White Bison Programs and Projects News

White Bison has introduced two new community development programs thus far in 2004. The “Seven Trainings” or “Seven Circles Training” took place for the first time in the community of Juneau, Alaska from March 25-27, 2004. And the first Coalition Building Training took place in Denver Colorado from April 13-15, 2004. Both events are important additions to healing American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

7 Trainings
The 7 Trainings event is a way of implementing the Healing Forest Model in Native communities. Remember how the Healing Forest Model says that the whole community must be involved in the healing process if individuals, the family, and the entire community are to get well and stay well? There are many different parts making up a healing community. Men must get well. Women must get well. There must be something for the children. There must be something for families, something for people with substance abuse problems, children of those people, and so on. The Seven Trainings is a way to implement seven different learning sessions simultaneously in a community over a 3 or 4-day period. The purpose of the Seven Trainings is to offer wellness learning experiences to as much of the community as possible all at once. When that happens, everybody will be in the Great Learning simultaneously and the community can move forward in unity.

Seven training events make up the 7 Trainings Program. They are:

1–The Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps for Native Men
2–The Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps for Native Women
3–Daughters of Tradition prevention and wellness for girls (DOT I for girls 8-12; DOT II for girls 13-17)
4–Sons of Tradition prevention and wellness for boys (Boys 13-17)
5–Family Series: Strengthening our Families for Native families
6–The Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps for Friends and Families (Al-Anon) and Adult Children of Alcoholics
7–Children of Alcoholics for young people whose families are affected by alcohol abuse

When all the different kinds of community members represented in the 7 Trainings go through the series together then everybody is “on the same page” and the community has a better chance for sustainable wellness. Please see Willy Wolf’s story about the Juneau event.

L to R, White Bison staff members Judy Barnes, Willy Wolf, Don Coyhis, Lori Bakara, Jeri Brunoe Samson, and Connie Falleaf during an honoring ceremony at the first 7 Trainings event, held in Juneau, Alsaka.

Coalition Building
The Coalition Building event that took place in Denver was designed to help Native American community leaders band together more effectively in creating coalitions for wellness. Participants learned how to think of themselves as clans or clan-like groups so that different parts of their own communities could work in concert to facilitate healing activities and a healing climate back home. In the Denver event, some of the CADCA coalition building resources were translated from technical language into language that was more Indian friendly. For example, language like “Create and maintain community coalitions and partnerships focused on community and system changes,” or “Adopt Best Practices as brokers, intermediaries, and advocates for environmental prevention and public policy strategies,” became “You have to be a messenger. You need to be involved with your community. You need to be able to talk to the media, to the policy makers, to tribal leaders, and to Washington, DC.” Please see Willy Wolf’s story on the Coalition Building meeting.

The 7 Trainings and the Coalition Building Programs help to integrate or tie together all community wellness activities so that sustainable community healing can take place. For example, suppose there are many individual community-learning events that come through the community, facilitated by many different Native trainers in the course of a year. What provides the continuity or sustainability so that people who take one-of-a-kind workshops can work together on an ongoing basis for the good of the community? Both the 7 Trainings event and the Coalition Building session can help make that happen. Contact White Bison if your community is interested in either program.

Red Road to Wellbriety II
A new Indian Big Book, The Red Road to Wellbriety II is being planned and written now. This book will be a follow-up to the first Indian Big Book: The Red Road to Wellbriety: In the Native American Way. Indian Big Book II promises to be more of a hands-on workbook, offering lots of mind mapping examples and other good tools and information from people who are actually using the Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps as a basis of their healing journeys.

This new book will feature even more personal healing stories from Native and non-Native people who have used a Native cultural approach and the 12 Steps in their own sobriety and recovery. This is a call for stories. Would you be willing to contribute your addictions recovery and cultural wellness story to Red Road to Wellbriety II? If so, we would be honored and pleased to read your story or work with you so that your story might be part of the new book. If this sounds like something you might to want to do, please contact White Bison 1-877-871-1495 or by e mail at info@whitebison.org to see if your story can be included.

Richard Simonelli

White Bison Programs and Projects News
JUNEAU SEVEN TRAININGS
By Willy Wolf

The first day involved a welcoming by the Tlingit/Haida Council and the community. This involved song and dance and it was a very moving event. One of the most powerful parts was when the Raven clan and then the Eagle clan welcomed the White Bison trainers. Each trainer received an eagle feather during this ceremony.

The Seven Trainings that were held were the Medicine Wheel and 12 Steps for men, women and families; Sons of Tradition, Daughters of Tradition, Children of Addicted Parents, and Strengthening families. The trainers were Blaine Wood for the Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps. Jeri Brunoe for Daughters of Tradition. Willy Wolf for Sons of Tradition; Lori Bakara and Connie Falleaf for Strengthening Families. The largest numbers of participants were in the Medicine Wheel and the 12 Steps, followed by Strengthening Families. The longest waiting list for those who were not able to attend was for the Strengthening Families series.

Based on the evaluations of participants and on informal discussions, the participants really enjoyed the individual trainings and were committed to starting a group in their area. Also, a number commented on the Healing Forest concept and how the Seven Trainings help accomplish this goal. They said it makes a lot of sense and it will help them to coordinate all these programs and improve their service delivery.

The closing ceremony was equally powerful and once again there were songs from the Eagle and Raven clans. A special honor was given to Stan Madsen who has carved several healing totem poles for the Tlingit/Haida Council in several of their villages. Everyone came together in a closing circle and shared how much the three days meant to them.

A Coalition Building training will be held in Juneau later this year to bring everyone together and to help them to continue to work closely together.

White Bison Programs and Projects News
COALITION BUILDING IN DENVER April 13-15, 2004
By Willy Wolf

There were 24 Tribal and urban organizations represented at this Coalition Building training held in Denver, Colorado. Each participant introduced him or herself and stated why they were there. The first morning consisted of an overview of the Healing Forest Model, which is White Bison's way to build coalitions. Participants were involved in the string or yarn exercise, which helped them to understand the power of working together towards a common vision.

In the afternoon, participants mind mapped the needs and fears of their respective communities. They were broken into two groups, one for those who were in the process of forming a national urban Indian center organization and the rest who were interested in developing coalitions in their own communities. Then they mind mapped a vision of what they would like their communities to look like. They all had excellent suggestions and came up with many ideas for how to build the coalition for their communities.

The second day involved going over the requirements for submitting to CADCA for the community mobilization grants and also how to utilize their website once they joined CADCA as a coalition member. Some had previously submitted for this grant and were not successful so we discussed what they could do differently next time to have a more competitive grant.

The last day consisted of a talking circle in the morning as well as making a commitment to continue working on coalition building in their respective communities. It was a very powerful circle and those of us at White Bison emphasized how the talking circles are the very heart of how you build a coalition.

The last part of the training was on seeking their input into the National Wellbriety Plan. There were many excellent ideas. Some of these included addressing FAS/FAE issues, historical trauma, dual diagnosis, dealing with community wide issues, more focus on prevention and treatment, domestic violence awareness, and veteran’s issues. A copy of the mind map they created will be provided to each participant once they are back home.

The evaluations for the training indicated that participants were very satisfied with their first coalition building experience using this approach. Other coalition building sessions are being planned. Stay tuned for further details.