Norton Sound Health Corp. gets federal grant for youth sexual health and life skills classes

Norton Sound Health Corporation will receive $535,457 from the federal Administration for Children and Families to teach sexual health and adulthood skills to Alaska Native and American Indian youth in Nome and 15 Bering Strait villages reachable only by small aircraft or boat. The five-year cooperative agreement, a grant with ongoing federal involvement, begins Wednesday and runs through Sept. 29, 2031.

The program, NORTH (Native Outreach for Relationships, Teens, and Health), is funded through Tribal PREP, the federal Personal Responsibility Education Program for Native youth. It targets youth ages 10 to 19 and young mothers under 21.

The same agency also awarded Tribal PREP grants to Cook Inlet Tribal Council ($600,000, Cook Inlet region) and Tlingit & Haida ($595,949, Wayfinders program in Juneau and Angoon).

The award description says the region's teen birth rate is "nearly triple the Alaska statewide average." Alaska's statewide rate was 13.5 births per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19 in 2024, according to the 2024 Alaska Vital Statistics Annual Report. The description also cites extreme poverty and infection rates far above national levels.

Year one is a needs assessment. Town halls and surveys will guide how existing evidence-based curricula are adapted to Indigenous values and subsistence lifestyles. Health educators will then teach daily classes in Nome and multi-day blocks in the villages, reaching hundreds of young people each year, the description says.

Lessons on pregnancy and infection prevention, abstinence and human trafficking awareness will sit alongside financial literacy, career readiness and healthy relationships.

In the final year, the program moves to a train-the-trainer model. Local school district staff are to learn to deliver the curriculum on their own. The description predicts lower teen pregnancy and infection rates, higher graduation rates and greater economic mobility.