2019 AI/AN National Behavioral Health Conference

May 15-17, 2019 | Albuquerque, NM

On May 16, 2019, the National Indian Health Board (NIHB) continued a week of networking, learning and sharing with its American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) National Behavioral Health Conference taking place May 16-17 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In an open plenary session, over 600 hundred tribal health leaders, behavioral health practitioners and community health workers heard from Dr. Evan Adams, Coast Salish actor and Chief Medical Officer of First Nations Health Authority, Canada, about seeing health and healing in two realities - indigenous and western.

In his keynote address , "One Eye Forward, One Eye Back: Maintaining Our Focus on Indigenous Health," Dr. Adams shared his journey from actor to doctor, and his experience in learning to see in a different way, taking in both indigenous and western realities, separately, and then together, which creates an entirely new perspective. Read the press release on the Dr. Adams' keynote address.

The Behavioral Health Conference offered breakout sessions and roundtable discussions on evidence-based healing, treatment for opioid use disorder, adverse childhood trauma, domestic violence and Native veterans healing.

During the closing plenary on May 17, NIHB announced the recipients of the Hope and Healing Behavioral Health Awards. The recipients were nominated by their peers in three categories - Tribe, program and individual. All recipients are recognized for their work that has enriched and AI/AN behavioral health. In the Program Category, Lower Brule Sioux Tribe Partnership for Success was recognized for its strategic integration of traditional Lakota knowledge, language, history, spirituality and an overall worldview into interventions. In the Individual Category, Dedra Tsosie, the only school-based mental health counselor in the Fort Defiance Agency on the Navajo Nation was recognized for her outstanding work with students in the Window Rock School District, where she conducts intakes, counseling, consults, crisis interventions, parental follow-ups and other related services. In the Tribe Category, the Forest County Potawatomi Community was recognized for its media and awareness campaign, Not One More, that addresses the opioid epidemic impacting their Tribal members by providing education to the people that support those suffering from opioid use disorder. Read the press release about the award recipients.