Tlingit & Haida wins $1.57M to train Southeast Alaska overdose responders

A $1.57 million federal grant will put naloxone and trained responders into Southeast Alaska communities, many of them reachable only by plane or boat and without a police department of their own.

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska will run the four-year project through its Public Safety Division, starting Sept. 30. It will train first responders, Village Public Safety Officers where communities have them, and community partners to recognize and reverse overdoses, keep naloxone stocked, and route people toward treatment. Village Public Safety Officers are state-funded officers who serve villages with no police force. The tribe expects to reach about 2,000 people across a service area it describes as larger than 12 Lower 48 states.

The award is specific about what it does not cover. "Tlingit & Haida Public Safety will not duplicate outpatient treatment services," it says. The work is response and referral, not treatment.

The project also aims at shelters and warming centers, clinics, village councils, and people who have recently overdosed or are living unstably. What the division learns is to be shared statewide at a tribal public safety overdose response summit, with smaller regional trainings as budget and travel allow.

It is one of three federal awards to the tribe beginning Sept. 30, together worth about $3.3 million, alongside $1.4 million for mental health programs at eight schools and $250,000 for tribal court modernization. Earlier federal money placed naloxone in nine Southeast communities reachable only by air or sea and extended the tribe's Healing Center into Washington's Puget Sound region.