- [barb] good afternoon, everyone. you should be hearing audio now. (speaking in foreign language) we welcome each of you to the native connectionsgrantee welcome webinar. we're excited to providethis presentation, which will be anintroduction to our center, and share the kinds of servicesyou can expect from us. my name is barb smutek.
i am a member of thesault saint marie tribe of chippewa indians, and i'm the communications specialist for the native connections training and technical assistance center. our project director, lori king, is currently under the weather, so i'll be filling in and moderating this webinar for her today.
on behalf of our center'scontracting officer, maureen madison, and alternate contractingofficer representative, jon dunbar-cooper, as well as lori king,our project director, and our project managers,michelle hank and aislinn rio, we'd like to welcome you andthank you for being here today. in a few minutes, we willstart our presentation by opening in a good way.
before opening, i'd like to take a second to go over a few housekeeping items. today's webinar is being recorded, and it will be available onthe native connections website in the near future. the web address will belisted for your convenience on the last slide of this presentation. please note that allparticipants' microphones will remain muted for the entire duration
of today's session. since microphones are muted, participants can utilizethe chat box below. you can ask questions, youcan chat with your peers, and you can also let us knowof any technical issues. please feel free to chat us any time if you are experiencing any difficulties. always remember that if youlose internet connection or your screen isn't working properly,
first troubleshoot the issue by hitting the refreshbutton in your browser. on a final note, at the endof today's presentation, you will be asked to completea satisfaction questionnaire. we greatly appreciate your input and look forward to your feedback. now, i'm gonna turn the webinar over to one of our ttacoordinators, zach hartlev, who will open us up in a good way.
zach? - [zach] thank you. hello to all my relatives. my name is zach hartlev. i'm a technical assistance coordinator for the native connections grant. and i'd like to open today with ed bearheart's flag song. (lively drumming)
(singing in foreign language) - [barb] thank you forthat beautiful song, zach. next, i'll introduce ourother two presenters, who are also tta coordinators: gary neumann and barbara aragon. they'll be taking turnspresenting the remaining slides. barbara? - [barbara] thank you, barb and zach. hi, like barb said, myname is barbara aragon,
and my tribes are laguna pueblo and crow. i'm a native connections coordinator and a co-presenter forthis welcome webinar. thank you all for dialing in. it's nice to look downthe side and see so many familiar names. also, the other ta coordinators, but also, there's folks from cohort 2 that are on this webinar.
you will meet your webinar presenters, and in moments, you'll be introduced to some of the samhsa staff, and the rest of thenative connections team, or at least you'll seeeveryone's pictures. before that happens,we want to get a sense of who is in the audience, who you are and your relationshipwith native connections. and so, we're going to do our first poll.
and get used to it. many of the native connections webinars you'll participate in, we really strive to be interactiveand to hear your voices, so you'll often see polls, and then you'll also see the chat boxes that you're in currently. and so, in this next poll, we'd like you to click thecategory that most fits you.
and i know, maybe withsome of the cohort 2 folks, these might not all fit. but if you also have a no vote, maybe you're standing in for someone, you can put a no vote, but you can also put some more information in the chat box. so, i see that there arepart of the evaluation team, and so, if you want toput those categories in the chat box, that would be great.
and if there are multiplepeople sitting around a table, which often happens in the webinars, if you can type in the names of the individuals that arethere, that would be great, or not the names, but the categories that are represented there. all right, i see a lotof people are typing in. i'm gonna wait a little minute. okay.
okay, we have tribaladministrators on there. we have prevention coordinators. great, part of the evaluation team. but if we look primarilyat what's coming in on the chat box, we see that many of you have been, almost 50% of you, have been recently hiredfor native connections, so i'm assuming that most of you are cohort 1 recent hires.
there is a very small amount of you that are on a temporary hire, until native connections are hired. and about a third of youare with native connections and have been working for the program for at least a year or more. that's great, we've got someseasoned folks on the phone. and then a few, 10% of you, are sitting in for another agency.
we do know people are intransition, but that's great. it gives us a sense ofwho's in the audience, and, like i said, thiswill be our first poll, and we will continue throughoutto have an opportunity for you to give feedback. so, thank you very much. i want to start transitioning, and (audio skips) look tomore of the introductions. and i'm gonna turn itback over to barb smutek.
- [barb] thank you, barbara. in the upcoming slides, i'llintroduce you to the teams supporting our work. first is the samhsa team. we have maureen madison, who is our contractingofficer representative. you'll also hear some acronyms. we often use the word cor. and we also have jon dunbar-cooper,who's our alternate cor.
next, we have your governmentproject officers, or gpos. for your gpos, you have michelle carnes, angela mark, kameisha bennett, irene darko, and william reyes. next, we have the nativeconnections administrative team. we have lori king, whois our project director, and we have our projectmanager, michelle hank, and aislinn rio. next, we have the mostimportant individuals
for you to know. these are the people withwhom you'll work with on a regular basis, your training and technicalassistance coordinators. in order, from left to right, we have deborah rattler, barbara aragon, gary neumann, victoria lafromboise, david braveheart,
connie omara, zach hartlev, lanier nabahi, hunter genia, joe lewis, and don mya. not pictured is our newesttta coordinator, sonia vince, based in anchorage, alaska. this is your nativeconnections coordinators. next, we have our objectives.
our objectives for our presentationtoday are the following: we will explain the historyof native connections. we will define native connections training and technicalassistance, or the tta, approach. we will identify five keyareas of the tta provided. and we'll describe on-sitetechnical assistance. with our objectives being covered, i'll now hand it over to barbara. thank you.
- [barbara] okay, thanks,barb, i appreciate that. wasn't that a good-lookin' bunch of people that you're going to be working with? i can't wait to see your pictures and meet you all in person. now, we're also going to be doing another getting to know you activity. you put amazing amount ofinformation in that initial chat. and so, i see that therewere project directors,
i did see tribal leaders in there, grant analyst, coordinators, evaluators, and that's some amazingfolks there on this call. but now we're going tolook a little bit deeper about who's on there,especially if you didn't have an opportunity to fill out the chat in the previous activity. so, if you haven't, we want to make sure you get your name and youtribe, or your organization,
in that chat box. okay, great. once we have done that, we'realso going to think about looking at a vision. where do you hope to be after the five-year period? how is it going to be different? how's your community going to be different
as it is now, than it is now, as a result of your effortswith native connections? and so, you may be sitting around a table. oh, gosh, everything's just pouring in. it's really exciting. if you are sitting around atable with some of your peers, and some of your colleagues, we want to take just a few minutes
for you to speak among yourselves, to talk among yourselves, and to fill in just a few words, we don'twant a whole sentence because we want to makea word cloud out of this. and so, we want each ofthe grantees to type in just one or two words, three, at the most, of something that would describe where you would like to be as a result of the nativeconnections effort.
and so, we're gonna give youjust a few minutes of time, and then we're going to pullthat information together. i'm gonna be silent for a moment so you can talk among yourselves. - [gary] i see there's lotsof responses coming in, that's great. - [barbara] hey, gary, in the meantime, do you want to introduce yourself as we're waiting for those to come in?
and gary is my co-presenter. - [gary] oh, certainly! hello, everyone, i'm gary neumann, member of the confederatedsalish and kootenai tribe from montana, and i'm locatedout in alexandria, virginia, working with the nativeconnections project. - [barbara] and so, as more of these great responses are coming in, gary was one of the tacoordinators in cohort 2,
so many of you might be familiar with him. - cohort 1, this new one is 2.- oh, cohort 1! (laughing) thank you, thanks for correcting. okay, great stuff that are coming in. i hear some words, i know that barb smutek is doing some work with these, but i see the word healthy a lot,
i see some traditions. i also see some of the tribesthat are being represented. there's pascua yaqui here. i see folks from santa clara, lummi nation. wow, this is really exciting. you know, we have anopportunity, as ta coordinators, to read the applications, see the names, but to actually be interacting
with you all in a chat, in awebinar, is really exciting. okay, it looks likebarb's been doing a lot of good work in gatheringsome of the comments that you have here, and she'screated a word cloud here. look at some of the powerfulwords that you have shared, some of the concepts, as you began to vision to whatyour efforts will, you know, bear fruit over the next five years. i see healthy, prevention, strength,
increase, healing, community awareness, education, whole, connectedness, increased awareness, a lot of amazing conceptsthat we're looking forward to, and to working together on. so, it's really exciting to see those, and we're gonna continueto, beyond this webinar, to populate the word cloud, and if you're interested in receiving it,
what was, kind of, the visionof all of your colleagues, we'll be able to send thatto you on a later date. okay, so, we want to move onbecause we could continue, but this is great stuff. if you have new ideas, let's (audio skips) more to put in there. and there's a thank you, a(speaking in foreign language) from barb smutek, who isthe person behind the scenes that was putting that wordcloud together, so thanks, barb.
really appreciate, and we'llcontinue to put that together with folks' input. all right, i'm gonna turn itover to gary, who you just met. - [gary] thank you, barb. i noticed that youth and community-based and collaboration were some of the themes that just kept resonating throughout that. thanks for doing that, everyone. a little bit about the grantees.
there were 20 grantees in cohort 1, and i had the privilege of working with six of the grantees in the state of alaska. the new cohort, there are 70 grantees. this time, it was openedup to urban communities, urban indian centers as well,so we have a big variety of tribal, rural, urban, serving single and multiple communities
of all sizes and regions. the next slide here shows you, in grey, are the cohort 1, those 20. and then, in the dark black,you'll see 70 new grantees that make up our 90 nativeconnections grantees. and you can see the ihs service areas that they're in as well. you can see now, alaska has 20 grantees. the lower 48 has 70.
again, just to remind you,there's urban and rural rewarded as well. and now, i would like to turnit over to michelle carnes. hi, michelle. are you there, michelle? are you unmuted? i hear some noise, that's good. well, they seem to behaving some difficulty coming on board.
they're gonna share a little bit about the native connections story, and michelle has beenthere since the beginning. we'll give her just a fewmore seconds to log on before we move on. michelle, angela? they must be having difficulties. okay, well, i'm gonna go aheadand just share what i know the history of native connections.
native aspirations was from 2006 to 2013. there were american indian,alaska native communities have the cultural knowledge,skills, and resilience to create hope and healing. cultural beliefs andpractices provide a foundation for promoting lastingwellness, solving problems, and taking action. and the native aspirations grants were youth violence, bullying,and suicide prevention,
because we know that bullyingcan be at the foundation of a lot of the trauma thathappens in our communities and in our families. yet, today, some of that lateral violence, if we can't take it outon someone above us, we wind up taking itout on those around us, kind of like the family that the older boy beats up on the younger boy, and the younger boy doesn'thave anyone to beat on
but the dog, so he kicks the dog. that was a very successful project, and i was able to work onit for a number of years. and from that, became native connections. native connections was bornto take it to the next level, and the 20 grantees thatwere part of cohort 1 really began doing some wonderful work. and what was very exciting, and i think even a little bit unexpected,
was to have the opportunity to bring in 70 more grantees. that's a big cohort,that's a lot of grantees, and when we gather togetherin our annual symposium, we'll have the chance to meet each other. but it shows the commitmentthat the federal government has to continue doing thiswork in indian country. and now, i'd like to turn it over to lori. i'm sorry, barbara.
- [barb] thank you, gary, i am lori today, and thank you so much forthat, that wonderful story. i'm sorry we didn't getto hear from michelle. there was some technical difficulties. but gary, i think you did a wonderful job telling us some of the story. next, we're gonna be talking about our native connections grant partners. you'll see three logos on the slide.
the first one is for samhsa. samhsa is our gpos, or ourgovernment project officers, who will be assisting withproject guidance and oversight. next, you'll see ournative connections logo. our center will be providing the tta, or training and technicalassistance coordinators. and you'll also see a logo for icf, who will be providing evaluation support and technical assistance liaisons.
those are our grant partners. next, i'm gonna turn it over to barbara. - [barbara] thanks, barb,and we do hope to get michelle carnes some time later. i think they're trying tomake those arrangements. but in the meanwhile, justas you all have submitted a vision in your application, and i know for the granteesthat i'll be working with, that i really enjoyed looking and reading
your vision statement,but on the same token, we, as the native connection team, which is your ta coordinators, and also all of the other support people, we felt that we shouldcome up with a team vision. and so, we went through a process, and it may be similar to what you did, about identifying a number of people and putting forth words and concepts
that spoke to our nativeconnections team vision. and so, out of that, we cameup with this vision statement, and wanted to share our work with you. and what we hope to do, asthe native connections team, in supporting you, is to inspire, empower, and support you, asnative connections grantees, in utilizing your culture, traditional and community strengths to promote wellness andbuild healthy relationships,
and thriving lifestylesfor seven generations. we went over this andit was really important that we included the focus on the youth in the seven generations. so, this is something that we developed, and just wanted to share our work with you because you shared your visions with us. so, thank you, and with that, gonna move on,
and talk to you about ourstrategic cultural framework. for you that were in cohort 1, you might be very familiar with the strategic cultural framework. and the strategic cultural framework is, not only with native connections, but it's with the whole center. and it was conceptualizedby dr. iris prettypaint,
who many of you may be familiar with. so, when we look at thet and ta that we provide, it is our intent thatthe work that we provide, and the ta that we providealigns with the cultural values in the strategic cultural framework, and those values are vision,circles of relationships, and a sense of hope. you know, these are indigenous values that are universal across many tribes,
and they really talk to our resilience and our protective factors, and those are factorsthat have sustained us as indigenous people for centuries. for visioning, most tribes sought visions to guide them. often, these visions were sought during times of great change, times of growth,
and then often, individuals or tribes seeking visions really had to struggle. someone once told me, we haveto suffer for our visions. and so, there will be strugglesas we go through that, because visioning isn't easy. but along those same lines,the native connections team, especially your ta coordinator,is going to work with you as you experience thesestruggles and meet milestones,
as we begin to look forwardand move towards that vision you outlined in your application. i think that's really exciting. the other is circles of relationships. we know that we have to havecircles of relationships, and that's what has keptus alive and nurtured us as individuals in tribes. so, we depend on thoseinterdependent relationships. we also know that youthin families need stability
and safety of healthyrelationships and support systems. and so, extended families, clan systems are all examples of expandingcircles of relationships. and then also, in order to provide effective prevention andintervention in your communities, you will be given tools and prophecies to really look at the relationships that you currently work with, but also begin to identify gaps,
and to foster and build new relationships. the final pillar ofthe cultural framework, or the final teepeepole, you might call it, is the sense of hope. many of our communities,and one of the reasons you have this grant and applied, was that our communitieshave experienced trauma, both historical andtrauma over the lifetime. and that really can threatenhaving a sense of hope,
and that perspective of a loss of hope can contribute to many of thethings that we're working on. for example, substance abuse, mental health issues, and suicide. so, it's the goal of the nativeconnections t and ta center to bring (audio skips) and tools to weave those cultural values together. and we hope that the resultwill be the strengthening of all of our communities,
with stronger circles of relationships, visioning that will beinclusive and shared, and hope will be strengthened and renewed. and so, that is ourstrategic cultural framework. you'll probably see itagain in future webinars, and we're looking forward tocontinue to work with you. and so, with that, i wannaturn it over to gary, who is going to talk about the next slide. - [gary] thank you, barbara.
i think we have michelle carnes on the line, so she canprobably do better justice to the native connectionsstory than i could. - [michelle] can you hear me? - [gary] yeah, i can hear you. - [michelle] awesome, awesome! - [gary] welcome. - [michelle] thank you. i'm really sorry about thetechnical difficulties.
(laughs) i was talking toyou and you couldn't hear me. but it sounds like you can hear me now. i'm so pleased to talk to all of you. i know you're all there,even though i can't hear you, or see you, and i'm so happy to welcomeyou to this program. it's a really important program. we're really proud of it,and it's really special here at samhsa.
when we put it together, we really knew that it was an opportunity for us to do something that would beuseful for tribes and villages. we wanted something thatwas not business as usual. we wanted tribal peoplehelping tribal people. we wanted to listen to the communities to see what would be useful and helpful, and make those things a priority rather than having youpick from a laundry list
of programs that may haveworked in other communities, but that may not beappropriate for what you need. so, this is a programthat's designed around you. it's designed to be flexible. as gary said, the roots of it were in a programcalled native aspirations, which you may have heard of, that really tried to meettribes where they were, and really understand theplace that they were at,
and how to move the needle for them to make them successful. and we also drew upon thewhite mountain apache program in partnership with thejohns hopkins university to do surveillance work and to understand the community as an organism, and understand, you know,how data can be useful to us, but in a respectful way,in a way that makes sense, that is useful to the tribe.
and then also, the new mexico model of adolescent suicide prevention,which really depends a lot on community consensus, community building, accountability to thepeople that you serve, really becomes a larger issuethan just a youth at risk. it becomes a larger community effort, and everyone gets involved. so, all of these thingstogether informed what we do in native connections.
so, if you've had other federal grants, you may feel the difference with this one. we strive to make it something that fits you, and we, as project officers, work hard to follow the rules that we need to follow so that congress is happy, but we also very much prioritizethe things that you need. we wanted a program that made sense
and native connectionsis what we came up with. and we welcome you and wehope that in five years, you will be very proud of everything that you've accomplished. so, we look forward to working with you over these next few years, and i'm grateful thatyou're part of it, thanks. - [gary] thank you very much, michelle. looking over the list,it's great to see people
that i've worked with over the years, and i've seen some nativeaspirations individuals on the call as well. the next slide up is thepublic health approach, and many of you know a lot about this, but the public health approach is one way to think about prevention. it's concerned with healthof the entire community. mandatory childhood immunizations,
which have all but wiped out several once common and deadly diseases, are examples of the successfulpublic health model. in the public health model,you'll define the problem, assess the risk, and protect the factors, develop and test prevention strategies, implement strategies,and monitor and evaluate, and this fits right in withthe native connections project. i'm gonna turn it back over to barbara.
- [barbara] thank you, gary. it's real exciting to look, like you said, to see all of the namesthat are shooting in. but let's focus back on the purpose. as gary just said, you're asked to use the public health approach. and the native connections center is to assist you by providingculturally appropriate and sensitive trainingand technical assistance
to the native communitiesacross the country. that's our job, and again, we're aligning it with astrategic cultural framework. and we'll also be providing grantees assistance in reducing suicidal behavior and substance abuse andmisuse among native youth. we also partner withyou in easing the impact of substance use, mental illness, and trauma in tribal communities,
and most importantly, supporting youth as they transition into adulthood, which is a very ceremonial andsacred time, traditionally. and the more that we can do that and provide that assistance,we're meeting our purpose. gary? - [gary] okay, thank you, barbara. we can talk a little bit now about the native connections principles.
i may have gone too fast. native connections, the projects always have the communityat the heart of the work. they're developed to ensurethe community is involved at every level. determining the level ofreadiness to move forward is also a key. definition of strength-based is strength-based practice is asocial work practice theory
that emphasizes people'sself-determination and strength. it is a philosophy and away of viewing the community as resourceful and resilientin the face of adversity. gap refers to the spacebetween where we are, the present state, and wherewe wanna be, the target state. a gap analysis may also be referred to as a needs analysis, needsassessment, or need gap analysis. the project takes asolution-oriented approach and it's guided by data.
the native connections projectsare key and take the lead, and are closely involvedwith the community, holding regular coordination meetings for local and external partners, with your advocacy groupsand your coalitions. you may also establishworking sub-groups under those to deal with specific strategicaction planned elements. and you regularly produceand disseminate updates, and we hope that you celebratesuccess all along the way.
that's so important inthe work that we're doing. building relationships is key. innovative approachesare utilized throughout, and the ta coordinators were trained in, and we've got continued access to new and emerging strategies towork in our communities. now, many people think of evaluation as taking a snapshot ofoutcomes at the end of a program to prove to the funder or tribal council
that it worked or that it failed. now, evaluation can be,and it should be used as an ongoing management tool, a learning tool to improve anorganization's effectiveness. i'm gonna move on to the ta approach. primarily, each grantee isgoing to be met with honor for their skills and theirwisdom, their cultural practices when ta is provided. we meet the grantee where they are.
we look at children, youth, adults with a new lens of respect for survival. when we use the trauma-informed approach, we shift from what's wrong with you to what happened to you? and you'll learn moreabout these approaches in upcoming webinars. and relationship is key to the success. - [barbara] okay, so howare we gonna do that?
and so, i'm gonna talk alittle bit about the methods, and these are things thatare going to be coming up really soon to you. first of all, watch your emails because your ta coordinatorwill be contacting you fairly soon. and so, that is one of theways that we're going to provide the ta, is throughemails and phone calls. also, you're gonna beinvolved in conference calls,
and that will be with your gpo, it will be with your ta coordinator. you may have conference callswith some of your peers. i saw one of the comments that was in the chat saying, "i want to know whatother people are doing." and that's gonna happen, you know? so some of these conferencecalls might be regional. and then also, you're gonnaparticipate in webinars.
this is the first of many webinars, and it is scheduledthat there's going to be 24 interactive webinars, muchlike this, over the next year. and you're required to participate these, and it may be your ta coordinator, such as gary and myself,who might be facilitating, but we also have subject matter experts who will be presenting. for example, an upcoming webinar
on community readiness model will feature pam jumper thurman and barbara plaisted, who are part of the teamthat developed the model. so, we have really amazingsubject matter experts who are gonna participate. and then also, you're going to have, in some of the webinars,you might be featured. and we know that lastyear, during the webinars, that there was a greatinterest and excitement
when peers presented, werepart of the presenters. and so, you may be featuredas one of the grantees on the webinar, so i look forward to that, that was one of my favorite also, but webinars are real important. you'll be involved ininteractive virtual meetings, similar to these, but they might be held, you know, with just certain grantees.
the ta coordinator mayhave their grantees, or you maybe have buddies, and i'm gonna talk aboutbuddies in a minute. so, all of these are methodsof delivery of t and ta. and then, of course, there's a samhsa native connections website. now, the website is aninvaluable resource. and i invite you, if you haven't already, to start looking at thenative connections website.
and there is the address that'slisted on the very bottom. so, make it one of your favorites, you'll use it quite a bit. and as people were saying, you might still be hiring new staff, and so, if that be the case, please share this informationand send your new staff to the website, and this and future webinars
will be able to be accessed there. they're just a few ofthe methods that will be providing ta to you all. okay, with that, what we do know is thatnot everyone learns in the same way. and for some of you, virtualta is going to be very new. maybe you've worked withta providers in the past, but maybe they've come to your site,
or maybe it's over the phone, but we see that we're using different methods. and so, but we still want asense of how do you best learn? how do you learn best, and all of us are different in that way. as i was responding tothis question to myself, one of the things ithought is i like to see, i like to participate,and i like to teach.
and so, you have another poll question, and you have a number of selections here that you can check. and we're gonna talk about how best, or be able to look at howbest the grantees learn. okay, are we starting to wrap that up? okay, oh, still some coming in. i see taking the lead is verysimilar to how i learn best, and i think for many native people,
is you learn best fromvisual, graphics, and stories, and that's great to hear,because like i said, in the future, we are goingto integrate those graphics, but many of you will besharing your stories. you will share yoursuccesses and challenges as part of the webinars. and like i said, that wasa very popular part of it. okay? other folks learn best byinteraction and in small groups,
and you'll see that even when we're providingvirtual webinars, there will be opportunitiesto break into small groups, and that you'll bediscussing and brainstorming with some of the other grantees. so, definitely, we'llbe using that approach. but also, you'll see that there will be reading material sometimesthat will be sent out, or will point you to an article.
so, great. and then a smaller group learns by lecture and note-taking. and so, it's a real diverseway that we learn here. and wanna thank you because wewill share this information, not only to our otherpresenters, for future webinars, but also for our subject matter experts, because we want to make the learning as interactive as possible.
so, thank you very muchfor your responses. okay, i'm gonna turn it over. that was a great activity, alot of information in there. the kind of virtual ta and technical assistancethat you'll be receiving comes in many forms, and first off, building a relationshipwith the ta coordinator's going to be key. you'll be contacted by the ta coordinator
to schedule regular callsat work for your schedule on a regular basis to be able to check in and get help with different deliverables. the ta coordinator, wereally took some time, and they're assigned by relationship, or knowledge of the community. for example, i lived inalaska for almost eight years, and knew some of the alaskavillage in the community, so it made more sense for me to work with
the alaska communities, as opposed to some that i'm not so familiar with. we're gonna be learningfrom each other as well, and we're gonna be listening, as well as asking for input or feedback. we also wanna pass onknowledge to the community that will enhance their skills, so the community readinessmodel, for example, is a process that you'llbe learning about,
that you can use in thefuture for other opportunities and other programs and otherissues that you may be facing. we wanna be solution-oriented. there'll be webinars, andpossibly, mini webinars for peer learning and peer sharing, and acknowledging thecommunity's strengths. those are key. now, the five key areasthat we'll be focusing on, and we mentioned this in the objectives,
we need to know your community,like who is at the table? who needs to be at the table? the community assessment, orthe service delivery assessment will be one of the first stepsin that planning process. determining the communitylevel of readiness and what strategies areappropriate for what level? not everyone will be on thesame page of understanding, so the community readiness assessment is the second step in the planning.
once you know your readiness level, involving the community will be very, veryimportant in brainstorming and developing your strategic action plan, and you'll want to align your strategies with those appropriatelevels of readiness. evaluating, revising, and updating your strategic actionplan on an annual basis, you'll be taking a look at those things.
perhaps you'll wanna conduct another community readinessassessment the second year to help determine if there's been movement or showing progress, and again, i wanna remind you tocelebrate the successes that you will meet along this way. crisis prevention planning, there'll also be postventionprotocols for planning. those are all in the key five areas
that we'll be focusing onwith your ta coordinators. i'm gonna pass it over to barb. - [barb] okay, and, again, in a response to someone that said that they wantedmore peer interaction, you are going to receiveit in many different ways, and one is with buddy matches. buddy matches was somethingthat started in cohort 1, and cohort 2 will continuewith buddy matches.
and what that is is an opportunity, you will be matched with agrantee, another grantee, and you will have a closerrelationship with them. you will learn from them. and those are set up by a couple of different ways. it's based on geography, youmay be close to your buddy. a factor will be the level of readiness. and then, you may havesimilar project deliverables,
so you can really share ideas about how to meet your deliverables. and so, there may evenbe some buddy matches that will happen betweencohort 2 and cohort 1. these will be also based,probably on your ta coordinator, and regionally, and sothat's real exciting. the buddy matches werevery successful last year, and so, i'm gonna ask gary to share some feedback on the buddy matches.
can you share somethingthat was successful? and if any of you werea part of a buddy match in cohort 1 and you're on the line, if you can type anythingin regarding buddy matches, that might be helpful to thefolks that are in the audience. - [gary] sure, thank you, barbara. i was part of the buddy match with two of the cohort 1 communities in new mexico, and it was really exciting
to introduce them to each other, and they kind of tookon a life of their own. and they began communicating at meetings and talking about their strengths and what are the parallelthings that are happening in their project, and how theymight learn from each other. another, up in alaska, i just participated ona buddy match phone call where the communities wereintroduced to each other
and wondering how they couldhelp support each other. and as a result, the one grantee is writingto the other grantee and asking them to come tothe community and talk about the services that they canprovide in their region, and the kind of cultural programsthat they have available, that they could bring to the village and share with the village,and then have the village take the next step and say,
"now, how can we do that ourselves? "how can we take thoseelements of that program "and make them our own and make 'em apply "to our values and ourcustoms and our tribe?" so, as i said, they takeon a life of their own and they just kinda keep going. - [barbara] thanks, gary, and i can see people are putting in. gail zapeta from round valleymentioned that she was teamed
with shingle springs, and i know that shinglesprings had some turnover, and it's really great when your grantee, your team, might begoing through transition. and so, to have a buddy match, and to be able to providethat, either mentoring or information, can be really great. so, thanks a lot about the comments around.
and i can see that thefolks from round valley are still typing about buddy matches. oh, okay, gail says, "wewere able to reach out "to each other through the telephone, "and to share information." that's great, so it doesn'thave to be something that is coordinated by your ta coordinator, but that you can reachout to your buddy match and continue to strengthenthat relationship.
and julie russ says, "theinformation that shingle springs, "even though they wentthrough some turnover, "the information that shinglesprings was really helpful "to round valley also." so, it's a very reciprocal relationship that the buddy matches will include. i know folks are gettin'excited about the buddy matches, but i'm going to return it back over to on-site ta,
information on on-site ta. and i think that-- - [gary] actually, i thinkwe're gonna be focusing on the youth. - [barbara] oh, great, sorry. - [gary] along with the buddies,one thing i did wanna say, it's really important that what we're seeing is the buddies are working with each other, sothat they don't feel so alone.
you know, the projectis a lot of virtual ta, and getting to communicateif you're in the same region with each other, sometimes meet at differentconferences and things, that's very, very helpful. now, the project focuses on the youth, and it allows the communitiesto support the youth and the young adults as theytransition into adulthood by facilitating thecollaboration among agencies.
you'll work to develop strategies. some examples, cohort1 program collaborated with their local youthleaders, and their elders, to make podcasts to raise awareness. another who was successfulin bringing qpr, question, persuade, refer, to their middle and high school students. as youth were trained, theyreported that they were using their new skills and knowledge
to help their peers in crisis. that's a really wonderfuloutcome of the project. now, resilience, purpose,strength are all themes that have incorporated intoprevious strategic plans. another cohort 1 program spoke to cultural resilience factors, which helped create a sense of belonging. an example is the winter film camp that one of them didover the christmas break.
this was a mass collaboration including their language program. the youth completedseveral prevention films in their language, targeting bullying andsubstance use prevention. strength and place was emphasizedby another cohort grantee where the youth, a group of 24,went to the unity conference at the white house. afterwards, on their way home,
they visited the indian boarding school and discovered the graves of ancestors. upon returning home, theyapproached their tribal council and got their support torepatriate their children, and they were successful. we were excited to hear,in may, that the us army agreed to pay the full costto bring their children home. now, look at the strengthand sense of place that these youth exhibited.
how do we know what we know? traditionally, indigenous people have not just observed nature for the purpose of eating andstaying warm, or subsistence. they've observed thenature of being human, of living in families and groups, of leading the good life. this may explain whyconnecting with youth, with their tradition of culture,
has been shown to be a protective factor. now, we've got some proofof some of these working, and we've got them cited as well, r. sanchez-way, johnson, cultural practices in americanindian prevention programs, 2000. as you move forward,what you've all observed, along with the perspectives of your youth and your advisory groups,
it'll continue the healingjourney to support young adults as they take ownership. hopefully, celebrating successwill be built in as well. now, these are examplesof community strategies that focus on youth. now, can you think of others? what else would you be willing to share? and use the chat box toenter your responses. so, what else might you thinkof that have been successful?
i see people are typing. we'll give it a minute forsome of these to come up and then we'll share them. breaking the silence aroundsuicide and community healing, voice, definitely. seat at the decision-making table. yeah, one of our taproviders, coordinators, says, "if you're not at thetable, you're on the menu." good point.
social-emotional skillsupport for younger children. giving youth a platform to communicate. peer and family support, givingthem hope for the future. when i was up in alaska just last week, there were youth thatattended three different leadership gatherings around the country. and they came back togetherand they all shared the same common themethey wanted to work on in their community, and that was bullying.
so, they're taking some stepsto do something about it. proactive approach rather than reactive. absolutely, thank you, sarah. i still see people typing. what we'll do so that we can move on is go ahead and move forward, and we'll record all those responses so you'll be able to see them. okay, i'm gonna turn itback over to barbara.
- [barbara] thanks,gary, and this continues with that chat activity, and thank you very much forreminding us of the youth focus and the strengths of our youth. and this may just continuewhat you're already inputting there. what we know is that what you're plugging inis protective factors, and some of those protective factors
are language program, communication, peer and family support,i'm reading some of them that you are putting in the chat box, but we also have risk factors. and so, one of the reasonswe're doing this work is that there are quitea few of risk factors that we're reallybalancing with your plans, and in those, we're integratingthe protective factors that you're listing.
so, i'd like you to maybe stop, and to add in some of those risk factors, and some of the examplesthat are on the slide. a risk factor is, if youth have easy access toalcohol in your community, that's a risk factor for youth. but then, there is, on theother side of the spectrum, protective factors, so thatif the language programs, if the cultural teachings
is giving a voice, thoseare protective factors. so, if people could put in one risk factor that they see, be specificto your community, but also put in a protective factor, and that might be something,as you develop your plan, that you'll want to include,but let's share some ideas about risk factors and protective factors. okay, those are coming in. okay, a risk factor is ruralareas with limited resources.
definitely. high unemployment, povertyare definitely risk factors, but also protectivefactors that are listed is a strong, tight-knit community. great example. okay, another risk factoris a poor self image, how we see ourselves. and then a protective factor is language. okay, unhealthy family members,
if they exist within ourfamily, that's a risk factor. but then, we can balancethat with protective factors such as cultural activities. adverse childhood experiences, if you're familiar with the a study, adverse childhood experiences. that's definitely a riskfactor in our communities, but they can be balanced withaccess to local activities, cultural programs, drug-freeactivities for youth.
i see young parents as a risk factor, but also that some folks might have regalia-making classes, andthey can be in conjunction with parenting classes. what a great idea! in a traditional way, weoften taught parenting. we learned parenting while wewere working with our hands, whether it be makingbaskets, making regalia, you know, doing artwork,so we see that there are
a lot of risk factorsthat we will be looking at among the grantees, butthere's an amazing amount of protective factors thatwill be woven into your plan. so, that's exciting, that's exciting. and so, when i talk aboutta and what's provided, like i said, there are many methods, but one of the thingsthat was mentioned earlier was that you may be receiving on-site ta from your ta provider.
so, gary's gonna talk about on-site ta and some of the factors in providing it. now, we do know that themethod that's preferred by our grantees is face-to-face. it allows for nurturing, but it's not always feasiblethrough the budget constraints. site visits prove beneficialon an as-needed basis, and we have these built in to this native connections project,
but not every grantee isgonna get a site visit. they will be on a case-by-case basis, and, perhaps, maybe there wasa staff change or a turnover, and the new staff has never been familiar with the community readiness model, so, they may need a littlemore on-site support to be able to do a newcommunity readiness assessment, for example, and score it and align their strategic action plans
with where the community is now. they might need assistance in their service delivery system analysis, which is one of the key projects that the programs are gonna be working on. and again, these will be determined in collaboration with your ta coordinator, who will bring it upto the gpo and the core and the team, and thena decision will be made.
okay, barbara. are you there? might be on mute, or maybewe lost her, i hope not. - [barbara] oh, no, i'm here, and i was saying all kinds of wise things. sorry you missed it. okay, people have beensaying in the chat box, they've been asking aboutmaybe they have a buddy, but they've never really met their buddy
except over the phone, and so, some of the chat was, "oh, you are gonna havean opportunity to meet "not only your buddy, butall of the other grantees." and that's gonna occur during the annual native connectionsgrantee symposium. and so, this year, it'sgonna be in beautiful spokane, washington, and in september, september 5th and 7th.
from living in spokanefor a couple of years, it's a great time to be in spokane. and during that time, you're going to have peer-to-peer opportunities to get together and learn from one another. you're also going to get the inspiration of collaborating withyour larger community. and also, you're going toget technical assistance, not only from, you know,your ta coordinators,
and there will be provision of ta, but also, people fromsamhsa will be there, we'll have some subject matter experts, so you can look forward to that. put it on your calendaris that the symposium in spokane, washington onseptember 5th and 7th, 2017. i'm certainly looking forward to that. okay, so next steps. first of all, you'vesurvived, or almost survived
your first webinar, and ihope it's been enjoyable. but let's talk about some next steps. so, what's gonna happen next? okay, you'll be hearing fromyour t and ta coordinator to schedule your weekly call. one of the things you can be doing, especially if you're new to the program, is to review the grant summariesand your notice of award that you should havereceived from your gpo,
your project officer. and become real familiar with the goals and projected outcomes for your grant. you can also review your native connections grantee handbook. it's been updated this year, and there's just amazingamounts of information in there. you should have alsoreceived that from your gpo. if you do not have a copy of it because,
maybe you weren't the initial contact, contact your ta coordinatorand we can make sure that you get the most current native connections grantee handbook because it will be invaluable to you. okay, and also, to notifyyour t and ta coordinator about any changes, ifyou've hired new staff, if you're already starting tobring in coalition members, those are all things thatwe, as ta coordinators,
want to know, and we'llbe as excited as you. also, you can continue torecruit, or to begin to recruit, for your advisory or your coordination groups or coalitions. this will be somethingthat you'll be doing throughout the year, so it's not too early to get started on it. you'll be provided informationon upcoming webinars that will start in january.
and as soon as you get those dates, put them on your calendar. those will be important for you to attend. they're required for youto attend, the webinars. and then keep in mind,keep an eye on your email because login informationfor those webinars will come through your inbox. and so, those are some ofthe immediate next steps that you can be aware ofand to start working on.
okay, i wanna turn itback over to my colleague, co-presenter, gary neumann. one of the things we would like to do, as we kind of wrap up this webinar, is get a sense, from you, of pluses. what was helpful? what were some of the good things? what were some of the points that came out that you felt were very helpful?
and maybe, what additionalinformation do you need? and you can take some time andtype that into the chat box, and we'll review that information. while you're doing that, iwanted to make an announcement that podge thomas, from thenative american health center in oakland, shared with us. the ghost ship fire in oaklandthat occurred on friday night was directly across the streetfrom their oakland office. the tragic deaths havepersonally affected the staff
and community, and they'reasking for our thoughts and prayers at this time. they wanna share they'regonna reopen next week, hopefully when they get clearance from the oakland fire department. and so, oftentimes, our communities, and the projects that we work with, have events or tragic events, or things that continue tohappen as we move along.
and previously, we may have asked 20 native connections granteesto pray for a community. now, we have 90 nativeamerican communities that are being asked to sendprayers and well wishes, and we certainly send those your way, for everyone there in oakland. now, some of the things that we saw here, "learning the date and the location "of the grantee conference."
"i liked hearing aboutother youth projects. "we're also wondering howto find our ta coordinator." now, in finding the ta coordinator, they will be connecting withyou over this next month. the grantees i'll be working with, we're gonna be reaching out and having kind of an introductorycall that will be set up by our project officer thati work with, angela mark, and that's happening (mumbling).
so, you'll be notified. "how do you know whoyour ta coordinator is? "is there a list?" yeah, there is a list, and we can determine how we'regoing to share that with you. "i'm a new staff. "how do i find my tta? "on the award letter, ionly have a program official "and grant specialist."
at the end of this webinar, there will be email addressesfor myself and for barbara, and if you send us the information about your ta coordinatorand what you'd like to ask, we can move those forward and help get that resolved for you. now, deborah, as i said,your ta coordinator will provide a native connections handbook if you've not received it yet.
- [barbara] yes, i know some of the gpos did include the handbook whenthey made the initial contact, but sometimes, it maygo to the tribal leader. and so, i'm not surprised thatnot everyone has received one but just be assuredthat your ta coordinator will have that available for you. we do have some questions. oh, we do have some additional questions. - [gary] yeah, and wealso have a lot of prayers
and thoughts coming your wayto the oakland community. - [barbara] thank you, thank you all. there's a question, andi think this would go to your gpo, and that's ward walker. and that is one of the important reasons that you look in your notice of award, that there may be somespecific requirements. but the questions would benot to your ta coordinator, but to your gpo, so thatwould be angela marks,
michelle carnes, and i'm not sure, we couldbring up that list again, but you should have, or you should have an idea,from previous correspondence about who your gpo is, and that would be theperson you want to contact. - [gary] and one of the grantees shared that their grant's being held up because we don't have alist of allowable expenses.
and you can communicatethat with your gpo. - [barbara] yes, yes, that'swho i was responding to. okay, great, ward got the message. 'kay, thanks, ward. glad you got it. okay, anymore wishes andpluses as we come to a close? - [gary] someone askedabout the track dates for entering data. those will be shared withyou and shared with us
by the project officers as well. we didn't want to announcethe ta coordinators until all of the awards were out and everyone was ready to go. so, it looks like we'regettin' the green light and it's coming soon, because we're doing ourfirst welcoming webinar. - [barbara] okay, and then corinne taylor, who is with the nativeconnections team, sent this out.
if you didn't catch it,you will all be receiving a one-pager document, and that will have all ofthe contact information for your gpo, your ta, you know, your ta coordinator. and so, it's just a one-pager. and print that and putit up in your office because it'll be invaluable information, not only listing the folksthat are providing assistance,
but their contact information, and also, what informationthat they will provide to you. - [gary] we've got someother responses coming in. wanna wait for a moment. i know angela mark was typing. she's one of our projectofficers, so we wanna make sure we put in what she has been addressing. - [barbara] in themeantime, michelle carnes responded to the track question,
and what she's saying is,"you won't be responsible "for track entries until wetrain you, so don't panic." okay, so everybody, take a deep breath. - [gary] way to go. (laughs) were there any more pluses and wishes that people hadn't gotten out yet? we really hope that this has been helpful and begins our relationshipand our journey together. - [barbara] thank you.
- [gary] moving on to this slide here, we put together a word cloudof all of those ta coordinators that put the webinar together today, and on this word cloud,you'll see thank you in all of our native languages. lemlmts is thank you forsalish, my native language, and you'll see all ofthe other ones on here. we really wanna thank you forattending the webinar today. it's the largest one i'veever participated in,
with over 116 participants, plus 10 staff, so wow! good job! - [barbara] and i love all of the other versions of thank youin traditional languages that are coming in. we're going to have toexpand our word cloud, so thank you very much for your teaching, your participation, and i love it.
i love it and really look forward to meeting my grantees, but alsomeeting you all down the line, and definitely at thesymposium in september. - [gary] we will turnit back to you, barbara. - thanks, gary.- barb. - [barb] (laughs) and ireally appreciate everyone's thank yous in their language to us. on this last slide, you'llsee some contact information for our two presenters today.
we have barbara and gary, and then you'll also seethe contact information for our project director, lori king. feel free to contact anyone,there's also the website. and then also, you will be getting a brief feedback questionnairefollowing the webinar. we really appreciate any input that you're willing to provide, so be on the lookout for that.
we just wanna say (speakingin foreign language) and zach, who opened us in a good way, will be closing us in a good way. so (speaking in foreign language).