Dear Friends,

Welcome to August! This month the Alliance will host two full-network meetings:

  • A follow-up Underage Alcohol Prevention meeting on August 10, 2022, from 10 am-noon. This meeting will be a time for decision-making on some proposals for spending APRA funds. For those who missed the May Underage Alcohol Prevention meeting, feedback gathered during that meeting was given to the State and eventually resulted in five proposals emerging. If you would like to have some input on how funds are spent, we encourage you to attend this meeting.

  • In a Transforming Conflict workgroup, Sequoya Hayes and Leila Raven will lead the Alliance through a conversation that will help us arrive at conflict resolution protocols and practices for our network. As we co-create these structures, this will be a time to reflect on what’s working (or not working) and how relationships built on trust and safety sustain us, even when challenged. This conversation will take place on August 11, 2022, from 12:30-3:30pm.

Follow us on social media! We encourage you to take a healthy risk and look at the challenges shared on Recover Alaska's Facebook page. There is now a Google Drive Folder for Alliance members to upload their wellness photos or videos.

As always, please reach out to us with any questions. Thank you, each of you, for your work to heal our families, communities, and systems. You are seen and you are needed! Feel free to send us your news and updates for next month's newsletter via the submission link below.

Be well,

Autumn & Jess
The Alliance Grounding Statement
Our FY2022 Annual Evaluation Is Published

In June, the Alliance annual evaluation for fiscal year 2022 was completed by the Stellar Group. Thank you to everyone who helped define our guiding questions, participated in the member survey, and helped us make sense of the data!

Evaluation is most useful when network members are active participants. To that end, we anticipate a network-wide discussion of the findings and brainstorming about how to use this report to inform the Alliance’s emergent strategy. This will likely happen at the fall retreat.

If you haven’t had a chance to look at the annual report, you can check it out here! If you’d like to chat about the Alliance evaluation, or join the Evaluation & Learning Workgroup, reach out to Hanna Marino ([email protected]).
Update From Volunteers of America (VOA) Alaska Chapter

Volunteers of America (VOA) Alaska AASMP, Coalition held its first meeting with the group's new Coalition Coordinator on Wednesday, June 29th, 2022. The Alliance is excited to greet a new collaborator, and look forward to their contributions as a skilled community organizer!
A Conversation with Alaska's Abortion Fund

On July 20th, Northwest Abortion Access Fund and Alaska's Planned Parenthood Chapter hosted a workshop to introduce their services and community advocacy work, and share their messaging work around Liberate Abortion, a multitactical coalition of over 100 organizations who have come together to expand power, grow compassion, provide education, and build a groundswell of support for abortion access across the United States. Liberate Abortion is multiracial and multi-faith, and encompasses diversity across geography, disability spectrum, gender spectrum, sexual orientation, immigration status, and income level. Their messaging toolkit is here.

Also, check out this amazing article regarding “underground railroad” and “auntie network” wording.
OSMAP Cafe

On July 26th, the State of Alaska's Office of Substance Misuse and Addiction Prevention (OSMAP) hosted a community cafe to discuss opioids and polysubstance misuse in Anchorage. They shared current opioid data for the state, and invited attendees to share their own thoughts and experiences in order to inform the statewide opioid and polysubstance use action plan.
We will always do our best to publish upcoming events in a timely, regular manner for our newsletter subscribers. We also keep an event calendar through the Recover Alaska website that allows our partners a secondary means of sharing their event news with our community. We welcome your submissions!

Meeting ID: 864 9800 6400 Passcode: 235813
Mental Health Focus Groups in Juneau
NAMI Juneau and Juneau Suicide Prevention Coalition invite Juneau residents to participate in Juneau's Community Mental Health Needs Assessment.

1. Supportive Loved Ones of Mental Health Service Recipients; August 4th, 11:30-1:00pm (NAMI Juneau office)

2. People Addressing Their Own Mental Health; August 4th, 5:30-7pm (Mendenhall Valley Public Library, Food Provided)

3. People Addressing Their Own Mental Health; August 5th, 12-1pm (Zoom)

4.  BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) August 5th, 5:30-7:00pm; (Mendenhall Valley Public Library, Food Provided)
Thanks to Blaze Bell (DJing at Forget-Me-Not Nursery in Indian, AK) and Willy Dunne (pictured with his sober hiking group in Kachemak Bay) for sending in their Wellness photos!
Recover Alaska and The Alliance understand that your wellness is important. In hopes to promote more self-care, we would like to create a space together that would let us understand what wellness is to you and build some healthy bonds together.

We encourage you to take a healthy risk and look at the challenges below, which will also be shared as weekly reminders on Recover Alaska's Facebook page. There is now a Google Drive Folder for Alliance members to upload their materials to.
Pictured left to right: Autumn Cantu, Blaze Bell, Jess Limbird,
Tiffany Hall, and Sara Platt.
About The Alliance

The Alliance is a collaborative effort of multiple and diverse partners across Alaska who recognize the impacts of alcohol misuse on individuals and communities. We are personally and professionally committed to working together to address this complex problem in our state.

Our primary goal is to connect and engage communities as partners — increasing protective factors, reducing risk factors, and changing social norms — to prevent underage alcohol use and eliminate adult misuse in Alaska.

Alliance Materials


Materials Submitted by Partners