David Quackenbush (Host): Hello, and welcome to the Golden Voices Podcast, a journey of health and healing from Golden Valley Health Centers. I'm David Quackenbush, your host, President and CEO of Golden Valley Health Centers. And I have Yamilet here with us today who's our Director of Government and Community Affairs, but she's much more than that. And we're going to have a conversation about her journey, and probably the thread that runs through her journey is her advocacy. And the advocacies always done for the communities we serve and the communities she has served in her career. So, Yamilet, welcome.

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: Thank you for having me. It's really exciting to be able to be part of this Golden Voices Podcast.

Host: Thanks for making time for us. So, why don't we just start by you introducing yourself? And tell us a little bit about your background, especially kind of growing up in the Central Valley.

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: Sure. So, as you mentioned, I'm the Director of Government and Community Affairs here at Golden Valley Health Centers. I grew up here in the Central Valley precisely where we're at. I grew up in a community where many, many families worked very hard just to get by. I'm the daughter of immigrant parents, like many people here in the valley. And healthcare was often something that people worried about instead of something that they could really rely on.

So, growing up here in the valley, that was something that I can definitely remember where people would sometimes delay going to the doctor, because they weren't really sure how to access it. They didn't really have insurance or thought they couldn't really afford it, or maybe they didn't even know where to go.

So for many people, healthcare felt like something that was very complicated and out of reach. And so, I remember growing up in that environment as a daughter of farm worker parents, we had insurance about five, six months out of the year when my parents were at ConAgra. So as a young person growing up, healthcare was something that we really had during the time we had insurance, to go to the dentist or go to the doctor for that checkup. But being able to access it on the regular when you're sick, a lot of times people just relied on, you know, home remedies, right?

So, like a lot of people, we kind of grew up that way until I remember clearly, Golden Valley Health Center showed up here in Modesto, California, where I live. I was very young. I remember my mom, she mentioned, I don't remember her going to these meetings. But now, as we grew up and I decided to really dedicate my life into healthcare, my mom mentioned that it was in the school that I used to go to, the elementary school, which we have a school-based health center there now, but they started having these meetings where they would ask parents, "Hey, do you think that we would benefit from having a clinic in this area? And if you do think that we would benefit from that, can we have you all show up and, you know, sign up to ask for this?" So since then, there was advocacy in my family without even knowing it around healthcare. And so, it was my mom who was showing up. She didn't drive then. She would walk to school, to our school to walk us, drop us off and attend these meetings. And she would, like I said, start that advocacy of ensuring that there was a clinic close by. Because for people like my mom that didn't drive or had those language barriers or that we only had insurance certain times, where else would people go? So when she would hear about clinics like ours, I mean, it's so exciting now when you fast forward that I work for Golden Valley Health Centers, the actual health center that started their journey here through advocacy, through parents' advocacy.

Host: I want to talk about that a little bit more, but let me go back for a second. Because, you know, we have colleagues and we knew our patient's that have periodic health insurance coverage, right? And we're entering into a period of time where, you know, Golden Valley still sees uninsured, but the majority of our patient's are part of the Medi-Cal program. And because what's happening at the federal and state level, a lot of our folks are going to fall off Medi-Cal and become uninsured.

I'm just curious, and you might not remember exactly, but I'm just curious, when you had the health insurance coverage for six months as a child, how was your life different or how did that impact the day-to-day? Because as you mentioned, you have to kind of bunch up all of the doctor visits or healthcare visits within a certain period of time. Do you have any specific memories about how that actually impacted, like your day-to-day or your family's day-to-day? Because, you know, obviously—well, not obviously—but you have several siblings too, so I'm sure you were all kind of trying to deal with this periodic healthcare.

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: I think, as a young person, I didn't really have the words for it yet, but I knew that something wasn't right. And I saw how health problems affected entire families, not just mine. People were getting their limbs removed due to diabetes, like, "Oh yeah, my grandpa, You know, he's in the hospital. They removed a toe." Or you would hear about these stories like, "Oh my God, why did they do this?" Or parents would have to miss work because they were sick or children were missing school at our school.

I remember there was a young girl that had diabetes when I was growing up. And I remember her having to go to the nurse very often, having to, you know, to be treated. And I thought, "Oh my God, that would be very stressful to have something like that, because who would we go to?" You know, we knew that—I think, as a child, you knew that you could only get sick during this time, because we would hear our parents talk about those things. Like, "Oh, this is when we have to go to the dentist. This is when we have to go to the optometrist. This is when we have to go to the doctor." So, that means you could only get sick during this time, until community clinics came to this area. I would definitely say that's when people started realizing that there was other organizations such as Golden Body Health Centers that were able to help support the community, regardless of their ability to pay, whether they had insurance or not, where if it was outside that date, they were able to help in their language. I mean, I can talk about my personal experience, you know, the language barriers or the transportation barriers that people face. That was a huge one. People would end up in the hospital, and that's a huge concern that we have now. When people don't have insurance or don't have means to be able to treat these chronic diseases, it's more of a burden on the healthcare system because they end up at the emergency room rather than in a primary care setting, like we have, like community clinics have.

Host: Yeah. We talk about that all the time, where folks who are uninsured, they just delay care. Then, they come in and they impact the system where, you know, they have to come in for whatever the reason they show up. And then, there tends to be multiple referrals and labs and pharmacy and everything else; where, if there was more of a preventive or constant effort to stay healthy, it would, you know, be less impactful to the system, but it would also be much, much less impactful to the family themselves.

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: Exactly.

Host: So, it's obvious your mother and this community work impacted your perspective on advocating for your own health, insurance, and healthcare. I'm just curious, because you've made it a career essentially. You know, you've worked for Golden Valley for years, but you've been doing advocacy type work for probably the bulk of your career. And as you know, you have a job. But then being an advocate really doesn't start and stop with the job. And also, you being you, being just a very passionate, motivated individual, you kind of go 24/7.

I would like for you to talk a little bit about when you were coming up and you were going to school and you were thinking about employment or how it even came about to your mind. When did you think about advocacy was always going to be a part of what you were going to do? I mean, do you remember a moment? Was it just because of your childhood? Talk about how you knew advocacy was going to be a part of your job, you know, once you became employed.

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: So, I didn't really know. I think that, like I said, I didn't really have a word for it. I remember when I was in high school, I started working for the local bank that was really close to school. And the memories I have about working in the financial services industry is how much I enjoyed working with people that lacked the financial literacy. So, I loved talking about the difference between a checking and a savings account, how to establish credit, why it's important to save for retirement. And I realized that my favorite part of my work was helping people gain knowledge, have those aha moments like, "Oh," you know, and people that looked like me or looked like my parents that needed that information. I'm a believer and I feel that God places us in places we need to be when we need to be.

So through banking, I was able to also learn myself all those three things that I mentioned, you know, the importance of checking our savings and why it's important to save for retirement, why it's important to establish your credit, what does it even mean. But like I said, from those things is where we learn, from experience. Those are the ones that shape us. And I learned I really like helping people. I like presenting, I like doing presentations, and I like sitting with people and just really explaining to them and seeing how their eyes would light up.

So, that journey, I did that while I was going to college. And my undergraduate is business So, you know, it just matched, right? But then, afterwards, I felt like I was missing something. So, I actually left my banking job after 15 years that I was working from bank teller all the way to a bank officer. After 15 years, I was tapped and recruited to work at a social services agency called El Concilio here in Stanislaus County.

Host: How did that happen? Like, you worked at the bank for a long time, which you could have easily made that a career, because you already were there for so long and you promoted up and you learned a lot. I mean, did someone find you? How were you connected? How did you end up making the move to a social service agency

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: Right. I mean, how did this happen? So, I have a really good friend, her name is Maria Handley. We grew up together. As teenagers, she always knew she wanted to be an attorney. And as a matter of fact, she's my neighbor now. She's right across the street, in the office next door. And when we grew up, we reconnected and she brought me in because she realized how much I loved working with people, how much I love connecting with people. She brought me into what was called the Hispanic Leadership Council Meetings, and those were on Friday mornings at seven o'clock. It was like a coffee meeting and you would just kind of discuss different issues going on and different issues affecting the Latino community.

So from that is where my hunger to learn more and to really dedicate myself to expanding opportunities in leadership and education helping people bridge some of those barriers that people are faced with, especially Latinos, like by myself, my families. And then, I started meeting and connecting with different folks there. So, that's how I got tapped.

The director at that time was going to be leaving, and she spoke to the executive director. And so, I received a phone call just really randomly one day. And they said that two people have spoken to them about me and they really wanted to meet me and talk to me about this opportunity. And so, again, definitely, I have a lot of faith that God puts us in places we need to be, when we need to be. And so, that took me to El Concilio Social Services Agency that focused on education, immigration, health, and resources. They were just establishing a financial literacy component.

So, they got me with the financial literacy component saying, "You know, you'd be able to have financial literacy classes in your center." And so, I thought, "This sounds like a great, opportunity." And I took it. I went with it. I ran with it. And some of the things that I learned there is all those topics that I mentioned, the injustices that people were facing. And when I talk about people is we would help a lot of underserved communities. So, I started really connecting and learning people's stories. And I think that was the most powerful thing that I had from there, like listening, learning their stories, and what could we do to advocate for these issues that they were facing around these areas.

There was a lot and it was heavy, you know, at times going to work there. But I learned so much. And that's when I learned about advocacy and I learned about the power of carrying people's voices in spaces where they are not there. You know, being able to carry their stories and their voices in spaces where they're on the menu, but there's no representation from that community there. And so, it's a huge responsibility that I learned at that time.

Host: So, I mean, obviously, you really got bit by the advocacy bug. And for us, you know, for Golden Valley, you're obviously the Government and Community Affairs, and advocacy is all part of it.

But I wanted to make sure we talked a bit about the next gen, right? Because you feel so strongly about advocacy that you went as far as starting an advocacy leadership academy here at Golden Valley. And it's really kind of turned into, I don't know, an internal advocate recruiting process or something, because what we talk about all the time is every staff person at a health center, at a community health center is an advocate either for their community, their patient, or a service or what have you. And that's one of your pride and joys here. So, why don't you talk about the importance of training and finding future advocates?

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: Well, I think it's really critical and important of sharing these gifts with others. I think part of our responsibility is to leave this world a better place for our young people or our next leaders, right? And I think it's important to build those bridges. So, we have to really share that and ensure that people, first, they have to start with their why. I think it's important that they understand why they want to pursue those paths of advocacy. We all have a different story, like we all have our different purpose. But then, when we start sharing our stories, when we start sharing our whys, we start connecting. People start realizing, "Okay, This is bigger than me." I'm not only advocating for me, but also my colleague. I learned their story. I'm not only advocating for them, I'm also advocating for our patients or my neighbors.

So, I think that's really important to be able to have something of this nature, like an advocacy leadership academy. Not a lot of community health centers have something like this. It really comes to the support from leadership. I think that, in this case, the executive leadership that you brought to the table, knowing the importance of advocacy and how it impacts the communities and the patient's that we serve, being able to invest in this advocacy leadership academy has definitely been something very valuable, because I've seen, from the moment—we're in our second cohort. Sometimes when they're first meeting to our last session, which it's a total of four sessions. And then, our fifth session, we actually end up going to the capitol and advocating with our lawmakers. But you can see them transform. You can see our team members transform and realize that they don't have to wait until they feel ready because nobody feels completely ready. They realize that growth just happens while they're learning and doing, and how it's important to use their story as strength or bring other stories because our backgrounds and experiences are strengths. And they shape our perspective and ability. And they also allow us to realize that we belong in these spaces.

It's important that we are in these spaces because we're not representing ourselves. We're representing so much more than that. And I see that in the advocates as they graduate and as they go and talk about the different efforts or different themes or different topics that we're discussing with our lawmakers or with other entities, community leaders, or different people that they connect with in community.

I also see how important it is for them to listen to people that they want to serve, because the real true impact is in understanding about like having empathy for others and understanding the real needs. I think too many times we think we know what people need. But then, we don't take the time to listen. So, part of the Advocacy Leadership Academy is that. Also, to listen and hear what are the issues, so that we are able to convey that in conversations where they are not there at the table, but we are carrying their voices.

Host: Thank you for that. The last question I wanted to ask is always a difficult question to ask because, You know, where we're at in our reality today as a community health center, we serve a lot of low-income families. And many of our families are under several threats currently.

And advocacy is, you know, that much more important today than as it always has been. But, you know, in a time where, you know, more and more low-income families are, you know, essentially losing their coverage. And the constant direct threats on the immigrant communities, especially undocumented families that we serve on a daily basis.

How do you—and I don't even know if this is a good question. I don't even know if there's a really good answer to this. But you tend to—you don't tend to—you are a very positive person, which actually makes you very impactful in your job. What have you taken from your personal journey and how do you articulate that to others to continue to focus on helping folks that are under threat, losing their coverage, losing their care? I mean, what advice would you have for people entering into this career?

But as you know, all of us, those of us, like you and I, who've been doing this for decades, you know, we need our periodic pep talks also to keep us positive and focused on the burden we carry. What would you say or what advice would you give to folks that are in this world with us trying to support folks that you've learned from your journey, that you would want to convey to folks that are, you know, trying to continue to fight the good fight and take care of folks?

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: I think that it's important to take care of ourselves as well. We need to be healthy in order to represent. And when I say healthy, I'm not talking just about our healthcare, but also our behavior health, emotional wellbeing. I think it's very critical to check in. And it's important to find mentors and support, seeking guidance and building relationship with others, that have the same goals that we have because nobody succeeds alone.

There's a saying that says that we are the average of the five people that we surround ourselves with, and I think it's very important that we realize those things. I have a very strong support system that allows me to have like a bouncing board. Like, hey, if there's something that I don't understand or something that I'm grappling with, I have a support system that I can reach out to. So, it's important to also have that support system.

And I think I mentioned this a little bit while ago, but believe that you belong. I think it's important that people realize that their voice and their perspectives matter, that they deserve to be in spaces where decisions are being made. So, show up knowing that you belong there. It's critical that, as we can grow into our careers, that we believe also in giving back along the way, helping others is part of our journey. We do not have to wait to make a difference. We can make a difference by advocating, by creating space like this advocacy leadership academy that was something that is such a wonderful key piece. It is important too to give back, whether it's internally in your organization or outside of your organization.

At the end of the day, I think that we need to stay true to our purpose. We should never let fear stop us and truly remember that our story is really what shapes us and matters, and encourage others to tell their story. You know, find your passion to help others. And when once we find the things that give us joy, that means we're already on the right path. And that's what healthcare does to me. You know, I'm able to realize that there's a lot of injustices in healthcare and being able to work for an organization that is here to advocate for others and that truly believes in providing healthcare access to everyone, regardless of their background, immigration, insurance language barriers, financial barriers. That really brings me great joy. It's not just a job anymore. It's like a part of my life. And so, I think I mentioned earlier that we need to leave this world a better place than we found it, and I'm hoping that that's what I will do as I transition out of this world.

Host: Thank you for that. That's a good place to end it. So, thank you for joining the Golden Voices podcast. We appreciate your time and we appreciate your passion.

Yamilet Valladolid, MPH: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Host: Thank you.