Continuing education credits are available:
National Association of Social Workers (Behavioral Health Aides, licensed social workers, up to 8 hours)
Community Health Aide Program Certification Board (Community Health Aides, up to 8 hours)
State of Alaska Department of Education and Early Development AK-SAPP training (required for school staff every 2 years; must attend all 4 sessions)
Course trainers:
Josie Garnie, Norton Sound Health Corp.
Diane McEachern, PhD, MSW University of Alaska Fairbanks
Roberta Moto, Maniilaq Wellness Director
Tara Schmidt, University of Michigan
Lisa Wexler, PhD, MSW University of Michigan
Please contact Tara at pccares@umich.edu if you have any questions.
Adapting to a virtual setting
After the COVID-19 pandemic made gathering in-person impossible, PC CARES began offering virtual learning circles to school staff in Bering Strait and Northwest Arctic. We re-structured the curriculum and added a few new learning circles to fit the academic year.
In the second year of virtual PC CARES, we expanded our audience to include behavioral health and health care providers, medstaff, and other leaders in Northwestern Alaska who want to participate in training about suicide prevention, youth and community resilience, and cross-sector collaboration.
Partnering with rural and remote Alaskan school districts to adapt the Promoting Community Conversations to End Suicide (PC CARES) intervention involved a series of cascading adaptations to the model in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These adaptations included changes in:
delivery - from in-person to online
audience - broader community to mostly teachers and school administrators
structure - train-the-trainer to direct delivery between research team and participants
content - addition of concepts about shifting from white dominant culture, as well as school-based postvention planning and engaging community change.
What does a session look like?
PREPARING THE SPACE
Start with prayer or opening ceremony of group’s choosing
Group agreements for how we will talk safely about suicide and work together
Concepts about shifting from white dominant culture
Purpose of PC CARES and of each particular session (e.g. cultural wellness, postvention in schools)
What DID you do? - Reflections about last meeting & acknowledging actions taken since the last meeting
WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SHOW?
Bite size information from research about what works to prevent suicide (charts, pictures, short films, quotes, stories—find links to download the handouts below)
WHAT DO WE THINK?
Talk about and think about how the information applies to our community, our jobs, our families and our lives
WHAT DO WE WANT TO DO?
Think about how we might want to use this information and insights in our community, work, family and personal lives.
CLOSING
Prayers, Songs, Meditations, and other selections based on Participants and Culture
American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research Journal
This paper presents how a community mobilization program to prevent suicide was adapted to an online format to accommodate the impossibility of in-person delivery in Alaska Native communities during during the COVID-19 pandemic.