Alaska Area
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium will provide suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention services that contribute to an enhanced infrastructure of addressing suicide in Alaska through activities that achieve the following goals: 1) provide culturally supplemented evidence-based trainings on suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention to tribal communities; 2) develop suicide prevention awareness, education and outreach resources oriented for youth; 3) enhance the infrastructure of the Alaska tribal health system through policy development and continuity of care.
Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. – Purpose Area 2
The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. (APIA) provides Mental Health First Aid training events including ‘train the trainer’ as a function of implementing strategies for prevention, intervention, and postvention for suicide among elders. Additionally, APIA hosts ongoing elder tea support groups to foster a traditional and culturally appropriate setting for elders to meet and have access to clinicians. Through documented stories and gatherings APIA creates digital and print campaigns, “Embracing the Changing Tides” to focus on value and strategies to embrace and cultivate communities where aging is honored and at the heart of a thriving community.
Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. – Purpose Area 4
The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. (APIA) will use evidence-based, practice-based, and culturally appropriate approaches to promote positive development and self-efficacy in youth, as well as encourage and facilitate family engagement to access substance abuse and suicide prevention activities. The project organizes culturally and socially relevant, physically active and healthy youth events, and hosts smaller promotional events and suicide and substance misuse prevention education to complement ongoing Health and Wellness Fairs in the region.
Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation
The Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation (BBAHC) Mending Our Nets project is designed to be a response to a regional need for suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention services. BBAHC uses many ways to provide these services and does not restrict themselves to only clinical and therapeutic services. BBAHC: 1) fosters collaboration with local, regional, and state agencies; and 2) engages the regional communities through an empowering process that is more culturally and socially sustainable by holding cultural activities and training, for staff and community members.
Chugachmiut
The Chugachmiut Suicide Prevention Project funds the 24/7 Crisis Line serving the vast region of Alaska stretching from Cordova to Seward to the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula. The project provides clothing emblazoned with the Crisis Line phone number to those with the greatest need within the region.
Cook Inlet Tribal Council
Cook Inlet Tribal Council (CITC) partners with Knik Tribe to support a year-round academic and cultural support afterschool program for middle and high school students, in addition to seasonal culture camps where youth participate in academic skill building and cultural activities. CITC also partners with Chickaloon Village Traditional Council to support the funding of a Behavioral Health Aide who provides services to address co-occurring disorders, substance use, and intergenerational trauma experienced by tribal citizens and Alaska Native youth in the CNV Tribal School, community, and broader rural service area. A full-time Prevention Coordinator coordinates and provides direct service activities to youth through Burchell High School, Knik Tribe Afterschool Programs, and Knik Tribe Seasonal Culture Camps.
Copper River Native Association
The Copper River Native Association conducts an evidence-based, trauma informed, resiliency program for youth ages 8-24 in the targeted communities. The program addresses historical/personal trauma issues that are known risk factors for methamphetamine use, suicide, and substance abuse disorders by providing skills training to youth and families to overcome trauma responses.
Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments – Purpose Area 2
The Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments (CATG) will expand its behavioral health program to the village clinics. They now have full-time Behavioral Health Aide positions at 4 clinics and one clinic has a half-time position and are currently recruiting to fill all of the positions. The Aides will provide Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral and Treatment (SBIRT) and Crisis Stabilization services; and will organize community prevention activities and afterschool activities for the youth. They have a successful partnership with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct cultural camps for youth that will continue in 2016.
Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments – Purpose Area 4
The Gwich’in Heritage Project aims to empower youth and families to be catalysts for positive change through culturally relevant activities, learning workshops, and through summer culture camps. This program supports the coordination of resources and activities to better strengthen and support families to reduce the likelihood of suicide, substance abuse, and child abuse and neglect.
Eastern Aleutian Tribes – Purpose Area 2
The Eastern Aleutian Tribes (EAT) provides care across 1,500 miles of rural Alaska through teams consisting of Midlevel Providers, Community Health Aides/Practitioners (CHA/Ps), Behavioral Health Aide/Practitioners (BHA/Ps), and a dental team. The teams are trained and educated to screen for depression and alcohol abuse at each visit. They provide educational materials on these topics and maintain a 24/7 emergency telephone number. The project collaborates with a number of organizations to support an annual two-week youth culture camp and plans activities in all of the region’s sites to help bring awareness to suicide and methamphetamine prevention.
Eastern Aleutian Tribes – Purpose Area 4
The Eastern Aleutian Tribes (EAT) Project works with school districts who serve EAT communities to conduct school-based events aimed at reducing risk factors and enhancing protective mechanisms to fight against substance abuse and suicide. This includes promoting family engagement through family oriented events offered in the region. The project also provides access to quality co-occurring mental health services for youth, through age 24.
Fairbanks Native Association
The Fairbanks Native Association (FNA) Youth and Family Wellness (Y/F Wellness) project is integrated with the Youth and Youth Adult (Y/YA) service division of FNA, as part of a multi-tiered service system; partnering with other Youth and Young adult service projects to deliver a comprehensive intervention, prevention, and or treatment continuum. Y/F Wellness project activities are meant to fill the current local area service gaps for youth in the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) of Alaska, including, positive youth development, Family engagement, case management services, and Methamphetamine and other drug prevention activities.
Kenaitze Indian Tribe
The Kenaitze Indian Tribe’s project engages at-risk youths ages 12-17 and their families in positive, culturally rich, youth development activities such as cultural immersion camps, talking circles, and storytelling. Evidence-based treatment utilizing the Matrix Model is offered to youth and families through the Ch’anikna Youth Outpatient program and through outreach to local middle and high schools. Prevention trainings, including ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training), safeTalk, and Mental Health First Aid, are also provided for youth and the community.
Kodiak Area Native Association – Purpose Area 3
The Kodiak Area Native Association provides methamphetamine prevention activities in Kodiak and the six surrounding villages served by the organization. In order to raise public awareness and prevent future issues in methamphetamine abuse, the project coordinates and offers substance use education in all Kodiak schools, as well as a wide variety of youth activities and community events. In addition, the project funds training and the purchase of supplies/materials for KANA’s Substance Use Treatment Program and the village-based Behavioral Health Aides.
Kodiak Area Native Association – Purpose Area 4
The Kodiak Area Native Association aims to increase youth protective factors and build resiliency with the goal of decreasing current and future methamphetamine and other substance use through a variety of means. KANA’s Project supports staff salaries and trainings for chemical dependency counselors, mental health clinicians, and rural village-based behavioral health providers who serve youth struggling with substance use disorders or who have suffered trauma, which increases their risk of substance abuse. Finally, Project staff provide trainings in suicide prevention and, in connection with this, advocate for increased community engagement and the building of positive support networks by supporting/providing family engagement activities, offering youth-focused activities, and working to build deeper connections to cultural values and knowledge in youth and young adults.
Maniilaq Association
The Maniilaq Association focuses on promoting positive youth development and family engagement through the implementation of early intervention strategies to reduce risk factors for suicide and substance abuse. The project does this by: 1) sponsoring culture camps throughout the region in partnership with the village tribal councils; and, 2) promoting wellness activities in the region in partnership with local wellness committees.
Norton Sound Health Corporation – Purpose Area 2
Norton Sound Health Corporation’s Behavioral Health Services (BHS) offers a dedicated 24/7 behavioral health crisis management response system that includes clinicians, psychiatrists, medical personnel, and community stakeholders. Project members facilitate the training of team and community members in the implementation of evidence- and practice-based treatment and prevention programs including Matrix and traditional healing circles. To reinforce the continuum of care and the need for greater access to services, the project supports mental and substance misuse services for people in the local correctional system, including case management upon and throughout release.
Norton Sound Health Corporation – Purpose Area 4
Norton Sound Health Corporation’s Behavioral Health Services (BHS) project staff members collaborate with regional partners to train youth leaders in suicide prevention peer support strategies and offer intergenerational programs during the year for youth and families to develop prevention and strength-based methods of resiliency. Project members facilitate the training of team and community members in the implementation of evidence-based treatment and prevention programs including Youth Mental Health First Aid and safeTALK. To reinforce the continuum of care and the need for greater access to services, the project supports mental health and substance misuse services for people in the local correctional system and at its Day Shelter who have no safe environment in which to live.
Orutsaramiut Native Council
Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council’s project is devised to help youth to live healthy, productive lives as Alaska Natives by combating substance abuse and suicide, using elder teachings of Calricaraq (Helping families Heal). The project is geared towards utilizing traditional, holistic, community based healing practices to prevent youth suicide in communities. The project also impacts the surrounding villages throughout the Yukon and Kuskokwim Delta, utilizing the Yupiaq model for wellness.
Pribilof Islands Aleut Community of St. Paul Island
The Pribilof Islands Aleut Community of St. Paul Island project utilizes the Healing of the Canoe curricula with partner agencies to carry out a community driven Aleut Journey each year, where youth participants carry the knowledge and teach the curriculum and building of the Unangan iqyax. The project sponsors family activities with the goal of developing youth responsibility and ownership in reducing risk factors for suicidal behavior and substance abuse. The project engages the community by holding activities addressing substance use and suicide prevention that promote life skills, healthy relationships, and cognitive behavioral therapy interventions.
Southcentral Foundation
The Southcentral Foundation (SCF) provides prevention, intervention, and postvention services to SCF customer owners who are already showing signs and symptoms, thereby reducing the incidence of suicide ideation and attempts. The SCF Behavioral Services Division engages in community-based participatory practices that help SCF identify the gaps and develop culturally relevant programming. The participatory practices also helps SCF make incremental improvements to its existing services to maximize the impact the health system can have on suicide prevention.
SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) project, "Wisdom for Life,” includes culturally resonant activities, such as drumming, paddling, and carving in southeast Alaska villages. These activities bring together multi-generational groups to address culture, resilience and healing. The SEARHC project also includes a regional Helpline that gives access to caring staff at any time and from any location in the vast service area of southeast Alaska. Finally, SEARHC strengthened its Crisis Response Team in southeast Alaska and improved communication of this resource system-wide.
Tanana Chiefs Conference
The Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) Methamphetamine Prevention and Wellness project provides prevention and improved treatment services for methamphetamine users to Alaska Native residents living in the Interior region served by the TCC. The project has three goals: 1) increase the availability of local data about methamphetamine use; 2) increase community and TCC system capacity to prevent methamphetamine use; and, 3) increase TCC system capacity to treat methamphetamine use.
Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation project uses traditional values and practices in prevention and treatment services to help the Yup'ik and Cup'ik Eskimos and Athabaskan Indians heal from mental health and/or substance abuse disorders. The prevention department incorporates the elder teachings of Calricaraq (Helping Families Heal) at community activities and learning workshops to teach traditional skills that provide participants with inner strength. These same inherent skills sustained their ancestors for thousands of years in one of the harshest climates in North America, and they are relevant today as a means to instill culturally based protective factors in youth.
