Opioid Use Disorder
Prevention • Treatment • Support
Community Member
Healing Ourselves and Our Communities
For tribal community members who want to learn more about preventing, treating, and recovering from opioid use disorder.
What People with Opioid Addiction Want You to Know
Learn from tribal community members what you should know about opioids.
Recovering From Opioid Addiction is Possible
We can heal from opioid use disorder. See how others have walked the road to recovery.
Supporting Someone With Opioid Addiction
Support can be lifesaving. Hear stories of tribal community members who have helped their friends and relatives through tough times.
Medication-Assisted Treatment Myths
MAT helps many people with opioid use disorder recover. It is more than twice as effective as counseling alone. Learn the facts here.
Health Provider
Healing Ourselves and Our Communities
For tribal community members who want to learn more about preventing, treating, and recovering from opioid use disorder.
didgʷálič Wellness Center
In one year, didgʷálič Wellness Center cut tribal opioid overdose deaths in half. Learn about their unique treatment model from the perspective of staff and clients.
Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Care
Removing barriers to care is vital for tackling the opioid epidemic. See how the didgʷálič Wellness Center eliminates barriers to create positive outcomes.
A Culture of Respect: Providing Clients with Compassionate Care
Learn about how the didgʷálič Wellness Center incorporates harm reduction into their successful approach for treating individuals with opioid use disorder.
Preventing and Treating Opioid Addiction in Tribal Communities
You might think only certain types of people get addicted to opioids. The truth is it can happen to anyone.
Tribal Opioid Response National Strategic Agenda
Tribal Opioid Response National Strategic Agenda
To assist tribes in successfully addressing the opioid epidemic, the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, along with partners, developed this strategic agenda. Recommendations are based on input from tribal policymakers, service providers, and individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD).
Clinical Resources
Indian Country ECHO’s SUD Clinical Resources
Up-to-date list of clinical resources for preventing and treating substance use disorders.
Substance Use Warmline
Free confidential service that provides on-demand clinical recommendations from experts on effectively treating patients with substance use disorders; designed for providers practicing at I/T/U facilities.
Patient Education Tools
Fact Sheets:
Words Matter When We Talk About Addiction
Using Nasal Spray to Reverse an Opioid Overdose
Supporting Someone with Opioid Addiction
Getting Help for an Opioid Use Disorder
The Truth About Opioids
Patient Booklet Text:
A Trickster Tale – Outsmarting Opioids through Education and Action
A booklet for tribal community members on preventing, treating, and recovering from opioid use disorder.
Message Campaign:
Text Message Campaign Postcard
Encourage your patients to text ‘opioid’ to 97779 to learn more about opioid misuse prevention, treatment, and recovery.
Short Films:
Healing Ourselves and Our Communities
For tribal community members who want to learn more about preventing, treating, and recovering from opioid use disorder.
What People with Opioid Addiction Want You to Know
Learn from tribal community members what you should know about opioids.
Recovering from Opioid Addiction is Possible
We can heal from opioid use disorder. See how others have walked the road to recovery.
Supporting Someone with Opioid Addiction
Support can be lifesaving. Hear the stories of tribal community members who have helped their friends and relatives through tough times.
Medication-Assisted Treatment Myths
MAT helps many people with opioid use disorder recover. It is more than twice as effective as counseling alone. Learn the facts here.
Training
Indian Country ECHO
Free service for I/T/U clinicians and programs to enhance care delivery for patients with complex conditions, including substance use disorders; offers a variety of online clinics, trainings, technical assistance, and capacity building.
Technical Assistance
Indian Country ECHO – Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
Free service designed to optimize I/T/U clinical policies, enhance care delivery for patients, and build community capacity to prevent and treat complex medical conditions, including substance use disorders.
Provider Education
Words Matter When Providers Talk About Addiction
Fact sheet for healthcare providers on using non-stigmatizing language when talking with patients.
Tribal Leader
Healing Ourselves and Our Communities
For tribal community members who want to learn more about preventing, treating, and recovering from opioid use disorder.
didgʷálič Wellness Center
In one year, didgʷálič Wellness Center cut tribal opioid overdose deaths in half. Learn about their unique treatment model from the perspective of staff and clients.
Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Care
Removing barriers to care is vital for tackling the opioid epidemic. See how the didgʷálič Wellness Center eliminates barriers to create positive outcomes.
A Culture of Respect: Providing Clients with Compassionate Care
Learn about how the didgʷálič Wellness Center incorporates harm reduction into their successful approach for treating individuals with opioid use disorder.
Ensuring MAT Benefits the Individual & the Community
Ever wondered how to offer medication-assisted therapy safely? Learn how the didgʷálič Wellness Center ensures that the medications they offer are beneficial.
Tribal Opioid Response National Strategic Agenda
Tribal Opioid Response National Strategic Agenda
To assist tribes in successfully addressing the opioid epidemic, the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, along with partners, developed this strategic agenda. Recommendations are based on input from tribal policymakers, service providers, and individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD).
Clinical Resources
Indian Country ECHO’s SUD Clinical Resources
Up-to-date list of clinical resources for preventing and treating substance use disorders.
Substance Use Warmline
Free confidential service that provides on-demand clinical recommendations from experts on effectively treating patients with substance use disorders; designed for providers practicing at I/T/U facilities.
Training for Health Providers
Indian Country ECHO
Free service for I/T/U clinicians and programs to enhance care delivery for patients with complex conditions, including substance use disorders; offers a variety of online clinics, trainings, technical assistance, and capacity building.
Technical Assistance
Indian Country ECHO – Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
Free service designed to optimize I/T/U clinical policies, enhance care delivery for patients, and build community capacity to prevent and treat complex medical conditions, including substance use disorders.
Resources for Leaders
Publications:
Growing Your Tribal Community’s Capacity to Address Opioid Use Disorder: Advice for Tribal Leaders, Policymakers, and Program Staff Based on Lessons Learned from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community (Coming Soon!)
In one year, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community cut tribal opioid overdose deaths in half. This document describes how they developed their successful treatment approach, as well as important lessons learned along the way.
Tribal Opioid Response National Strategic Agenda
To assist tribes in successfully addressing the opioid epidemic, the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, along with partners, developed this strategic agenda. Recommendations are based on input from tribal policymakers, service providers, and individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD).
Websites:
Indian Country ECHO
Indian Country ECHO is a free service for clinicians and health programs serving American Indian and Alaska Native people. To enhance clinicians’ and programs’ ability to effectively manage the care of patients with complex conditions, including substance use disorders, we offer a variety of no cost online ECHO clinics, trainings, technical assistance, and capacity building.
Print Materials:
Words Matter When Providers Talk About Addiction
Fact sheet for healthcare providers on using non-stigmatizing language when talking with patients.
Short Films
For Community Members
Healing Ourselves and Our Communities
For tribal community members who want to learn more about preventing, treating, and recovering from opioid use disorder.
What People With Opioid Addiction Want You to Know
Learn from tribal community members what you should know about opioids.
Recovering From Opioid Addiction is Possible
We can heal from opioid use disorder. See how others have walked the road to recovery.
Supporting Someone With Opioid Addiction
Support can be lifesaving. Hear stories of tribal community members who have helped their friends and relatives through tough times.
Medication-Assisted Treatment Myths
MAT helps many people with opioid use disorder recover. It is more than twice as effective as counseling alone. Learn the facts here.
For Healthcare Providers & Community Leaders
Healing Our Patients with Opioid Use Disorder
Clinical insights for healthcare providers on effective strategies for treating opioid use disorder and supporting Native patients as they walk the road to recovery.
didgʷálič Wellness Center
In one year, didgʷálič Wellness Center cut tribal opioid overdose deaths in half. Learn about their unique treatment model from the perspective of staff and clients.
Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Care
Removing barriers to care is vital for tackling the opioid epidemic. See how the didgʷálič Wellness Center eliminates barriers to create positive outcomes.
A Culture of Respect: Providing Clients with Compassionate Care
Learn about how the didgʷálič Wellness Center incorporates harm reduction into their successful approach for treating individuals with opioid use disorder.
Ensuring MAT Benefits the Individual & the Community
Ever wondered how to offer medication-assisted therapy safely? Learn how the didgʷálič Wellness Center ensures that the medications they offer are beneficial.
Preventing and Treating Opioid Addiction in Tribal Communities
You might think only certain types of people get addicted to opioids. The truth is it can happen to anyone.
Print Materials
Fact Sheets & Booklets
Our Mission
The mission of the Enhancing Perspectives in Clinics and Communities (EPCC) Program at the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) is to build the capacity for Indigenous people, healthcare professionals, traditional knowledge holders, and policymakers to enhance the health and wellness of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people and communities.
We believe that it is the role of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island to care for our relatives and relations as well as ourselves.
We know we cannot do this alone. That is why we bring together providers, traditional knowledge holders, health advocates, clinic leadership, policymakers, and community members to:
Develop innovative solutions that advance the health of AI/AN people and communities in positive and affirming ways
Assist Indigenous people and healthcare professionals in building trusting and compassionate relationships
Establish innovative and forward thinking clinical and public health policies and practices that rely on Indigenous perspectives, the knowledge of our ancestors, and Western medicine and science
Build the capacity of leadership across all levels of influence to advance tribal health policy
Our priority is leaving footsteps to help guide the next generation along the path of good health and wellness.
Guided by our leadership, we contribute to clinical and community work in the following priority health issue areas:
HIV/AIDS
Hepatitis C
Substance Use Disorders, including Opioid Use Disorder
Two Spirit Health and LGBTQ+ Health
Behavioral Health
Other emergent health and wellness needs
The EPPC Program directly helps tribes in several ways:
• Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
Through Indian Country ECHO, we offer free support to IHS, Tribal, and Urban (I/T/U) clinics to optimize their policies and enhance care delivery. Through this service we also offer support to tribal leadership interested in building community capacity to prevent and treat complex medical conditions.
• Quality Improvement
The EPPC Program collaborates with providers, public health professionals, and administrators to ensure that AI/AN people and communities receive high quality healthcare. Our approach to quality improvement draws on the knowledge of subject matter experts, evidence-based tools, best practices in clinical science, systems theory, Indigenous knowledge, psychology, and other fields of study.
• Patient-Specific
Recommendations
Through a collaboration with the University of California- San Francisco, IHS offers providers practicing at I/T/U facilities on-demand clinical recommendations from experts via the Substance Use Warmline.
Through Indian Country ECHO, we offer free online ECHO clinics and trainings that provide a platform for providers practicing at I/T/U facilities to receive on-demand clinical recommendations from experts and colleagues across Indian Country.
• Provider and Community Education Campaigns
EPCC creates evidence-based and community-tested health education campaigns and resources for AI/AN peoples and I/T/U clinicians. These include opioids, HCV, and Two Spirit and LGBTQ+ Health campaigns.
Our work is generously funded by several entities. EPCC Program initiatives are funded by the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund, Indian Health Service, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Office of Minority Health.
For additional information about our program:
Contact Eric Vinson, Program Manager at the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board at evinson@npaihb.org or 503-416-3295.
Tribal Opioid Response Consortium
The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) Tribal Opioid Response (TOR) Consortium is comprised of 28 tribes in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Our primary aim is to assist tribes in tackling the opioid epidemic through increasing capacity to implement effective prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts.
Our work includes:
Developing a strategic approach for a comprehensive tribal opioid response (see the TOR National Strategic Agenda)
Expanding access to culturally appropriate prevention, treatment, and recovery activities
Promoting interventions that are community-tested, evidence-based, and draw from the strengths of tribal nations and peoples
