Project Description Narrative:
Excessive alcohol use can cause serious mental and physical health issues. For Native American/Alaska Native communities, it poses a significant threat. Multi-generational traumas experienced by Native communities have led to various health challenges, including vulnerability to substance abuse and the normalization of alcohol consumption. In Lac du Flambeau, the local excessive drinking rate is roughly 1.5 to two times higher than in Wisconsin. Members of the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Council declared a state of emergency due to a dangerous rise in deaths due to overdoses in 2013.
The Healthier Community Action Team's (HCAT) Advancing Behavioral Health Initiative aims to decrease excessive drinking in Lac du Flambeau adults ages 18-44 by 10%. It is working toward accomplishing this through three strategies: community engagement, a community awareness campaign, and promoting healing and progress through cultural immersion in education, training, and support.
In phase three of the initiative, project partners will focus on sustaining the Family Circles program by recruiting facilitators from tribal service providers and prior program participant groups and continuing their commitment to their community engagement and community awareness campaign strategies.
Community partners: Great Lakes Intertribal Council, Family Support Program, Gookomis Endaad Treatment Center, Head Start Program, Healing to Wellness Court, Hope Consortium, Lac du Flambeau Tribe, Lac du Flambeau Tribal Court, Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Department, Lakeland Union High School, Marshfield Clinic Family Health System, Peter Christensen Health Center, UW-Extension