Dear Friends,

September is here, school is back in session, and the summer days are turning into sweater season. We wish you all fully-stocked freezers and good friends that will share some of their half-dried moose meat!

Underage Alcohol Use Prevention News
In August, The Alliance hosted a decision-making conversation with the network to discuss how to spend funding available to our state through the American Rescue Plan Act to address underage alcohol use prevention. In FY23, the State of Alaska with support from The Alliance will:

  • Host an Alaska Wellness and Prevention Symposium. Keep an eye out for a save-the-date!
  • Develop and distribute a social marketing campaign, geared toward youth and young adults.
  • Work with current DBH grantees to develop shared messaging and tools for how to talk with community members and legislators about underage alcohol use prevention.
  • Support building a structure for youth engagement in alcohol use/substance misuse prevention as we work toward including youth voices in decision-making.

The proposals, as amended and agreed upon by members present at the August 10th meeting, can be found here.

Leadership Training Opportunities
The Alliance needs member leadership to sustain and grow our network beyond the capacity of one organization. We’ve also heard that there is a desire to step away from contractor-led spaces. By growing our leaders, we provide our members with the skills and confidence to step into leadership roles in their own groups, coalitions, organizations, and the Alliance network. To reach this goal, we will partner with groups during FY23 that can deliver high-quality professional development and training opportunities.

This month, we are highlighting CoCreative’s multi-day workshop, “Facilitating Collaborative Innovation.” Check out the flyer below for more information on this learning opportunity. The Alliance will pay for our members’ registration costs. There is no expectation other than full participation at the online training. If interested, please contact Jess Limbird by Friday, September 9th.
As always, please reach out to us with any questions. We hold monthly newsletter meetings at 11 AM on the Wednesday one week before month's end. Contact Autumn if you would like more information about this meeting/to be added to the calendar invite for the meeting.

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
Get Involved

Between starting new work and sustaining our progress, there are many opportunities to participate in The Alliance! All current workgroups are open to any member who would like to join; workgroups will begin meeting in September. You can always read more about our workgroups and their purpose on the Get Involved page of our website. Our network practices an emergent strategy, and we update information based on our network's needs.

  • The Communications Workgroup will be supporting the social norms campaign and The Alliance's various other internal and external communications needs.

  • The Data and Learning Workgroup will be supporting data equity conversations and practices.

  • The Evaluation and Learning Workgroup is building out quarterly measures for the network to support grant reporting but also to increase real-time evaluation across the network so we can track and respond to improvement needs more frequently.

  • The Organizational Design and Strategy Workgroups will be merging for the first quarter of the fiscal year to determine if a combined group makes sense.

  • The Symposium Planning Workgroup will finalize an agenda and begin working with event planners.

You are welcome to reach out with questions about those workgroups or to ask to join any of them. 
Organizational Power Mapping

Recover Alaska will be presenting on the work we’ve done to assess organizational power through a power analysis process during the Facing Race conference, on November 17-19, 2022. 

“Organizational Culture Shift: the importance of power mapping” will explore why it is important to assess organizational power dynamics related to the context of equity work and provide examples from a collaborative partnership that sought to identify and leverage strategic shifts and empower those within the organization. Participants will hear reflections on the process of developing a collaboratively designed power dynamic assessment across various levels of the organizational structure. 
This power analysis comes as a result of findings that arose from Recover Alaska's organizational analysis. From RA's analysis, The Alliance's regional co-chairs and Sequoya Hayes of Red Linen Moon provided the following recommendations:

1. It is recommended that Recover Alaska engage in an assessment or activity to reflect on the following questions, and any additional questions deemed appropriate:

  • What are the impacts of partnerships where there is mutual interest/commitment in a social issue, but there is value misalignment?

  • How does diversity, equity, and inclusion work impact/influence/inform the partnership of the work between The Alliance and Recover Alaska?

2. There is a need for feedback and action planning around multi-level impacts to the culture (i.e., values, expectations, protocols, outward-facing efforts).

  • It is recommended that The Alliance develop and facilitate a power analysis (i.e. current structure dynamic with contractors).

  • It is recommended that…The Alliance and additional support structures (workgroups, contractors) engage in political education (group readings and reflection, training, development) on topics such as power, harm reduction, and/or opportunities that support the practice of recent training (consent-based decision-making, etc.)
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!


September is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) Awareness Month, Recovery Month, and Suicide Prevention Month (see here for suicide prevention events). September 9 is International FASD Awareness Day. In addition to the event promotions shared below, several events are available this month that support raising community awareness and understanding.
 
Thanks to Carrie Jean Koenig for sharing!
Weekly Wellness Challenges for September

WEEK 1: Please post a picture of your real-life hero and share why they’re your hero.

WEEK 2: Please share a meme on how you feel today. 

WEEK 3: Take a selfie at your favorite place where you find your inner peace. 

WEEK 4: Share your favorite healthy activities to do, and why it’s your favorite. 

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