Welcome to Bridge Housing Critical Need for Native Recovery. My name is Kiara Mattresino with Kauffman & Associates and I will manage the logistical support for this Zoom session. At the bottom of your screen, you'll find a series of icons. If you have questions throughout today's session, please use the chat function and we will address your questions either by chat or during the Q&A section at the end of the presentation. If you would like to speak aloud to ask your questions during the Q&A, please use the raise hand function under reactions. Finally, please be aware that today's session is being recorded. Closed captioning is available by clicking the CC function. If you need technical assistance during the session, please type the issue into the chat box and one of our techs will address it as soon as possible. Without further ado, I would like to introduce today's facilitator and Tribal moderator for their introductions and warm welcome. Jonna, take it away. Thank you. My name is Jonna James. I'm a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and I serve as a TTS for the Indian ICRT team here at the Opioid Response Network. I will pass it off for introductions to our co-facilitator today, Norman McCloud. Hey, good morning, everyone. Glad to be here with you all. My name is Norman McCloud. I'm a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa located in Belcourt, North Dakota. Also serve as a technology transfer specialist with the Indigenous Communities Response Team here with the Opioid Response Network. So very nice to be here with you all. I'll just go through a few logistics here. If we could have the next slide. Oh, I think I'm passing it on to somebody else, right? Sorry about that. I thought we were going through SAMHSA slides. And this is it. Am I passing it back to you, Jonna? So it looks like it's time for our cultural opening. So we're going to have Andrew and Shelby and Toto provide their introduction and do that cultural opening for us. I'm not seeing them on the call at this time, so let's go ahead and maybe give them another minute or two and see if they'll be able to join us, if that's okay with everybody. That seems Donna they might be having some technical difficulties. I'm thinking that because we also have Robert available and he has in his presentation and opening, we could go through the slides and then get the part where Robert can deliver a cultural opening, but we could give it another minute or so if you feel. I think that's a great idea. They do have a great opening so at some point if we need to give them that the minute to share what they have to share with us at the end we can do that as well but I think that's a great idea. So, do we have our slide deck so we can do our agenda overview I'm not seeing our slide deck up. Oh, they have. Okay, so somebody just sent me a message that they've had a huge lightning storm last night so it may be a technical issue. And are you still not seeing the slide deck up. I'm not seeing a slide deck is anybody else seeing it. Yeah, I see the slide deck. Okay, great. Sorry I just wanted to make sure it wasn't on my end. No, I'm not seeing it all I don't know what's going on. Um, let's go through the agenda. I appreciate that. Thank you. I apologize everybody for the confusion. That's fine. The opioid response network and indigenous communities response team is first on the agenda and then of course we'll talk about bridge housing and the critical need for native recovery, presented by Robert Aguilar and Valerie Aguilar and then we'll just do a short question and answer. Talk about how or it can help you. There'll be a survey link available at the end and then talk about some future topics that we will have here at Warren, and then closing of the meeting itself. Funding for this initiative is made possible by a grant from SAMHSA. These expressed here in written conference materials or publications and by the speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does mention of the trade names commercial practice. These organizations imply endorsements of the US government, the opioid response network consists states tribes and native organizations cities communities and individuals by providing culturally responsive education and training to address the opioid crisis. We help enhance prevention treatment and recovery, as well as harm reduction efforts. We provide all of this at no cost to the requesters. It is all funded through SAMHSA. It supports native brilliance native community strengths and expertise, native sovereignty, local community leads. This is our indigenous communities response team you'll see some of these faces on the call today. Each of these individuals cover a territory throughout the United States, we are all technology transfer specialists either with ORN or Kauffman and Associates. This just shows us which areas of support each of the technology transfer specialists who and handle indigenous request handle. You can see there's five territories throughout the United States, each territory is covered by at least two technology transfer specialists, again responding to indigenous community requests. And I believe we are passing it back to john. Yes, thank you and I'm able to see our slides now so I would like to introduce you guys to today's speakers. First we have Mr. Robert Aguilera is a member of the Poma band of mission Indians through his father Richard Aguilera, and through his grandmother Anita who are the His father's father Leland Aguilera was a member of the Mesa Grande Reservation. Robert's mother Catherine Kolb is a member of Rincon band of Luciano Indians through her father Howard Kolb, and her mother Ruth Davis was a member of the Lajola Indian Reservation. Roberta, Robert is Peonkowichem, I'm sorry if I butchered that Robert, the people from the West. Valerie, we have Miss Valerie Aguilera is from the San Pascual band of Kumeyaay Indians and has over 25 years of experience working in her tribal community. Her advocacy stems from experiencing the barriers and lack of treatment and recovery services for her loved ones. For 18 years she's managed a variety of programmatic tribal health grants. As part of the Indian Health Council's TOR committee in 2018, Valerie helped with developing the first MAP program and is currently an active member of the TLOC Coalition, CRIHB Overdose Surveillance Project and Rincon Overdose. Thank you both for being here with us today and I'll now hand it over to you. Thank you. I say meal. Welcome to everyone and hello everyone. I just want to run, am I going to go over the. Yes, Robert. Am I going to go over the whole. Right now. Can you give us an opening prayer, and then I can start, start the presentation, it'd be really welcomed. We appreciate it. All right. I say meal. To everyone. I want to thank everyone for being here. And I want to offer this prayer up and, and listen, you know, and in a good way, you know, and in this prayer, it's asking God to grant us serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference. miyoo yoo. Nishoon novik, nishoon novik yoo yoo. Peech shantoey. To give you thanks, Creator, for blessing us with the opportunity to be here in a good way. Thank you for offering this safe space for us to be here and be a service to the people. Creator, we ask for forgiveness for our wrongs, Creator, and we ask that you help us to learn off our wrongs. We're human, we'll make mistakes, Creator. We ask that you look over our family, our friends, our loved ones, and all the people that work with us and alongside of us on this journey. Look over the ones that are struggling with homelessness, mental health, and substance abuse, Creator, in and out of the rooms. Creator, I'm just going to ask that you're with us all as we're here for this next hour or so, aligning us, guiding us with a good heart, with good spirit, and good intent, Creator, in a good way. And I always end with, your power, your will, and your strength, we will do always. To all my relations of hope. So I'll start off with the, one of the main things I want to start off with is I want to open this up and make sure that I'm being totally transparent and letting everyone know that this is my story. It is what I've been called to do so it's very serious, tragic and beautiful topic, you know, recovery, blessings, miracles, it's all in one, you know, so I want to ask you that you bear with me if I do and when I do get emotional, you know, so because it is, it's the story, you know, so the prayer I just shared with you all was the serenity prayer in Chumtela in my language. And when I came to recovery, it was something that I learned was serenity, the serenity prayer, but when I went and I started work, sweating in ceremony, participating in my traditional teachings, working on my 12th, 11th step, I translated it into the language so that I could have a prayer in my language. I could have a prayer in my own dialect, you know, and yeah, so that's the opening prayer that we came up with is the serenity prayer. Enter Travel Treatment is a Native-led 501c3 nonprofit organization. It was established in 2021 at the height of the nation's opioid crisis. We got it established in 2021, we opened doors in September of 2022, and this year we'll be coming up on our annual opening for a year. Our vision is to align and unite our tribes and tribal resources with solutions to combat substance abuse. Yeah, it's 2033, thank you Val, to combat substance abuse. The vision isn't to be the only program. The vision is to align and unite our tribes and tribal resources. We understand that there are plenty of tribal resources and help that's out there, and we understand that this substance abuse has been something that we've been struggling with for generations. We need all the help that we can get, you know, so the vision is to align and unite our tribes. Our mission is to provide culturally sensitive resources for tribal communities, connecting our traditional ways with treatment and recovery to support healing and wellness. When I went through recovery on my own, when I went through recovery myself, I went to a, it's called a faith-based program. And at this faith-based program, I was there, and I was trying, but it wasn't resonating with me. It wasn't resonating with the spiritual side of things. As soon as I was able to, I started incorporating our spiritual practices, which is sweat lodge ceremony, with the 12 Steps to Recovery. As soon as I was taught that Step 11 talks about prayer and meditation to a god of your understanding, and praying for his knowledge and the power to carry that out, and that I can incorporate that into my recovery, and it's our own spiritual, our Native American spiritual ways and teachings. As soon as I learned that, I gotta say, that's when the psychic change happened. That's when it clicked, and that's when it resonated to me. I wasn't gonna die high. I wasn't gonna die an alcoholic. I was going to be, live a sober man. I had a chance. I had hope. That's when the hope came to me. Connecting our traditional ways with treatment and recovery to support healing and wellness is something that InterTribal Treatment does with our Western best practices. We're integrating that with our spiritual teachings. While I was starting my vision and while I was putting InterTribal Treatment together, the purpose, finding purpose on it. I read this book called Tribe on the homecoming of belonging. I want to say that that's when I realized that it's belonging that we lack a lot of times. The purpose is to provide culturally sensitive treatment program with the feeling of belonging. I read this book, Tribe, and it talks about belonging and the need for the human being to have belonging and have that tribal belonging and how us as Native Americans, we're born with that. That's in our DNA. At InterTribal Treatment, we always want to make our people feel like they belong there by offering medicine, by incorporating our cultural teaching, by incorporating ceremony, smudging, talking circles, by meeting our people where they're at. That's what we do at InterTribal Treatment. That's the belonging. Yara, can we go to the couple next slides? Yeah, we missed a couple slides. So, yeah, and then he already went through this in the next slide. Is this Val? Oh, so back, back a slide. I'm sorry. Did you want to elaborate on this a little more, Rob, on this slide? Can you see what slide we're on? Yeah, I can see it. Did you want to elaborate on this slide, or were you done? I was done. Okay, so next slide, please. Hello, everybody. My name is Valerie, and I am the COO here at Intertribal Treatment. And so one of the things, as Rob was mentioning, we opened doors September of 2023. We are state certified and joint commission accredited. And I just wanted to read off something that is right out of the Tribal Behavioral Health Agenda that SAMHSA put out in 2016. As indigenous people, we possess the culturally relevant knowledge and expertise to address and enhance our overall health and well-being. So we have a good understanding of that. And through Rob's experience in treatment, and as he went through his recovery, he was able to bridge his traditional teachings with his recovery, with his 12 steps, along with weaving in to the Western best practices, because we know, as we all know, that is what is billable. So we here at Intertribal Treatment, we do take private insurance. We are working toward being a Medi-Cal provider, because a lot of our community have Medi-Cal. And so we're working toward that. That is a goal. But our goal is to offer quality, regardless of your stance. If you have private insurance, Medi-Cal, no insurance, we want to offer that quality care across the board. So while we are putting together Intertribal Treatment, we knew this is something we wanted to do and incorporate and keep at the base of our programming, is that spirituality, that culture of what we're lacking out off the reservation. And when we send our people to outside recovery centers, they miss that cultural component, that cultural sensitivity, being able to relate to one another. So we're super proud to have been able to create a program that weaves our tradition into the Western best practices. Like I mentioned, we are state certified. And one of our goals was to become joint commission accredited. So we are also super proud to have been able to do so in such a short amount of time. And we owe it a lot to a lot of our grants that we've been able to capture since the day we opened. So we're super grateful, super grateful for that. Next slide. Are you guys out of California? Yes, we are. The Medi-Cal, I wasn't familiar with that term. Yes, we are. We are out of California. And so Medi-Cal is like say they have a Medi-Cal is an insurance for those who don't have private insurance. And those would be like county funded programs. But we're working toward being able to take Medi-Cal. So we have a poll question here. So we just wanted to take a few minutes to ask the audience, what does treatment on demand look like for your organization? That is something we are working on and we are able to offer our community right now is treatment on demand. The options are within the hour, within 24 hours, within 48 to 72 hours or a week. What does treatment on demand look like for your organization? Detox also. It all starts with detox, right? And that's kind of like one of the things that actually that we ran into is not knowing the process or not knowing or not understanding. A lot of our people, when they come to me and they ask me, hey, Rob, I want to go to intertribal treatment. They don't understand that it's not just going to a sober living or come right into the IOP programming. When we started intertribal treatment, we wanted to put a detox residential. We know that that need was there, but this is the fastest and easiest, and it's what I kind of knew. The simplest way I can do it is put the outpatient program that we're putting the style together. And it is detox first. It goes detox, then it goes detox res, and then it goes IOP, IOP5, IOP3, and then OP, which is outpatient. Intensive outpatient five, intensive outpatient three, and then outpatient services. It looks like we have the pullback. So 16% within the hour, 47% within 24 hours, 21% is within 48 to 72 hours, and 16% is at a week. So that's actually pretty good. Yeah, like Rob was saying, one of the barriers that our community has faced for generations is there was no resources. And that is kind of what stemmed a lot of my passion and advocacy for treatment is seeing when somebody is ready, when somebody finally has that gift of desperation, and they are seeking help, being able to get them help when they are ready. Because that little window of opportunity is so brief, you know, and if we can't help them when they are ready, we can lose them. And so what we've been able to do at intertribal treatment by collaborating and getting MOUs with other facilities who offer medical detox, we're able to get an individual to detox within an hour. And that's exactly what Rob saw when he worked out in San Diego. That's how it works out there. And then as he was sharing, he'd come back here, and they'd be asking him for help. And it's like, oh, the clinic's closed, or oh, there's no funding, or oh, what kind of insurance do you have? It was like barrier after barrier after barrier. And we don't see that with others off the reservation who have the funding, who have the insurance, who have the means. And here back at home on the reservations, that's what we're faced with. And so we're super happy to have the team we have. We can go to the next slide, please. The team we have been able to bring in to intertribal treatment. We're super proud and happy of those who work alongside us on this journey. Our team is actually a little bit bigger now than who's on here currently. So it's Rob and myself. We have Mr. Paul Dooley. He's our clinical director. He's an LMFT. We have Ms. Margie Anderson. She's a CADAC 2 with over 15 years experience. Mr. Mike Townsend. He's Pueblo. LaShawna Kalak, our peer support. She's from Rincon. Mr. Buddy Velarde. He's our operations manager, and he's a CADAC, and he is a member of the San Luis Rey tribe. Ms. Skye Holmes. She's a member of the Cherokee Nation. She's our executive assistant. Mr. Pauly Carrillo. He's Navajo. He's our peer support, and he also manages one of the homes. Same thing with LaShawna and Buddy. Mr. Victor. He is from the San Francisco community. Ms. Carla. She's from right here, a city right next to us, Escondido. Mr. Rob Anderson. He's Navajo, and he has over 15 years experience as a CADAC. We also have another counselor, Tenille, who's from the Suboba Reservation, and then another, Rad T, who is from Rincon, and we have two more peer support alumni that we were able to hire back. So, we're super proud of our team, and what we're able to do is collaborate with outside organizations, and that has been super important. Next slide, please. Collaborating with outside organizations, especially our local Indian health councils, has been key from the jump. So, before we even opened, we were making contact with them, and Riverside-San Bernardino County was super happy to see what we were doing. He pretty much said, call us when you're state certified, which we did. So, we offer intensive outpatient programming. Like Rob said, we start at PHP, IOP, and OP. We transport the clients to and from support groups every night of the week. It is mandatory. We are partnered with recovery residences that are right here within five minutes of the center. We have two male homes and one female home. They're very structured. We have coordination of care with tribes, tribal social service departments, and Indian health service centers. So, the coordination of care with our local tribes has been also super key. So, we have MOUs with our La Jolla Avelica program, with Paula Social Services, and with Pechanga Social Services. So, when their community are struggling and having issues, we're able to coordinate their care, their social services are able, their case workers are able to come to the center and see them regularly. We send reports back and forth, and we follow the client really closely with our care team, with whoever their referent was, or with the family. We understand that the addiction doesn't just affect the individual, it affects the whole family. So, we're super big on healing, helping heal that relationship with the family, and as the Wellbriety teachings speak on, is healing the forest. And Val, I just want to chime in on the, real quick, on the clients that are transported to and from groups each evening, AA, NA, Wellbriety, talking circles Monday through Friday. These self-help meetings are literally right here on our reservations. We have one right at our office on Monday night, we have a Tuesday night NA meeting at our Indian health clinic, Wednesday at our Palma reservation, Thursday at Narcotics Anonymous at Paula reservation, Friday at Rincon reservation. Now, one of these, one of the, the importance of this is that, and especially have, having a actual program in the forest, in our area, in our community was critical. Me going to treatment off the reservation is good, it's important, it's necessary, leaving the environment. The only hiccup is we always have to come back, whether it be six months, eight months, or even a year later. And what happens when we come back to a sick forest, and we don't have accountability, and we're not, our faces aren't right, we're not regulars at those recovery meetings. It's, it's not as easy or as simple, you know, it helps whenever we take our community in as a group, and support each other, you know, so we definitely, having our people go to these recovery meetings on their own, during their, not on their own, but but off programming hours, it's basically at the sober livings that we have connected, we'll talk a little bit about that, but during those hours is important, it's almost vital to their, to their, to their survival and recovery. And yeah, so I just wanted to touch on the importance of those recovery and those, those, that support group Monday through Friday. Yeah, and it's been super helpful. We've seen clients who are coming through our program and graduate, and then they've already had those moments where they had to walk into those meetings, because it's not easy to walk into your first meeting and say, Hello, my name is Valerie, and I'm an alcoholic. And so when they are doing this, with their inner tribe that they've created here at the center, they do it as a group with that support. They're already established at these meetings. So when they transition back home, they just keep showing up, and they're already comfortable, they're already feeling a part of the recovery tribe here that we're creating. And it's been really, really instrumental and helping them strengthen that recovery. And a couple of things that Rob and one of our other board members did, like a year prior to us opening, they were advocating for meetings to be on our local tribes, at our local tribes, at our Indian Health Council, they were strong advocates at getting tribal getting recovery meetings started within our community. And so I just wanted to say that because it was super important. And now that meetings going strong, and our people are able to, to have that safe space. And one of Rob's goals was, he wanted to try to have a meeting every night of the week on one of the local reservations. And he worked on that for about a year. And we have that now. So super important. One of the other things is offering that whole person care. So while they're with us for those 90 days, 90 days isn't long. But we're able to start, we're able to start getting them there, you know, taking them to the DMV, getting, helping them get to their court, finish any type of court cases they might have. Our program director creates this beautiful progress report with all of their drug tests with all of their progress, with some of the cultural stuff they're learning, and is able to take that to the judge to report this is their progress. This is what they're doing. And the courts are loving it. And some of the clients are being court ordered to residential. But when Rob appears with them in court and talks to the judge about this is how structured we are, we don't have a residential but we have attached partnered sober homes. And this is what we can offer our people. The judge has allowed the clients to stay with us. They just ask, can they be with you six to nine months, we say yes. And, and we've been able to accommodate and help people, you know, get their ankle bracelets off and finish their court cases, reunite with children. And it's a beautiful thing. So one of the things also, excuse me, one of the things on the recovery residences that we do offer, these recovery residences are literally like five to seven minutes away from the center that we're at. And, and at these, these sober livings, there's absolutely no visitors at the sober livings. There's no, no overnights from the sober livings, unless it's a wake, or it has to do with traditional like a tournament that wants, someone's asking, you know, to be at, you know, and these, these structured sober livings are, are the accountability there is, is very high. And when I share that with these probation officers, these judges, and I share with them about the structure of the sober residences, that's, that's, that's what separates us from other IOP programs, intensive outpatient programs. We're set up pretty much like a, you know, like a residential, except it's not all on campus, you know. So, and that was intentional so that we can give that individual a safe place, a safe haven to be at, and to help them actually set boundaries with their family, you know. It helps them say, hey, I can't have no visitors. You can meet at the office. We'll give them rights to the office to pick up and drop off. So, yeah, our sober livings are definitely super structured in that. Next slide, please. And then, Rob, this is your slide. The cultural integration advisory team. One of the things that we know and understand is that our culture is, is very, it can be a little bit tricky as far as what we're able and what we should be doing and what we shouldn't be doing, what we're not supposed to be doing. And I know that from my own experience on how protective our elders and the gatekeepers to our culture are. And so I thought it was very important, we thought it was very important that we put together a cultural advisory team. So we have Armando El Riano. He is a Nakuana singer from Pachanga Reservation. And Nakuana singer is the songs, those songs that we sing at death, you know. Those are those death songs that start when the sun sets and they go all the way through the night till the sun rises, you know. And Armando is a gatekeeper to those songs. And we're super blessed to have him on our cultural advisory team. We also have Ulysses Ballardus. He's a retired CDC spiritual advisor. He's with San Pascual Reservation. We have Dennis Alto who has, I wanna say 34 years of sobriety. He's a spiritual advisor. He pours a large every week on Saturday evening in Viejas Reservation. He also does talking circles every Sunday at Viejas at noon. And our clients go down to that one once a month. And we have William Cole who digs grave for our people. And he's also a pian player in our community. So he's also one of our people who we go to regularly and get direction. And a lot of times what we've found out is that there's a lot of things we can be doing rather than not be doing. When we go back to our culture and we say, hey, look here, we're thinking about offering these songs or these teachings. And they'll take them back to their teachers and they'll come back and they'll say, yeah, they said we could do it like this or like that. They'll guide us in that area. So integrating the cultural advisory team was a game changer for our program. Next slide. We have this, the center one is called peon. That's an old hand game that dates back to our ancestors. It's a gambling game. And it's actually one of the reasons why our tribes in California were able to have casinos. It's an old traditional hand game. And in this picture right here, you're seeing us at New Year's last year. That's our clients. We're playing at New Year's. It starts when the sun sets. And this game will go on till the sun rises all night long. So we're on our knees throughout the night and we're singing songs across from the fire. So it's a beautiful game. And to the right, we have Mr. Ulysses Ballardus right there with the yellow. He's putting together medicine bags with our clients. The bottom one right below, he's actually, they're carving out drums. They're doing some drums right there. And then to the left, we're learning bird songs. And I believe that was a day when Mr. Blue Eagle was teaching from Viejas Reservation. And right above that, creating gourd art. Creating gourd art, we have Mrs. Crystal Aguilar. She does gourd art. And that's actually a really, the one, the top gourd right there is one of our clients put that one together. So that gourd art has been very instrumental to our clients, allowing them to express themselves in a cultural way. Our dedicated team, next slide. Go. So part of what we do is continued training. And I believe these are just some photos of one of them is that one of the, well, Bridie trainings we all attended. Another, this is Mr. Anderson and Ms. Marge Anderson, our lead counselor and program director being honored at one of the, I think that was like maybe the Balboa Pow Wow or one of the Pow Wows in San Diego. Ms. Holly Echo Hawk down in the corner. We're super honored and happy that she came and toured our facility. And that's just some of the team. Our team's super dedicated to the cause and to our people. And we're super honored to have the team we have. It's truly been like a godsend, the team we've been able to bring on this journey with us and we couldn't do it without them definitely. Next slide. So these are pictures of two of the homes. We have a third that isn't pictured. So the top is our men's home. The bottoms are women's home. And like Rob was saying, they're very structured. We have a live in house manager 24 seven with our people. It's giving them that safe, healthy environment to just focus on themselves and heal. And like Rob said, we don't allow visits. We don't allow drop buys, but what this, I've heard from multiple people who've gone through our program. They've come up to me and said, thank you. Thank you for giving me a safe place to just focus on myself. Cause that's something, being able to remove them from the environment yet we're 15, 10, 15, sometimes 30 minutes from their home, from their reservation. But having this home away from home, they're a lot of times learning for the first time how to say no, how to say, no, I can't go hang out with you. No, you can't come over. And because it's in our policies and we're very strict on our policies and rules and regulations and the house managers keep everybody accountable, weekly house meetings. They all have chores. They have to get up every day and do their chore. The houses stay really, really, clean and just structured. And it's giving them that ability to learn how to say no and to learn how to set those healthy boundaries for themselves and for their family. So it's been really amazing to see how the individual is able to really grow in their recovery and have that time to heal for themself. And a lot of times when their 90 days are up, they're not wanting to leave. And we have a few extensions. We have a few people who don't have anywhere else to go. So they're on extension and on extension and we'll keep them, keep extending and we'll see. Well, you know, hopefully our, we'll be able to get them out of there. You know, hopefully we're able to get more housing for them. But do you wanna add anything to this, Rob? Yeah, we can go to the next slide. So this one talks about the signed agreements. We have signed agreements. It talks about each one of our houses are for, we have actually another house that's not on this slide. It's another man's house. So we have a total of 25 beds, eight females and 16 male. And all of our residents have to be active ITT clients. They gotta be programming with us. We have a zero tolerance. If somebody does, you know, relapse, when they relapse, it's important that we move them on to maybe a reset detox, which would be a few days and maybe some residential, a 10 day residential stay. That way it moves them out of the environment briefly. No visitors, must be, weekend passes must be approved. No overnights unless it's funeral week or cultural peon. So yeah, that is our housing. Next slide. This is us in the community. Right there on the top left, that's actually us playing in a tournament and peon. That's the center one is us doing Narcan training in the community. On the right is going to be in, I wanna say that's our, the walk that we, the camp out that we participate in. We help out, it's up here on La Jolla Reservation. Then we have another one coming up in October about. Yeah. Yes, in October, a recovery camp out. It's a recovery camp out. Our people will be there participating. I'm sure that there's gonna be probably an overnight on that night. And right here to the left is going to be our team, myself, Buddy, Rob, Mrs. Margie and LaShauna. Next slide. Real quick, just on that, being out in the community. Being out in the community has been really helpful in addressing the stigma because there's still a lot of stigma. And when they see us out in the community and they see our alumni helping out at the booth, doing Narcan training, when they see us walking in our recovery proudly, it's helping others reach out and ask for help. And it really does have a domino effect in the community. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a lot more people less fearful of judgment and more open and willing to ask for help. Even when we have powwows and other gatherings, we're driving all the clients to these cultural gatherings. And we all show up with one big group and it's pretty powerful. And to see them re-engaging sober at these cultural events. And one of the cool things that happened this past New Year's is we took the clients to, it was a peon tournament during New Year's. And it was pretty cool. Cause a lot of them were like, I haven't had a sober New Year's in I don't know how long. And it was amazing to see them all participating, birds singing, playing peon at a cultural gathering sober, bringing in the new year and participating in their culture. And it was pretty powerful. And so I just wanted to share that. Go to the next slide, please. So we recently did receive the BHBH grant. Round one, and we were able to acquire 14 acres, which are literally five minutes from here and from our center. So we are located in San Diego. It's San Diego County, but we're in the North County area. We are central to our 18 San Diego County tribes and our 12 Riverside County tribes. Pechanga, Riverside County borderline is literally 15 minutes from us. So we are centrally located to our Southern California tribes. And we don't only serve Native American, Southern California Native Americans or California natives. We have out of state natives who are coming through our program. And we have people who aren't native coming through our program. And if they can get that, if they feel they can get that healing through our program, we welcome them. So we're super happy and honored to have been able to acquire this property. And we're looking at developing it for our people because we are growing out of our center already. Do you wanna elaborate on this, Rob? With this grant right here, I wanna say we're going to be by the end of, beginning of next year, we'll be adding two more homes with 12 female beds and 12 male beds. And that's what we'll be adding at this property right here. And we have a vision and we have a dream that we'll be having our cultural, there'll be an ITT center here, and that's the vision, that's the dream, and that's what we'll be working towards until it's there. We believe that we're, we know and we understand that we are stronger together and this is pretty much what we're, we're, you know, we're grateful and we're honored to be on the journey alongside with all of you guys, you know, we can't do it alone. And so we're doing it together. And next slide, I think is going to be. Can't hear it. There's no. There's no sound. There's no sound. OK, give me one second. See if I could. I knew I wanted to put together a program. I knew that our people needed this program. I knew that it was something that I was called for. Being at my recovery was the importance of my life, and I seen how much our people suffered, and I experienced it, and I started putting together Inter-Tribal Treatment. What Inter-Tribal Treatment does to an individual who's actually willing and open to work on themselves, it's a program that gives them that tribal belonging, the feeling of belonging and the feeling of worthy, the feeling of purpose, and that's the first thing that when they come in the door, we want to give them that feeling that you belong here, you know, you're worthy of this, you're welcomed here, this is your tribe. A lot of times when we're at the end of our road, we're at the very end, when we're spiritually, mentally, emotionally sick, you know, we're bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt. We don't have belonging. Our tribes, basically some of them has 86 of them off the reservation, even our families, they've set those boundaries, they've dealt with us for so many years, they can't, you know, they can't, they have to live their lives, so they started, you know, they started setting boundaries and not allowing us, so we're tribeless, we don't have no tribe. At Inter-Tribal Treatment, that was one of the first things that we want to do is allow them to come in and become this tribe right here, that inner tribe, and start building that tribe from within. I would say Inter-Tribal Treatment is for anybody who can get healing, anybody who's willing to get healing. This isn't just for Native American, it's for community, you know. The Welbriety teachings talk about, they talk about healing the forest, you know, and we can't pick and choose what tree we want to heal out of the forest. We have to heal the whole forest, you know, so if you're a community and you grew up right here, you're welcome to come and heal with us, you know. I would say Inter-Tribal Treatment is a program that our people are ready for. It is a program that the people are ready for, for the healing. What I learned in my personal recovery is gratitude is an action where, you know, we show our gratitude by offering ourselves to this way, you know, we show our gratitude by taking care of this place right here as a sacred spot for our people. You know, being, I would say being chosen by Creator to be this person in a position is an honor, you know, it's a huge honor, you know. It's something that I don't take lightly, you know. So gratitude is just something that I can't express. The only way I can express gratitude is by suiting up and doing the same thing over for the people, you know. I would like to thank you both Valerie and Robert, that was very informative and obviously your heart has gone into this work. We have a few minutes we'd like to open up for any questions that there may be in the audience you can either turn on your mic or you can type it in the chat and we'll say it for you. Thank you. Yes, thank you everybody. Thank you for your time today for doing the good work you're doing. If there wasn't any questions, we can go on to, I believe we have how the Opioid Response Network can support us, and I think that's going to be Norman. Yeah, absolutely. So how can ORN support you? We can offer consultation for implementation of treatment, recovery services, as well as prevention services, trainings on how to reduce barriers to treatment, training around trauma-informed care practices, training and consultation on how to build culture into your clinical practice, anti-stigma education and training for staff and community members, connecting programs with materials and curriculum rooted in Indigenous culture. The Opioid Response Network is here to help you, ORN is a resource for you at no cost. We provide education, training, consultation that enhances the experts that you have to address. What is your guys' website? Or do you guys have one? Yep, we sure do. Can I go back and get more information? Yeah, you can submit a request at the opioidresponsenetwork.org. We will answer that request within one business day. That request will be answered by a regional TOR representative in your area. And I will pass it back to John. Great, thank you. And those links are in the chat box. And I didn't think to ask Robert or Valerie, is there a link to your website that you'd like to share that you can drop in the box as well to share with those that may want more information on your work? So a little bit more about the Opioid Response Network. Yes, Holly, a real-life person is going to answer you, not a chat box. So if you put in that request, it'll come straight to us. Valerie did put the link to her website in the chat box for anybody that likes some more information there. So help is here. The ORN is your resource for no-cost education, training, and consultation to enhance efforts addressing opiate and stimulant use disorders. ORN has consultants in every state and territory to deploy across prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction. And again, at the beginning, Norm went over somehow. We have the Indigenous Community Response Team that are consultants that will respond directly to our tribes. Share your needs via the submitter request form at theopiateresponsenetwork.org. And within one business day, your regional point person will be in touch to learn more. Is there another slide? Okay, there it is. I knew there was a QR code coming. So there's webinar information for August, Engaging Tribal Leaders, Linking SUD Services and Tribal Economics Development. That's going to be August 29th from 2 to 3.30 Eastern Time. There is a link to that in the chat box as well, as you can use the QR code on your screen to register. These are our future webinar topics, Engaging Tribal Leaders, and then September 26th, we'll have whole native SU treatment care examples. Okay, and this is the evaluation for today's survey for today's presentation. So if you can scan the QR code or if you'll use the link to access a very brief survey, William just put the survey link in the chat box for you as well. That'll just take a minute or so, but that feedback is really imperative for us to be able to continue to provide you with the information that we bring to you. It'll just ask about your satisfaction. We've got our last slide. Yep, that's the last one. All right, thank you. And thank you again, Robert and Valerie, for being with us today. Really enjoyed all the- You're welcome. Thank you very much, guys. All right, I'll give you back a few minutes of y'all's day, and everyone take care. I'll hope to see you next month. Whoa.

cultural integration

recovery programs

Inter-Tribal Treatment

tribal communities

traditional ways

healing and wellness

tribal identity

coordinated care

Opioid Response Network

substance use disorders