CAIR Resilience Projects
CAIR Intern Health Literacy Projects 2016
The following are CAIR Intern Health Literacy Projects for the year of 2016. These resilience projects were developed by the interns with the mentorship of CAIR staff. Interns were tasked with finding a topic that revolved around resilience, health literacy, American Indian communities, and developed a project proposal for approval. Once approved, interns conducted a literature review, planned a curriculum/tool, and contacted sites for potential implementation. If implemented, they created a budget for traveling and materials and concluded with project evaluations. This process provided the interns an opportunity to develop research skills for future careers in public health.
Our Mothers are Our Strength: Resilience through Culture and Love
Angeleeta Greyeyes, B.S. (Diné) Accordion Closed
About: A workshop to promote family living among new Navajo Mothers (14-25) by raising awareness of the impact they have on the success of their children. As well as connecting the mothers with resources and materials that will increase positive health outcomes and behaviors. This includes promoting positive behavioral, environmental, psychological, and social factors to reduce adverse health outcomes among their children.
Outcome: The project was implemented in two locations, Chinle Chapter House and Hard Rock Chapter House. A majority of participants said the workshop was very helpful and would like more information on the topic. Also a majority of participants level of confidence in seeking community resources increased.
Nanise Nizhonigo Béé Ííná
Tisimpsha Kee, B.S (Diné) Accordion Closed
About: Nutrition education, focused on portion control using Diné philosophy and providing tools to teach people how to shop on a budget. The workshop is aiming to promote nutrition among the American Indian population on the Navajo Reservation.
Outcomes: A majority of participants wanted more information on nutrition. The participants said that they are more confident after the workshop to shop healthy on a budget.
Mindfulness in “Two Worlds”
Shalene Yazzie, B.S. (Diné) Accordion Closed
About: The purpose of this workshop is to promote the integration of mindfulness practices as a tool to improve American Indian college students (18-24 years old) well-being. Theories used are the Health Belief Model and Family Education Model. The lessons of the workshop will increase the knowledge of American Indian mental health resources on NAU campus, describe both the short term and long term health outcomes for mindful practices, connect American Indian students with mindfulness practices, and increase the knowledge of diverse mindfulness practices that are culturally competent.
Moccasin Story: The Birds and the Bees
Alexis McKinley, B.S. Accordion Closed
About: Sexual, reproductive, and relationship health education focused on providing and improving health literacy, awareness, and knowledge among American Indian youth with culturally appropriate sexual, reproductive, and relationship information.
Outcomes: A total of 15 participants completed a pre-assessment, post-assessment, and Likert Scale Questionnaire. Together, the assessments and questionnaires provide qualitative and quantitative data. On the assessments:
• 11 had an increase in number of correct answers (~73%)
• 2 had no change in correct answers (~13%)
• 1 had a decrease in number of correct answers (~6%)
• 1 did not complete the post assessment (~6%)
On the questionnaire, when asked if the information will help them practice healthy sexual and reproductive behaviors:
- ~46% answered Strongly Agree
- ~40% answered Agree
- ~6% answered Strongly Disagree
When asked if they information will help them practice healthy relationship behaviors”
- ~60% answered Strongly Agree
- ~26% answered Agree
- ~6% answered Strongly Disagree
My Photovoice Journey
Leandra Becenti, B.S. (Diné) Accordion Closed
About: The purpose of this workshop is to promote community empowerment by using photovoice as a form of resilience. Identify healthy behaviors (environmental, nutrition, and exercising) within or surrounding their community. Focus on self-recognition and gain self-respect by practicing resilience.
Community Investigator Partnership
A community investigator partnership is a partnership between tribal and academic counterparts that explore the role of resilience in contributing to positive health outcomes in American Indian (AI) communities. The tribal partner either works for a tribe, native lead non-profit organization or urban Indian center. The academic partner must be affiliated with a US based college or university as a graduate student, post-doctoral student, appointed personnel or faculty.
The purpose of the community investigator partnership is using the idea of resilience and understanding how it contributes to positive health outcomes in American Indian communities. Exploring what has worked and what has not worked with American Indian communities.
In 2013, CAIR announced the opportunity for the community investigator partnership where CAIR would provide mentoring and funding for the development of a projects that explores the role of resilience in it contribution to positive health outcomes. CAIR selected and supported a cohort of partnerships for 1 year. These partnerships engaged in mentored personal career development as well as educational activities that will contribute to the national and local public health education associations, agencies and funding institutes that set policy and support activities that influence American Indian health.
Partners completed the following:
- Design an independent community-based proposal for a project (such as a community intervention, manuscript of past collaborative efforts or planning activities to prepare for a grant application) that incorporates resilience and/or resilience promoting strategies in health promotion;
- Work collaboratively with CAIR faculty to conceptualize and apply concepts of resilience in health; and
- Develop and adhere to goals and milestones scheduled that yields a tangible outcome that is meaningful to both the community and university,
- Review of resilience within the public health literature.
- Development of a manuscript.
- Mentor support for the individual NAU and UA projects.
CAIR provided mentoring both face-to-face and via conference calls, and an annual required workshop. Mentoring included project planning, familiarity with external finding opportunities, application of mixed methods, strategies for collaborative grant writing, successful approaches to co-project administration, tribal approval procedures for activities engaging university partners, and ethics related to research, evaluation and results dissemination with American Indian communities.
All community-university partnerships use an asset and resilience based approach to design collaborative health promotion projects and disseminate their outcomes in forums accessible to both American Indian communities and public health practitioners and researchers.
Projects
Partnership Projects 2014 Accordion Closed
Title: Each One, Reach One: Hualapai Youth Radio Project
Partners: Tara Chico, MPH (UA), Athena Crozier (Hualapai) and Miranda George (Hualapai)
Summary of project: This team will develop and submit a manuscript for a peer reviewed journal that describes outcomes of focus groups collected before and after the broadcast of a youth developed radio serial drama. The team then proposes to develop two workshops that will focus on the lessons learned from the project and the community based participatory research (CBPR) approach used. Further plans include development of a grant proposal to support continued activity promoting youth health and resilience.
Title: Southwest Tribal Heart Mind Project
Partners: Francine Gachupin, PhD (UA), Deborah Gustafson, PhD (SUNY), and Rita Jojola (Isleta Pueblo)
Summary of project: The goal of the Southwest Tribal Heart Mind Project is to understand aging and frailty in American Indian elders. Increased understanding within this area would help create ideas for future programs surrounding resilience in American Indian elders. The team plans to share outcomes locally with the Isleta community and professionally through a peer-reviewed manuscript submission.
Title: Resilience and Culture through Sport
Partners: Alisse Ali-Joseph, PhD (NAU) and Aaron Secakuku, Pathways Program (NACA)
Summary of project: This team will provide Native American youth in the Native American Community Action (NACA)’s Pathways Program, an opportunity to realize and foster their resilience through participation in “Healthy Nations Walk/Run” and a day-long event that promotes the role of physical activity in resilience. The team will evaluate participants’ response to the event and disseminate outcomes at a community and/or practitioner based venue.
Title: Resilience and Persistence Factors of American Indian and Alaskan Native Youth with Disabilities: Developing Healthy Social and Cultural Identities that Mitigates the Impact of Developmental Disparities
Partners: Darold Joseph, MEd (NAU) and Kellen Polingyumptewa (Hopi)
Summary of project: This team will collect personal stories of resilience using the digital story medium. Stories will be collected from American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) youth with disabilities pursuing higher education and will focus on the healthy development of cognitive, physical, and emotional identities. The stories will be used as educational material for youth and their families developing strategies to effectively negotiate challenges of disabilities and career and personal development.
Title: Community Participation in Addressing Contaminated Traditional Foods and the Uranium Stakeholders Workshop
Partners: Tommy Rock, MS (NAU), JoAnn Armenta, PhD (Forgotten People, Navajo) and Raymond Yellowman (Forgotten People, Navajo)
Summary of project: This team will encompass Navajo Nation Fundamental Law in working towards a solution for building a healthy environment for the Forgotten People. The Forgotten People grassroots organization/coalition has been addressing environmental and social injustice in the former Bennett Freeze area of the Navajo Nation. Members of the Forgotten People organization and Elders will attend the annual Uranium Stakeholders Workshop, an event through which five Federal Agencies update communities in the Navajo Nation on current status of uranium mining on the Nation. Elders and other members of Forgotten People will be asked for their feedback on the experience; this information will used to support coalition efforts.
Partnership Projects 2015 Accordion Closed
Title: Resilience and Culture through Sport
Partners: Alisse Ali-Joseph, PhD. (NAU), Aaron Sekakuku (Native American Community Action)
Project Goal: Provide Native American youth in the Pathways Program and from the surrounding reservations an opportunity to foster their resilience through physical activity at Northern Arizona University.
Title: Developing Resilience among an Inter-Tribal Cancer Survivor Group-A Return to Health
Partners: Cornelia Santos, PhD. (University of Colorado, Denver), Linda Burhansstipanov and Lisa Harjo (Native American Cancer Research Corporation)
Project Goal: Build resilience within an inter-tribal cancer survival group and to support positive health outcomes.
Title: Educational Program to Build Resilience for Caregivers, Family and Community Members in the Care of Elder Native Americans who are Experiencing Memory Loss and Cognitive Decline
Partners: Dorothy J. Dunn, PhD. (NAU), Linda A. Myers (Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program)
Project Goal: Partner with Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program during two scheduled Food Runs to provide an educational program to nurture resilience for caregivers and their Native Elder care recipients in a manner to maintain their traditional spirit and cultural lifestyle.
Title: Hualapai Prevention Intervention Program (HIPIP)
Partners: Zeenat Mahal (UA), Lyndee Hornell (Hualapai Tribe)
Project Goal: Reduce injury related morbidity and mortality due to elders’ falls and motor vehicle crashes among the tribal members in the Hualapai community.
Title: Hualapai Youth Resilience through Cultural Engagement
Partners: Amanda Urbina (UA), Emmeline Powskey (Hualapai Tribe), Nikieia Johnson (Hualapai Branch of Boys and Girls Club of Greater Scottsdale
Project Goal: Develop a pilot curriculum to promote resilience through culture. The long term goal is to connect youth with their cultural identity, an evidence based attribute of youth resilience and academic achievement.
Title: Resilience at Home: Community-Based Healthy Housing Intervention among American Indians
Partners: Lisa Hardy, PhD (NAU), Joe Seidenberg (Red Feather), Lorencita Joshweseoma (Hopi Tribe)
Project Goal: Use a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to build capacity for the education of tribal members regarding the link between their living environment and their family’s health, and provide them with affordable strategies to implement their own home health and safety repairs.
Partnership Projects 2016 Accordion Closed
Title: Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program
Partners: Dorothy J. Dunn, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, AHN-BC (NAU) and Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program
Project summary: Partner with the Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program to provide an educational program that nurtures resilience of caregivers while maintaining the traditional spirit and cultural lifestyle of their Native Elder care recipients during scheduled food runs.
Title: Resilience at Home: Community-Based Healthy Housing Intervention among American Indians
Partners: Lisa Hardy, PhD (NAU) and Joe Seidenberg (Red Feather Development Group)
Project summary: Design and pilot a resilience-based training manual focused on home health assessment and remediation techniques for tribal residents living on tribal and non-tribal lands. Policy recommendations for home health will be developed through use of community-engagement techniques based to identify trends and incentives for remediation in local areas.
Title: Hopi Men’s Health-Next Steps
Partners: Dirk de Heer, MPH, PhD (NAU) and Kellen Polingyumptewa (Hopi NACP)
Project summary: Barriers, opportunities and cultural factors will be explored with a special focus on resilience and strengths of cancer survivorship of men on the Hopi Nation. Recommendations will be developed to prioritize men’s health needs and promote utilization of health services among Hopi men on the Hopi Nation, while promoting strength and balance.
Title: Increasing Awareness of Heart Health in Native Americans in Northern Arizona
Partners: Mary Anne Reynolds, RN, PhD, ACNS-BC (NAU) and Norria M. Brice, RN, DNP, ACNP-BC (Navajo)
Project summary: The purpose of this project is to increase knowledge about risk factors associated with heart disease and early signs and symptoms of Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) in Navajo persons living in and around Tuba City, Arizona on the Navajo reservation.
CAIR Tools and Products
1. Resilience Empowerment for American Indian Men and Boys Accordion Closed
- Meal Plan for Men. One page document based on USDA, My Native Plate.
- Native men and boy’s health and exercise videos (2).
- CAIR to Run and Workout for a Better Life (19 minutes). Includes interviews with native men and why they exercise.
- Role Models for Healthier Lives (5 minutes 34 seconds) Promotes Native men as role models to sons and nephews to be healthy.
- Medication Compliance sheet. One page document designed to help American Indian patients follow their medications regimen as prescribed by the doctor.
2. Resilience Empowerment for American Indian Women and Girls Accordion Closed
- Meal plan and diet planner (Based on current USDA recommendations).
- Medication Compliance sheet. One page document designed to help American Indian patients follow their medications regimen as prescribed by the doctor.
3. Stories of Resilience: American Indians with Disabilities Accordion Closed
- Resilience and American Indians with disabilities. Four 5-7 minute digital stories describing challenges as a person with a disability living in a rural American Indian community.
- Medication Compliance sheet. One page document designed to help American Indian patients follow their medications regimen as prescribed by the doctor.
- Digital stories can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyvmdmr7ZkTbfujkOHs53w
4. Stories of Resilience: American Indian High School Students Accordion Closed
- Ha:Saan Preparatory School, Tucson, Arizona
- Lesson Plan & Junk Food presentation. Requires one 30 – 45 minute lesson, geared toward middle school students.