COIN HEALTHCARE NETWORK
Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations
The COIN Healthcare Network exists to protect, preserve, and promote the sovereignty, culture, and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples — carried into health. Community health workers from the community, traditional medicine beside modern clinical care, and priorities set by Indigenous leadership, not outside it.
The network's service lines, as designed in the COIN Healthcare Network plan. Lines marked in formation are being built with partners; lines delivered through CHW Workforce Development, Inc. are active in Boston today.
Indigenous and community members trained as CHWs — home visits, medicine adherence, housing navigation, and a trusted bridge between clinical medicine and cultural practice.
Delivered through CHW WorkforceHerbal healing, talking circles, and ceremony scheduled alongside modern treatment — not as an alternative to clinical care, but beside it, under Elders and healers.
In formationScreenings and steady management for diabetes, heart health, and the conditions that burden Indigenous families most — prevention first, before treatment.
In formationPeer support and counseling grounded in cultural safety — addiction recovery, mental-health support, and harm reduction led by people the community knows.
Delivered through CHW WorkforceMobile units and virtual visits that carry care to families where they are — designed for communities that distance and transportation have left underserved.
In formationFood is healthcare. Land-based food work with Indigenous partners — including the Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust partnership in development — feeding families and preventing disease at its root.
Partnership in developmentThe demo opens CHW Workforce Development's CERT Field Companion app in your browser — no sign-in, guest mode — where the Clinical Field Console lives. The app is a training and exercise tool for emergency preparedness, carried by the same workforce that delivers this Network's care.
Clinical Field Console — in the CERT Field Companion appThe console is a door inside the app — a training and exercise console, not a live clinical system for patient care.
Stylized preview — open the demo to step into the live app.
Massachusetts has only tested this so far: MassDOT Aeronautics ran medical-drone demonstrations in 2024, and Mass General Brigham with Draganfly flew proof-of-concept routes — test flights that did not deliver care. The Network does not offer drone delivery today.
The COIN Healthcare Network is designed as an integrated model: Indigenous governance at the top, a prevention-first standard of care, a trained community workforce delivering it, and the community itself as the measure of success.
Elders, healthcare leaders, and community representatives set every healthcare priority. The network answers to the Department of Health, Healing & Traditional Medicines and the Grand Council of Indigenous Nations — policy and control rest with the Nations, not external governments.
Traditional medicine — ceremony, herbal healing, talking circles — is integrated with modern clinical care in one plan of care, designed around the whole person and the family, not a single diagnosis.
Programs are built to keep people well: checkups, screenings, nutrition, recovery support, and family wellness activity come before crisis care. Prevention lowers suffering first — and cost with it.
Community health workers are the delivery layer: trained from within the community, culturally grounded, and present in homes and neighborhoods — addiction support, chronic disease management, mental-health peer support, and housing navigation.
The measure of the network is community impact: healthier families, care that families trust and actually use, and Indigenous institutions strong enough to carry that care for generations.
The network treats wellness the way Indigenous healing always has — as one whole, in four parts. Every care plan answers to all four.
Primary care, screenings, chronic disease management, nutrition, and movement — the body's health, tended steadily.
Counseling, recovery support, and peer care delivered with cultural safety — by people trained to listen first.
Talking circles, family support, and community connection — healing that happens in relationship, not isolation.
Ceremony, prayer, and traditional practice honored as medicine — protected space for the lifeways that carry a people.
A health network is only as real as the people who carry it. The COIN Healthcare Network is delivered in Boston through CHW Workforce Development, Inc. — a Massachusetts nonprofit that trains and fields certified community health workers across Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, including the Mass and Cass corridor.
The model is the message: community members are trained, certified, and employed to serve their own neighborhoods. CHWs bridge clinical medicine with cultural and traditional practice — they know the families, the blocks, and the barriers, because they live them.
That workforce is the network's foundation today, and its training pipeline is how the network grows: every cohort adds healers the community already trusts.
The Network is delivered through CHW Workforce Development, Inc. — and this is the team behind it: the officers who carry its training, its records, its finances, and its word in the community.
Founder & Executive Director of CHW Workforce Development, Inc. A Certified Community Health Worker, he leads the Network's Executive Office and Boston's CERT emergency-preparedness work.
Leads cohort instruction and field training. Thirteen years at Mass General Brigham in HR and Learning & Training, and she has facilitated programs for the Boston Public Health Commission.
Keeps the Network's records and administration in order.
Stewards the Network's finances.
As a member, you will receive a membership card — your key to the Network. The card is how a member signs into care and member services as the Network opens: shown at the door, it says this person belongs to the COIN Healthcare Network, and the Network stands behind them.
This is the membership outline — what a member receives as the Network opens. The Network is in formation: its lines of care come online in stages, and membership is how a person is signed into each of them as they open.
Begin with an application for membership in the Network.
Your membership card is issued to you as the Network opens its rolls.
Present your card to sign into care and member services across the Network.
Membership opens as the Network opens — members are signed in first as each line of care comes online.
The patient portal opens when the Network's first care services launch. The COIN Healthcare Network is in formation, and patient accounts are not yet available — there is nothing to sign in to today.
When the portal opens, members will sign in with their member card — your key to the Network — the same card a member presents to sign into care and member services across the Network.
Register your interest now, and we will notify you when the portal opens.
For FamiliesGrown-ups: do these together with your kids.
A calm-down game for feelings and focus. Breathe in slowly while you count to four. Hold it there. Then breathe out slowly. Slow and steady, like the turtle.
Reach tall to the sky. Stretch wide. Walk slow and steady. Moving and stretching is play — and play makes bodies strong.
Indigenous farmers have grown three foods together for a very long time: corn, beans, and squash. They are called the Three Sisters. Draw a plate — or build a real one — with all three on it. Corn gives us energy. Beans help build strong muscles. Squash is full of vitamins that help us grow.
Big helpers start small. Learn your home address and a grown-up's phone number. Wash your hands for 20 seconds — sing a little song while you scrub. And know when to call 911: only for real emergencies, when someone needs help right away.
The Network is built for whole families, not single patients. A family's care is held together — parents, children, and grandparents — with the member card as the household's key to the Network.
The care lines carry that family spirit: community health workers who know the household, food and nutrition for the whole table, and the Kids Corner above — simple, healthy things grown-ups and kids can do together.
Elders are honored in this Network as knowledge-keepers — the ones who carry the teachings the care is built on. The care lines answer to that standing: chronic disease and prevention and the wellness work are built with elders at the center, not as an afterthought.
Through CHW Workforce Development, preparedness teaching for seniors — the Seniors Prepared program, with large-print materials — is in preparation for February through April 2027.
Access for every body is part of the design, not an addition. The Mobile Care & Telehealth line is built to bring care to the person — care that comes to you, at home.
Step-free access is a design requirement for any future Network site, and the Network's materials are prepared in large print and accessible formats. The Network has no facility of its own today — access is being built in from the start.
The Healthcare Network sits under the Department of Health, Healing & Traditional Medicines — the sixth department of the Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations — whose mandate is wellness, traditional medicine, and health sovereignty, led by the Lead Healer and Wellness Elder.
Above the departments stands the Grand Council of Indigenous Nations, the Commonwealth's supreme body, with the Council of Elders advising on the spiritual, historical, and ethical questions in every branch.
COIN's structure is modeled on the wampum belt: departments are not a hierarchy but circles of responsibility and reciprocity, each accountable to the others and to the Nations they serve.
The Commonwealth's foundation is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) — self-determination, free, prior and informed consent, and the right of Indigenous peoples to their traditional medicines and health practices.
Under the Department of Health, Healing & Traditional Medicines, the Network is organized in nine departments — circles of responsibility, each with its own work.
Leads the Network; holds the seats, the partnerships, and the final word.
Trains community health workers and health educators; runs cohort instruction and field training.
Keeps the Network's records, correspondence, and membership rolls; issues and tracks member cards.
The delivery floor: CHWs in the field in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan — outreach, navigation, follow-up.
Screenings, wellness workshops, and healthy-behavior programs that keep people out of crisis.
Brings traditional healing practice into the care model as it comes online, under community guidance.
Rides to care, and food resources through the Indigenous Farmers Market.
Emergency-response training for elders and households; preparedness through the CERT-trained team.
Money in, money out, receipts, and the rules — grants, fiscal sponsorship, and reporting.
Our MarkThe turtle is the COIN Healthcare Network's primary mark — the gold Turtle Medallion, carried at the head of this page and on every member card; the sun is our secondary mark. For the Network, the turtle carries endurance, longevity, protection, and patience in healing — care that does not rush, and care that stays. The turtle also stands at the center of the Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations' flag, ringed by twelve diamonds for the twelve tribes.
In the teachings of many Indigenous nations of this continent, North America is known as Turtle Island. Creation teachings held by nations including the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe tell of the earth formed upon the back of a great turtle. The tradition holds the turtle among the oldest symbols of life on this continent — Mother Earth, survival through deep time, the world carried and protected.
An Indigenous-led health model on Turtle Island takes the turtle as its emblem: healing that endures, protection for the community, and medicine practiced with patience. That is the care this Network is being built to give — delivered through CHW Workforce Development, Inc.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 13, 2007. It is the international standard the Commonwealth names as its foundation — and the standard this Network is being built toward.
Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Indigenous individuals also have an equal right of access to all social and health services, and an equal right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health — and states shall take the necessary steps toward achieving the full realization of this right.
Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development — in particular, the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health programmes affecting them and, as far as possible, administering those programmes through their own institutions.
The American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the Organization of American States in 2016, carries the same commitment into this hemisphere, with its own provisions on health and traditional medicine.
The United States announced its support for UNDRIP in 2010. The Declaration is an aspirational standard, not a binding treaty, and it does not itself create enforceable claims. The COIN Healthcare Network works in the open, in compliance with the United States, building toward that standard: an Indigenous-led health model, delivered through CHW Workforce Development, Inc., where traditional medicine stands beside modern clinical care.
The COIN Healthcare Network sits under the Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations, and it carries the Commonwealth's recognition and honor for the Indigenous nations of the Northeast. Inclusion here is honor, not alliance: no nation listed is a member of, affiliated with, partnered with, or endorsed by COIN or this Network — partnerships will be marked on this map as they are confirmed.
The homelands of the Indigenous nations of Northeastern North America — Wabanaki country in the north and east, Abenaki country in the northern interior, Nipmuc and Massachusett country in the center, Wampanoag country on the southeast coast and the islands, Narragansett country on the bay, and Pequot–Mohegan country in the southeast woodlands. These are the nations the Commonwealth recognizes and honors. Recognition status shown here is each nation's standing with the United States and state governments, taken from public sources — see the Nations page and the sources note.
Reference layers for this map: the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs tribal directory and Eastern Region listings; the Massachusetts Commission on Indian Affairs; the Connecticut DEEP Tribal Affairs listings; the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs; and Native Land Digital (native-land.ca), the Indigenous-led territory map, for detailed homeland boundaries. Homeland areas on this stylized map are approximate and honorific — drawn from public educational sources, not surveyed boundaries.
Gold — Federally recognized · Teal — State recognized · Stone — Honored, not federally or state recognized
The Wampanoag of Mashpee — the People of the First Light — have governed themselves on Cape Cod since long before the Commonwealth existed. The Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations honors the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's endurance and its continued stewardship of the Cape.
From the clay cliffs of Aquinnah, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head has kept its nation on the island for thousands of years — its federal recognition came through an Act of Congress in 1987. The Commonwealth honors Aquinnah's sovereignty and its guardianship of the island's western shore.
The Mohegan Tribe — Wolf People — carries one of the oldest continuous governments in the Northeast. The Commonwealth honors the Mohegan Tribe's sovereignty, its language and lifeways work, and its standing among the nations of the Eastern Woodlands.
Descendants of the Pequot of the 1638 treaty era, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation rebuilt on its ancestral land and won federal recognition through the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Land Claims Settlement Act of 1983. The Commonwealth honors that return and the nation's museum and research center, which teaches the whole region its true history.
The Narragansett — People of the Small Point — are the aboriginal people of what is now Rhode Island, recognized by federal Act of Congress in 1983. The Commonwealth honors the Narragansett Indian Tribe's sovereignty and its annual August gathering, among the oldest recorded in the nation.
The Penobscot Nation governs from Indian Island on the river that bears its name — a Wabanaki nation allied in the Wabanaki Confederacy since before contact. The Commonwealth honors the Penobscot Nation's sovereignty and its defense of the Penobscot River itself.
The Peskotomuhkati — Passamaquoddy, the Pollock People — hold two communities on the Schoodic River and Passamaquoddy Bay, with a treaty relationship reaching back to 1794. The Commonwealth honors the Passamaquoddy Tribe's sovereignty in both its communities.
The Wolastoqiyik — Maliseet, People of the Beautiful River — were the first of Maine's tribes recognized under the 1980 settlement era. The Commonwealth honors the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians' sovereignty along the northern border country.
The Mi'kmaq Nation of Maine — federally recognized as the Aroostook Band of Micmacs — holds the northern reach of the Commonwealth's region, part of the great Mi'kma'ki homeland. The Commonwealth honors the Mi'kmaq Nation's sovereignty and its language and cultural renewal.
The Nipmuc — People of the Fresh Water — are the nation of central Massachusetts, with the Hassanamisco Reservation in Grafton among the oldest continuously held tribal lands in New England. The Nipmuc Nation is recognized by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts under Executive Order 126 of 1976; the Bureau of Indian Affairs declined federal acknowledgment in 2004. The Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations honors the Nipmuc Nation's endurance at Hassanamisco. (The Hassanamisco Nipmuc Band, which withdrew from the Nipmuc Nation umbrella in 2022, maintains its own council and site.)
The Herring Pond Wampanoag have lived at Herring Pond since before the Mayflower — a community that endured for centuries without formal recognition, granted state recognition by Governor Healey's Executive Order 637 on November 19, 2024. The Commonwealth honors the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe's recognition, hard-won and long deserved.
The Eastern Pequot hold one of the oldest continuously occupied reservations in America — set aside in 1683 on Lantern Hill. Connecticut recognizes the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation under state law; its federal recognition, granted in 2002, was reversed in 2005. The Commonwealth honors the Eastern Pequot's unbroken presence on its own ground.
The Schaghticoke hold a state reservation of some 278 acres in Kent, recognized by Connecticut under state law; federal recognition granted in 2004 was reversed in 2005. The Commonwealth honors the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation's persistence in the Housatonic valley.
The Golden Hill Paugussett hold the quarter-acre Trumbull reservation — among the smallest in the nation, held since 1659 — and a second reservation in Colchester. Connecticut recognizes the nation under state law. The Commonwealth honors the Golden Hill Paugussett's hold on its ancestral ground.
The Missisquoi Abenaki — the St. Francis-Sokoki Band — are the Abenaki of the lake's eastern shore, recognized by the State of Vermont in 2012 under the state's recognition law. The Commonwealth honors the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi and its seat at Swanton.
The Nulhegan Band carries the Coosuk Abenaki homeland of the upper Connecticut and Nulhegan rivers, recognized by Vermont in 2011 — among the first under the state's recognition law. The Commonwealth honors the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation.
The Koasek — People of the Pines — hold the Cowas intervale country of the upper Connecticut River, recognized by Vermont in 2012. The Commonwealth honors the Koasek Traditional Band of the Koas Abenaki Nation.
Elnu — "human being" — is the Abenaki community of southern Vermont, recognized by the state in 2011. The Commonwealth honors the Elnu Abenaki Tribe and its teaching of Abenaki lifeways in the southern Green Mountains.
The nations below hold no federal or state recognition today. They are documented, historic peoples of this region, and the Commonwealth honors them as such — stated plainly, with no recognition claimed that the record does not support.
The Massachusett are the people who gave this Commonwealth its very name — the people of Neponset and Ponkapoag, of the Charles and the harbor islands. The Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations honors the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag first among the honored nations of this region: the original hosts of the ground Boston stands on.
The Pocasset Wampanoag of the Pokanoket Nation descend from the people of the Watuppa Reservation, set apart in the seventeenth century and held in Fall River and Freetown to this day; their land trust has returned hundreds of acres to Indigenous stewardship. The Commonwealth honors the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation and its land-back work.
The Assonet Band carries the Wampanoag community of Assonet Neck in Freetown — a documented people of the reservation era who kept their identity through every century since. The Commonwealth honors the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation.
The Assawompsett-Nemasket Band descends from the Wampanoag praying towns of Assawompsett and Nemasket, between the great ponds of Lakeville and Middleborough. The Commonwealth honors the band's keeping of those pond-country homelands.
The Chappaquiddick Wampanoag descend from the sachemship of Chappaquiddick Island, organized today as a tribal nonprofit with its council in Hyde Park, Boston. The Commonwealth honors the Chappaquiddick Tribe of the Wampanoag Indian Nation — an island people now standing in the city as well.
The Seaconke Wampanoag hold the homeland of Seekonk and the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay — the seat of the Pokanoket country in Metacom's time. The Commonwealth honors the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe's keeping of that shore.
The Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc are the people of the great lake whose name the town of Webster still carries — a documented Nipmuc band community of the southern Worcester County borderland. The Commonwealth honors the Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuc.
The COIN Healthcare Network carries its legal foundations in the open. The Network is the health model of the Commonwealth of Indigenous Nations — COIN, founded in the Northeastern Commonwealth on a twelve-tribe structure, and it is delivered on the ground through CHW Workforce Development, Inc., a Massachusetts nonprofit corporation. That is how this work stands in United States law: a real health mission, carried by a real, filed, accountable organization.
We work with our government, not against it. The Network exists inside the law of the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — filing, reporting, and answering to the same laws as every other organization here.
Our foundation is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the United States announced its support for on December 16, 2010. The Declaration is a statement of rights and principles — it is not a treaty, and it does not create legal status. The rights it names for health are set out in the Foundations section above; this section states where the Network itself stands in law.
At the United Nations, our family stands in the civil-society doorway: the Al Mahdi Dynasty Trust — the house COIN sits under — holds a profile in the UN DESA Civil Society database, accepted October 1, 2026. In the United Nations' own words, that listing "does not imply any accreditation status with the United Nations." We publish that sentence ourselves. COIN's own United Nations profile is in preparation, and we will describe it only when its acceptance letter exists.
Our standing under United States law. Federal recognition of an Indian tribe is conferred only by the United States — by an Act of Congress, by the federal acknowledgment process at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (25 C.F.R. Part 83), or by a federal court. We claim no status that has not been conferred. We honor the laws that protect Indigenous peoples and culture — the Indian Reorganization Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, the law that requires anything sold as Indian produced to be exactly that. In Massachusetts, the Commission on Indian Affairs (M.G.L. c. 6A, § 8A) carries the Commonwealth's own work with Indigenous nations, and we respect that structure for what it is.
This section is documentation, not legal advice. Every claim on this page traces to a document that can be shown.
The COIN Healthcare Network does not charge for consultation or for direction to care. The Network is in formation; it is not a hospital, clinic, or insurance plan, and it does not provide emergency care. In an emergency, call 911.
Community members, health partners, and Nations interested in the network reach it through its delivery arm. Plain and direct — the same way care should work.
The Network is reached through its delivery arm, CHW Workforce Development, Inc. — 139 Charles Street, Suite 171, Boston, MA 02114. Its community health workers serve Roxbury · Dorchester · Mattapan, including the Mass and Cass corridor.
Patient accounts are not yet available — the Patient Portal section of this page states its status plainly. When the Network's first care services launch, members will be signed in first, in the order registrations of interest were received.
Consultation and direction to care — available today. The Network’s community health workers will sit with you, hear what you need, and direct you to healthcare — clinics, programs, and services that fit. Delivered through CHW Workforce Development, Inc. There is no charge for consultation or for direction to care.
The Network is not an emergency service. The map and list below show the hospitals and community health centers serving the Network's home neighborhoods — Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. Save the one nearest you before you need it.
Map centered on Nubian Square, Roxbury — the Network's home ground. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. View larger map
Clinics provide everyday and follow-up care. For a medical emergency, call 911 or go to a hospital emergency department.