Hi everybody, we're going to get started here. Oki nixokweks, niistuu, anagok, terns, laframbois, amskapi, pikani, sitsigeit, sitsipi. Welcome friends and relatives to our September tour watch parties. This is our second of two watch parties this month that explores the film Native Transformations in the Pacific Northwest, Stories of Strength in a Public Health Crisis. Again, my name is Terrence Laframboise and I am a technology transfer specialist that serves on the Indigenous Community Response Team for the tour region three, Tribal Mountain, Lakes and Plains. I want to thank everyone here for taking the time to participate in our tour watch parties this month. Due in part, our funding for this initiative was made possible to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The views expressed in written conference materials or publications by the speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does it mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organization imply endorsement by the U.S. government. This film highlights three co-salish community strengths and protective factors identified through a community-based participatory research process by following four individuals who share their experiences of overcoming the impacts of an opiate crisis. This film highlights the Native Transformation Project, two research findings of co-salish source of strength and protective factors that build resilience against opioid misuse outlined in the co-salish ReefNet wellness model. This film articulates through an Indigenous perspective how connection to family, community, culture, and spirit protects and strengthens co-salish peoples to overcome the impacts of opiate crisis. I also want to take the time to put into the chat that we have this film comes with a reflection and discussion guide that accompanies the Native Transformation Project film and is intended to honor the stories of the co-salish people's testament of healing and wellness through sources of strength and protection. It provides guidance on holding culturally safe, sensitive, and appropriate conversations about healing and wellness from a substance use disorder. So I wanted to take the time that as we gather at this space that there's so much to these stories that we take collectively from and they're very powerful stories and they reflect a lot of our own communities. So I want to take the time right now to be mindful of the spaces of where we're at and the communities that we serve. That it is spaces like this that open up those thought pathways to think outside the box. And I want us to be mindful as we sit and watch these powerful videos on community change. I want us to reflect of our own bodies and our own journeys of our own healing, especially that our communities are going through as we speak and the clients and the people that we serve have a collective story to tell. It is our hope along with the creators of this project that we share stories collectively as communities of the past we find ourselves reaching for a better future. It's spaces like this project and the video and our tour watch parties that we find opportunity to be connected to each other. As Indigenous people, we find healing and story to be able to feel connected and to learn from such hard spaces so our communities can start taking that journey. So again, as we come into this space, please honour yourself and honour your own journey as you begin to dissect and go into these powerful stories. Thank you so much and I hope you have the next rest of the hour to be mindful and right now we'll start our show. Thank you so much. These are stories of Coast Salish strength. In these stories, there is joy and there is hope, but there is also pain. The pain is our shared pain. You may experience this pain as you witness these stories. Please take care of yourself and each other during this viewing. Lift each other up. Know you are loved. Since time immemorial, we inhabited all of this land, these waters. This was our home. And what's interesting is when the newcomers got here, they said there was nothing. In our eyes, in our belief, everything was provided. In our language, there was no word for famine, none. This garden was perfect and it took care of us. U.S. drug overdose deaths skyrocketed to a recent 93,000 last year, a nearly 30% increase. I can still see it. I can still see it from the corner of my eye. I can still see them. I can still feel their footprints. The deadly heroin and fentanyl combination is hitting one community really hard. What struggles did they face? What catastrophic disruption did they witness before their eyes as these newcomers came in? There are a lot of complex reasons why this crisis has hit Indian country harder than other places. Our world and our way of life has completely been transformed in six generations and it's a challenge still to adapt to this new way of life. There's something really powerful about sharing your story. When we talk about how substance abuse has really impacted our people, it's because their story got shut down. It makes sense that people would want to numb and hide that story because we were never able to freely tell it to begin with. And when you're finally able to start telling your story, something transformative happens. There's healing in there. There's courage in there. There's vulnerability within telling your story that opens you up to new avenues. Henwick on three. One, two, three, Henwick! I was actually going pretty crazy before I started playing basketball. It just feels awesome to be surrounded by positive people in general and lifting each other up and encouraging each other. I just like being a part of something that keeps me busy and honestly it just keeps me out of trouble. It's just a better environment for myself and also for Connor to give him a good life. Both of my parents were drug addicts. I guess the real question is how do we help our people and how do we get back to those ways of life. All down here is my family. The cops always patrol Red River because there's always complaints about drug activity. My grandpa built all these houses up here. Right here, I grew up in this house a little bit with my dad. This is my grandpa and grandma's house, Armour and Irene James. This is our James family cemetery and then up here is our house. We came back a few years ago. At first it was hard. My dad and them were still doing pills and stuff in the house and we didn't get to come out here like we, ECS, do now. 2018 was when I found out I was pregnant with Connor. They stopped doing pills in the house after that because I got tired of it. I was just kind of like, hey, can you stop doing that in the house? My son's here now and I'd like for you guys not to do that around my son. My dad, he just goes and goes. Sometimes he stays gone all night. I get worried a lot. I really want to help him with taking care of his priorities and know what actually comes first. But honestly, I just want him to be here for his grandchildren and go to their games. He got to go to a few of my games, but not all of them. I want him to be at every single one. Henwick on three. One, two, three. Henwick! We've just gotten some intensity on us, okay? My dad wasn't really around much, honestly, from what I remember. He'd pop in and out, but we'd sit by the door and wait for him all day. Kind of like, when is he going to come home? You know, break a heart because she wouldn't want to tell us what he was actually doing. He talks about wanting to get better, and he does want to do it. He's just taking the steps to do it. He said he'd seen one of his buddies up and jogging and going for runs and stuff, but I was like, that could be you. I love my family. I was always gone. Always, always gone. There were times that I wished I was here more, just to be a supportive father figure. There's this unknown herd out here. Where does that come from? I don't know where that comes from because I know that's not me. I never intended to be an alcoholic or a drug addict. So where did that come from? Let's hand it down. Even many of the people that I've met, I've talked to, even many of our own people don't recognize the impact of historical trauma and that it was causing them to behave the way they were, to just try to bury that hurt. I specifically remember my grandmother telling me that when she was like eight years old and they came, the federal government representatives came, and they just picked up the children that were in the community and took them to this place. She learned later that it was the boarding school, but they did not even know where they were going. Their family didn't know where they were, and they didn't know when they were ever going to see their parents again. They were just taken away like that. My grandparents got forced to go to a small Indian school. Grandma remembers getting her mouth washed out by soap or speaking a language. I feel like I carried my grandma's hurt from getting traumatized like that, licking, getting told not to speak the language, stuff like that, getting disciplined. I believe she handed that hurt down to me. I've been in and out of treatment a few times, and I've gotten tools to recover and live a good, happy, clean, sober life. It's just got to be practice and work done daily. What would happen if you wasn't here? If it's you and I here now, but why are you here with me right now? I don't know if you know it or not, but right now, but why are you here with me right now? I don't know if you know it or not, but right now, you are medicine for me. Oh yeah, it's my ride and I gotta go up there in a minute. I'll be back though. I shouldn't have let my dad leave. I guess, I guess what it really comes down to, you know, like his dad just passed away in 2017 and then you know, his two brothers and a sister passed away last year and he hasn't really dealt with it. So I feel like he needs to go and grieve with that in the right way and not keep on doing pills and stuff. Like I want to help them. I feel like I push too hard sometimes though. It just might make them want to do it. America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. Prescription painkillers and heroin are at the center of a public health emergency. Let's continue this fight until we can say, each one of us, that we have conquered the scourge of drug abuse. We are once again enforcing the law and arresting criminals who peddle dangerous drugs. When problems arise, the focus is on the problem. However, it's seldom sufficient. One of the things that happened with the opioid crisis where the focus on the problem itself became a problem. At first, tribal nations just laid the law down. You know, they really went for more punitive actions because they really just needed to stop what was happening within our tribal communities. But the conversation started to change from being punitive to more understanding of what is happening in somebody's life when they're addicted to drugs and alcohol. The conversation was starting to change to see the person more so than the criminal part of being an addict. There was more of a restorative and healing effort that was starting to shift and change. People were wanting to meet our people where they were at. What is the actual goal of a community addressing substance use disorder? I think that's actually the fundamental question. And I think for a long time the answer has been a drug-free community. But that just hasn't worked. What people are coming to realize is that having a drug-free community might not be the right framework. And we have to think about, well, what's a healthy community look like regardless of what kind of substances people are taking? It's been truly a challenge within our communities to recognize that drug addiction was a disease. When someone gets diagnosed with cancer, many of their relatives and friends and the whole community, they come out and surround that individual and help support them in their cancer treatment. Our people, we need to recognize that addiction, whether it's alcohol or other substances, is a disease. And the individuals, there is help available for them, the same as there's help when someone gets diagnosed with cancer. There's drugs that are approved by the FDA to actually treat opioid use disorder. The most recent drug that's available is buprenorphine. It goes under the brand name of Suboxone or Subutex. And they both basically work the same. They bind opioid receptors just as another opioid would and prevent the craving. And the idea is that once you take that medicine, some of those negative behaviors that you might engage in to actually go pursue opioids, you don't have to do them anymore because you just don't feel that urge to use. Lummi Counseling Services is a certified outpatient treatment program. It works closely with the Healing Spirit Clinic, which is the Suboxone program. It works together like this flowing stream. Individuals who come in to either see their counselor will need to do a medical follow-up maybe, or individuals that come in and are scheduled to pick up their medication that day will need to do a one-on-one. There's those underlying things that we have to work on, not just taking a medication to help with cravings. You know, we truly got to dig deep and peel back the layers and get to the core of what's really going on. And that goes with our individual counseling and group counseling. There's all these nuances with treatment and just individualizing care. It doesn't matter what road you take, as long as you make it to recovery and you're safe in your life, that's the most important thing. Lummi Healing Spirit Clinic is a tribally run and operated program, so it's not just about the physical. It's much more about the whole person and making sure they're well, which includes the mental health and the spiritual and cultural health. I have so many people that came to the door, what's this room? Hey, how's it going? Good, how are you? So I'll explain to them what it is and that they're more than welcome to come in. The medical has the medicine, the counselors are there to help with the stressors, but then I see cultural therapy. I put the frosting on the cake, it was just, you could see them just lighten up and look forward to doing their work. Most sat here eight hours a day just beading their lanyard or making sure they got their cedar hat done, just craving to learn. You could just see the change in them. Back when I first started in 2011, I remember hearing a lot of negative talk about Suboxone. But you know, if it wasn't for the Suboxone program, I never would have went back to school. I wouldn't have this job, I wouldn't have a home. I'd probably either be in prison or six feet under, honestly. People think it's like, oh, well you're substituting one drug for another drug. But with time, I think the community's seen the positive effects of people on medication. I remember being at a general council meeting and somebody said, you know, I've never seen anybody get their children back while being on heroin. I have seen people get their children back being on Suboxone. We didn't really have structure with my mom and dad. It was just always chaotic. They used to have a lot of parties and stuff and drink. So I guess I kind of knew when I moved in with my aunt Kathy what they were doing. They were just out partying. When I was, I think, maybe five years old, my dad just brought us to my aunt Kathy's and asked if we could spend the night with her. And then we ended up just staying there. I just did it. I knew I had to do it. You know, I just wanted the best for them. They wanted to be with their mom and dad, you know, but it wasn't the best environment. So I tried to keep them engaged as they were growing up in as many things that were positive and that could help them develop their own leadership skills. But after Jandy graduated, she just kind of went off on her own way. Sorry. Thinking about it makes me sad. It's really hard to remember everything. The memories of my addiction are just really big. But I do remember Ariana being born in 2010 and having her for her first year. It just kind of came natural to me having a baby. But it got really hard when I got into my addiction. I knew that she deserved to be taken care of like she's supposed to, so I decided to leave Ariana with my mom. It was a hard choice to make, but I knew it was what was best for her. I've been wanting Ariana to come home ever since I got clean. That was always my goal is get clean and get my own place and get my kid back. It's kind of like what I envisioned for recovery. So that's what I'm going to work on. Dang, there's a lot of trucks. Dang, there's a lot of trucks. Yeah, so we're heading to the property where I used to live in a tent. I'm just nervous, I guess. I mean, I look at it every time I drive by it, just kind of remembering how far I've come from this property. This was one of the lowest points in my life when I was living here. So when we first came here, we started back in these trees. We just kind of had a makeshift shelter made with tarp and some flyboards. It was really wet. It was during the rainy season, so we were just trying to find anything to get us out of the rain. My addiction was just a vicious cycle. You know, waking up sick, worrying about what hustle we were going to do to try to get money to get my next fix to get well. That was every day for six, seven years. The American Indian Alaska Native has had lack of access for behavioral health in general. Boys, the doctor has come to make the physical examination. In the early years, tribes were directly under the federal government, and Indian Health Service was provided for all tribal people throughout the United States. The federal government was attempting to provide services based on the national trans health needs of the tribes, and even the individual tribes are very different. We're not coming from Washington to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. We're coming from Washington to ask you what you want to do and tell you we will give you the tools and the support to get done what you want to do. In 1994, then, the tribes began entering into the era of self-governance, and the tribes then started focusing the services to respond to what the needs of our own communities were. Our ability to customize what our people need has given the opportunity for a lot of people to be successful has given the opportunity for a lot of people to be successful in recovery and stay on the right track, creating and developing programs that were focused on the needs of our people and not how mainstream society looks at a person. We moved into this Jilangu village. It's a village that the tribe constructed to help the members of the community kind of get back on their feet. It's really nice to finally have our own place to call home. Jilangu opened in July of 2017. It was at the time we needed to start building something to help people get well and build it for the kids, you know, because I think it's really about the kids right now. Housings are crucial for any individual to be able to get their structure together. You could do all this counseling for them, but if they didn't have a place to go, they come back and they're a mess all over again. Here, at least, they've got a structure. So that's what we're here to wrap around with. So we know they have a house, then we can help them. We have about 32 families in there, over 100 kids. Most of these are tied to some sort of opiate has hit their family in some way. You know, why did they lose their children? Because of Jandi's struggles, Ariana has been raised primarily by Jandi's sister. Jandi, when she got her own place, she wanted Ariana to move immediately in with them. But Ariana has known this as her home for a long time, and so that's going to be a shock to her to be taken away from it and be having told that she has to go live with her. We are on our way to go pick up Ariana. She's going to come over to the house and hang out with me for a little while. Just pulling in to my sister's house. Hi. She hasn't lived with me full-time, you know, since she was a toddler. So it's really hard to kind of know what that's going to be like. So are you going to come home today or tomorrow? I'm going to come back tomorrow. What I'm worried about is if I try to move out, is if I try to get her to come home full-time. She's not going to want to be here all the time. She's going to want to go back to my sister's house because she's so used to being over there. She comes over and some weekend she'll be sad and she'll be like, oh, I'm going to go home. I miss my auntie. You know, that's kind of hard. When I was a kid and we were living with my auntie Kathy, when we got to be around Ariana's age, they would bring us back to court every year and ask if we wanted to go back and live with our parents. But I got to be a lot more comfortable with my auntie Kathy's than I was if I were living with my parents. I'm going to miss her. I think growing up in her circumstances made her realize maybe that, you know, it's not to the best interest right away to tear her away from something that she's lived and known for so long. She's always had the best interest of Ariana's and given her the time to transition. I think that's really important. Ariana, you know, she's old enough to make her own choices and I'm not trying to force her into living with me full time if she's not ready to. But, you know, I still want to get her room set up so that she knows that she has it here. And hopefully, you know, after seeing that room and everything, she'll be okay with living with me full time. Baby, get down. Baby. Stop. You're trying to make my bed. Two months ago, two and a half months ago, me and my daughter got into domestic violence altercation and, you know, we were both yelling at each other and ended up pushing and shoving and back then, you know, I wasn't in my right mind because I was using whatever, you know, I was on the perc 30s. I was on meth and heroin. Things just got worse and you know, I hit her. You know, I knew it was just the drugs I was on and not taking care of myself mentally or emotionally, spiritually. You know, I went to jail and stuff and got charged with some assault charges and I went to treatment for 45 days. I was too embarrassed to ask for help the last four or five years. You know, too ashamed to reach out but, you know, today I can do that. I really love my dad. I care about him a lot but if he's not gonna change any of those choices that he makes and I don't want to be a part of his life. I just feel like sometimes in life you gotta cut people out to make sure you're okay before you can help them. From conversations that I've had with my siblings that he won't be back up here for a while and I think that's good for him because right now this is not a healthy place. Well, as of today, I live in the Lummi Men's re-entry home. It's a jail alternatives program. I've moved in there after my treatment stay. It's a safe and clean environment. I can't go home. I can't see my daughter and my grandson. Can't be around them because they got a restraining order and I got court coming up. They know a little about active addiction. All they know is what we tell them. There's defense mechanisms that I use to keep me in that mode of active addiction like numbing myself so I don't have to feel those feelings of self-pity, the self-hate. Walking the red road, January 28th. Better communication, process, feelings, emotions, cravings. Learning to live a new lifestyle. Triggers. It's taking me a lifetime to learn this. Communicate them out. I miss my home. I really miss Bella, Keith, and Carter. The environment up around my house, the active addiction going on there, so it wouldn't be a good idea. I plan on staying there for at least a year. Have more strength to where I can go live in my house. My dad taught me most of everything about hunting. I've been hunting with him ever since I was as small as my son, even younger. It's a lifestyle. I mean, we've been doing it for hundreds, thousands of years. I'm really thankful for Keith bringing me on these trips because Keith was just really all for it, you know. It's always been in his life, so I was just like, yeah, I want that for my son. You know, I want him to teach that to my son. We come up here to let things go and get away from all the noise. The nature is really comforting, and just the fact that, yeah, our ancestors hunted these same woods, and I feel like it just teaches me patience, just being in the peace and quiet sometimes, and, you know, not even hearing anything but the water and the birds, and hearing the birds sing. I feel like it just teaches me patience, just being in the peace and quiet sometimes, and, you know, not even hearing anything but the water and the birds, and hearing the wind in the trees, and, you know, just sometimes it's even dead quiet. You can't even hear anything. I wished I could have lived back in the old days. I feel like there's just an old part of me that just misses all of it. Historical trauma is part of our history, you know, and some say, you know, it is passed down generation to generation, you know, but we also need to remember that our strengths and resiliency is ours too. You know, our ancestors' prayers, all those generations are still protecting us even today, and I'm so thankful for the people who believe that still, because they're the ones, you know, the ones that still believe in our ancestors' teachings and the strengths, and have the courage to live and try to find the solutions that continue to drive and motivate the present-day people today to know that we are still worth saving, that we are still here. My connection to this land goes back thousands of years. All my ancestors, great-grandfathers, great-grandmothers, gives me strength. Ancestors are powerful people, you know, they're spiritually strong, you know, mentally strong, physically strong, of course, because there was no drugs or alcohol back then, so, you know. The federal government showed up and changed everything, changed our language, changed our culture. All these new diseases came, interrupted our life, so it's kind of special to be able to come out and practice these ways of life. It's in our blood, you know, just coming out here, be able to let things go mentally, emotionally, spiritually, you know, be able to give it to the water, you know, and let the water take care of it. Drug addiction is a spiritual malady. It's a spiritual problem. And over generations, our spirit has been broken. You know, those traumas that were forced upon our way of life from the American government by outlawing our language and our songs, you know, that took away a portion of us that was irreplaceable. And I think if we can awaken our spirit, we can be fixed. Come on, Holly. We'll work together, okay? When I was in the midst of my youth, I never wanted to quit. I had no intentions of quitting. I loved heroin. I loved heroin. It was... There was like no thought process to it. Like, I can't track that and be like, why would I ever choose to do heroin? I took a couple hits and then I just kept smoking it. And then within a couple of weeks, I was trying to buy my own. I don't know if it made me feel a part of or what it did for me. I didn't really have a bad life. Like, I had a great life. When I was in middle school, I learned how to work on a boat. Then I just started going with my uncles. Out in the water is like a duck hand. No matter what, they always gave me a job on the water. Like, they were always there. They always supported me. They never gave up hope. Like, it kept me like involved and like a part of my family and a part of like my culture, right? A lot of times when you're in the river, you realize they were here before us doing this exact same thing. Yeah. We just talk, you know? Like, they tell you stories about like what it used to be like. I share some of my experiences. He'll tell me stories about my dad. That's really cool too. Like, I feel like I just get to know my dad some more too. My gillnetter I built, I named it after my daughter, Katie, me. Russ named his boat after Holly's mom. And that always kind of stuck with me that Holly didn't have a boat named after her. We got her back into being with the family and into the fishing and stuff. Katie and Kathy and I talked it over and we were gonna ask Holly if we could name it after her. I don't know how people make it without family because I've had so much support. Like, not just like financially with anything that's happened, but like just open arms and love and a place to live. And even if I needed groceries when I started being sober, everything is just like here. No, you're not that far away from everything as a lot of people are. Some people don't have anybody. Right. But you've got family that'll always back you for everything. Right. Yeah. When Holly was going through her addiction, the fear was always there every day. Seeing her and trying to get the message across to her that there is a better life. You know, this isn't who you are. And it's not over. Today, we gotta continue with the same message. You know, we just try to teach them what we were taught. What our elders taught us is what we have to pass on to the next generations. And I thank God that we had great teachers. I get some like peace out on the water. When I'm out on the water, it doesn't really matter what's happening at home because there's nothing I can do about it anyways. Being on the water, you're away from all the madness, the craziness. It's a great place to be. It's a great place to just go and think. It gives you time to think of who you are, where you come from, the natural beauty of everything around you, the water itself, the sun, the sky. I mean, it's like when you're on the water, you could hear everything, you know? It's like your roots. It's like your roots. It's where you come from. It's a part of like who your people are. And when you're using, you're so far away from that. ♪♪♪ As I was growing up, the traditional dances and like the singing and drumming and stuff, it wasn't really taught. But when I moved back home to Swinomish, I started working in the cultural department for cultural night. And so I got into like hearing like the songs and I was like, wow, that's, it just, it helps keep me balanced. When people are using, they're not participating in the traditional or cultural ways. They're not going to smoke house. They're not going to church. They're not going to family gatherings. And so when you're not participating, you're just not present with yourself. I mean, your body is there, but your spirit is not. You're just not able to be you. And so to gain part of like who you are back, that's progress. For so many years, our people, it was ingrained in their mind that it wasn't okay for them to practice traditions and cultural ways in public. But there's various traditions and cultures that we see as part of our family lifestyle. And this is something that helps us feel better about ourselves. Many of our people have, many of our people have now learned that there is cultural traditions that can help them in their everyday lives. And it gives our people the strength that they might need to get over whatever is causing them problems in their life. History has shut us down for a really long time and that history still affects individuals today. But now there's this huge movement where native nations, they're finally telling their story. And there's an uprising of healing and our voices being heard. And there's just something really profound about it, about just sharing your story and being heard. There are many pathways to wellness and what it looks like for others. Some people are able to find their own wellness through canoe pulling or through cultural winter practices of smokehouse or through tribal journeys or through weaving or beading or teaching the language. Those are all pathways to recovery and wellness. The Native Transformation Project is a community-based participatory research project. What's really profound about this project is that we get to sit and listen to each other's stories. We got to sit and talk with one another and identify sources of strength or protective factors that help people live a life that is safeguarded and strengthened. The important part of the work that we're doing is really identifying not what's wrong with us, but what's right with us. In our Native Transformation Project, we started really looking at interviewing individuals that have achieved some sense of wellness. We've been able to capture those sources of strengths that individuals can lean upon in their journey to recovery. We've utilized that Native Transformation Project to provide prevention services for youth. With these prevention strategies, we're trying to get further upstream to catch individuals by exposing them to protective factors and sources of strength that keep them well and healthy so together we can be Coast Salish strong. The hope is that more people, more providers, more programs will utilize this model to know that culture is prevention, that community is prevention, family is prevention. The answer is already within you, it's already around you, it's already in this room. Get everything dismissed, if I follow through with everything within a year here and get the restraining orders dropped, I'm going to call my daughter. PHONE RINGS Hello? Hey, Bella. Hey, there. I was like, who is this? This is my number. Just got done with court. Oh, OK. Everything was dropped and... Well, I'm on deferred prosecution, but, you know, I'm going to follow through with all that, but all the restraining orders have been dropped, so... Yeah, she called me the other day and she was like, what do you want to do? I was like, oh, I'm OK. I was like, with everything going on, I think it's OK for him to come home. Hey, I love you, Bella, and, you know, I said sorry so many times before, but, you know, it didn't mean nothing until I changed my behavior around. So I went and did what I had to do for myself. Here am I today. Here I am today, living the dream, you can say. Beep, beep. Just thankful that I'm still here, you know, to experience this moment right now, you know. It's pretty awesome. My grandson. A lot of healing is usually inward at first, but when you get to a certain stage of healing, your interests expand. I'm okay now, so I want to take care of my people, and that's a wonderful attribute that tribal people have, that we all try to take care of each other. We sent out the applications for the VP of Extended Sights. I think I decided that I wanted to be a counselor when I went back to school. I'm in my second year in the chemical dependency studies degree. I'm just finishing up my last three classes. Then I'm going to work on getting a job out here at the Lummi Care Office and applying for my trainee certificate. Next up, we have our Seventh Generation Alliance pledge. We're just trying to get students to just be more aware and conscious of the choices that they're making. Jandy's pathway to recovery was quite amazing because I think Jandy has also taken on, you know, the responsibility to also help others in their pathway to recovery. That's core to who we are as Indigenous people, is that, you know, we care about one another. Everyone falls down, but it's getting up and moving forward is what will really help you in the long run, not only for yourself, but, you know, the well-being of our entire community. I wholeheartedly believe in being an example because people watch one another out here. Our community is so small and close-knit that when you see people succeeding, that inspires other people to succeed. Being from Swinomish and people seeing me in my active use and then seeing me in this role, they're like, damn, like, how did you do that? I'm gonna have my mom bring down the other clothes. Okay. Okay. Say bye, mommy. That was a chapter in my life. I was really addicted to an addictive drug. It brought me to the worst person that I can be, but, you know, I came out of it. I love to see people come alive again. You know, it's amazing working with somebody when they don't have the ability to look you in the eye because they feel like, you know, they're just, there's no worth left in their body. You know, there's nothing left for them. And as you see people gain that hope and the courage to go on and build their life back up and you see them start to literally rise from the ashes, right? And the light comes back. The smile comes back and the kids are, you know, smiling and laughing and, you know, it's an amazing journey to be a part of. My hopes for my family someday is for all of us to be doing something that we love and for us to deal with our emotions and our feelings and all the things that we are dealing with in our daily lives in a healthy way. Checking in with each other as well and just showing up to the important stuff, you know. Compared to last year from this year, all of our birthdays and stuff this year, I think we've all been there. That's a big change and I think that's awesome. My parents, they were both really hurt and they're just still dealing with their stuff and it's like really hard to try and understand them sometimes. They've made choices growing up to where they just went and did what they wanted to do. But I'm like trying really hard to not abandon them because I know how it feels. Thank you for being here. Good deal today. Good feelings today. Thank you for doing what you're doing. You guys are doing good. All you guys. I pray that you guys have a good life. That you guys take care of yourselves and each other and always stick together. Love one another. Forgive one another. Keep looking to God. Do your spirituality. You guys be okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for watching the film with us. My name is Twyla Malari. I am one of the TTS with the Opioid Response Network. I'm also Dineh, member of the Navajo Nation. We want to share on behalf of the ORN, gratitude. Thank you for sitting with us today to watch and listen to the three Coast Salish communities share their healing journeys and the strengths of them overcoming impacts of opioid use. We wanted to also leave you with the intent of the film, which was shared through words that culture and community are prevention. We also encourage you to take time this afternoon to take care of yourself after watching the film. We know some parts were both inspirational, but also heavy in healing. If you have a moment, just care for yourself this afternoon. In addition, in moving forward in regard to the film, we'd also encourage you to join the Tribal Opioid Response Webinar. It will be held on September 26. It's titled Whole Native STD Treatment Examples. That will be held from 11 a.m. Pacific, 12 p.m. Mountain, or 2 p.m. Eastern. Again, that's on September 26. Following the film in the chat, there is also a debrief document that should be attached and also the webinar link if you would like to view the film more in depth or if you'd like to register for the webinar. Thank you again, and have a good afternoon.

Terrence Laframboise

technology transfer specialist

Native Transformations

Pacific Northwest

opioid crisis

Coast Salish communities

cultural connection

Suboxone programs

historical trauma

self-care