, as if it’s just some kind of a small, one-off program rife with abuse and fraud and doesn’t really have a lot of use in practical society, when absolutely the opposite is true,” Brenda said. “It’s such a critical program for Kansans.”

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE

The report highlights how the cuts could hurt Kansas hospitals, which already are struggling financially and rely on Medicaid reimbursement dollars to help keep their doors open. Kansas already has more hospitals at immediate risk of closure than any other state in the nation.

She said it’s important for state and federal lawmakers to understand what damage could happen to Kansas should these cuts get approved.

“They are getting ready to vote on something that is potentially going to do tremendous harm to their constituents and to their state,” Brenda said, “and they’re going to have to decide if funding tax cuts to the extent that’s being proposed is worth it to do that on the backs of their own constituents and hospitals and the health care system and safety net that we have in the state of Kansas.”

She also discusses:

  • The history and mission of REACH Healthcare Foundation
  • The importance of access to health insurance
  • The impact significant cuts to Medicaid could have on Kansas
  • How Medicaid cuts could impact hospitals
  • How budgets are impacted by Medicaid cuts and what may happen if cities decide to raise or use tax dollars to keep their local hospitals open
  • Access to health care, including mental health care, especially in rural Kansas

 And much more! Listen now, and learn more about how Breanda is an innovative leader improving the health of Kansans.

Listen now

Listen below or on any of your favorite podcast services. Like and subscribe to stay up-to-date with each new episode!

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Please see the Pioneers in Health page on our website for more information on our podcast series and links to other episodes.  

View other episodes

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