Two Feathers Native Wellness Village

Two Feathers Wellness Village Project will seek to tackle unnecessary suffering and deaths of despair among Native American children and youth in Humboldt County, California, the ancestral territory of the Wiyot, Hupa, Yurok, Karuk, and Tolowa people. The area is the heart of California Indian country and home to eight federally recognized tribes and has the most Natives per capita in the state. Natives experience high rates of suicide, substance use, and interpersonal violence, rooted in colonization policies and practices and influenced by regional isolation and incredible poverty resulting from limited economic opportunities. Like elsewhere across the US, state policy focused on assimilation of Native children and families through programs like boarding schools that forcibly removed children from their families and homes, forced them to cut their hair and change their names, and forbid them from speaking their language or practicing their culture. The legacy of this history is experienced today as literal disconnection – from self, family, community, spirituality – that manifests as adverse childhood experiences, adult trauma, alcoholism, suicidality, and more.

Unemployment and barriers to economic opportunity are significant. In predominantly tribal areas, unemployment was estimated as high as 60% during the COVID pandemic.  Poverty is also widespread. In Hoopa Valley, home of the Hoopa Tribe, 34.3% of the residents live below the federal poverty level. According to US Census 2021 quick facts, the population of Humboldt County is 136,310 people of which 18.9% are under 18 – about 25,762 people. Approximately 12.4% of this population is AI (6.4%) or Native in combination with one or more races (6%) – and about 3,195 are Native youth. Without question, Native youth are more likely to live in poverty and have the highest risk for violence, trauma, and Mental Health issues than other groups.

A recently published 2021 Humboldt County Sheriff's Office report describes local increases in violent crime and drug use, including homicide which increased by 43%, rapes by 52%, assaults by 20%, and robbery by 9%. Suicide, along with trauma, substance use, and mental health indicators, are deeply relevant correlates of violence. Mental Health emergency room visits have increased 200%. Of all ethnic/racial groups in the county, Natives experience some of the highest suicide rates. In 2018, the AI suicide rate in Humboldt was 26.2 per 100,000 – nearly three times the state average. Risk factors for suicide include violence, hopelessness, depression, isolation, inadequate community connectedness, prior history of mental illness or substance abuse, access to firearms and drugs, unemployment, and economic instability. Protective factors include family cohesion and supportive relationships.

Cultural disconnection, hopelessness, substance abuse and lack of effective community based wellness and mental health solutions contribute to the problems related to our solutions.

Humboldt County has California’s highest Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) rate: 30.8% of adults experience four or more ACEs compared to 13% statewide and 11% nationally. According to the CDC ACES Study, individuals with four or more ACEs are 12 times more likely to attempt suicide and significantly more likely to abuse substances. Adults in more than 30% of Native families in Humboldt County cope with growing up with four or more ACEs. Natives have the highest ACEs rates of all ethnic/racial groups in Humboldt. Community leaders and county data underscore the pressing need for intensive culture-based behavioral health services for Native children and families who struggle with deeply entrenched patterns of substance use and mental health struggles. Unfortunately, there is a significant lack of service providers available to offer critical care to referred Native youth. Furthermore, services are rarely trauma-informed, Native-focused, culturally appropriate, or long-term, seriously limiting their effectiveness. Two Feathers’ solution is to positively impact Native youth by creating a new model of substance abuse and mental health programming.

Responding to the growing need for a supportive, relevant youth-driven space, Two Feathers purchased a two-acre property with a residential dwelling on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. Through a community-led process, our innovative solution will be to create a Wellness Village offering Native mental health and youth leadership programming that incorporates traditional knowledge and practices. Local Native people are raised in villages, so the strategy is to create a culturally defined, contemporary village approach, addressing the crisis in youth substance use and mental health.

Working over the past five years on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation, Two Feathers has found that the traditional biomedical approach to youth substance programming fails to fully meet community needs. Two Feathers believes that providing a culturally infused, place-based alternative approach to the treatment of youth substance abuse and mental health struggles will lead to greater acceptance and use of more intensive services, positively  impacting local Native youth. The Wellness Village will offer traditional practices such as a sweat lodge, a smoke house to cook fish, as well as traditional basketmaking practices and ecological knowledge activities. The Wellness Village, will also provide youth with opportunities to learn local Native languages, ceremonial protocols, and local plant knowledge in addition to benefitting from cultural mentorship of community leaders. 

The broader intention for this project is to provide an alternative model of youth substance abuse and mental health programming centered on place-based indigenous wisdom, with intensive, long-term support for youth suffering from acute mental health struggles. By including youth in the planning process, the goal is to shift the norms around substance abuse and mental health beyond healing, to impact Native community empowerment and individual character development.

At Two Feathers NAFS, we envision a world filled with love and in balance within ourselves and with all of creation for generations to come. We believe this can be made possible if Native youth and their families are empowered to achieve their full potential through culturally-affirming mental health and wellness programs. Two Feathers focus is on Native American youth and their families in Humboldt County, California, primarily working with Native young people ages 8-24.

Of the over 134,000 permanent residents of Humboldt County, roughly 59% live in the “high need” area, defined by lower life expectancy at birth, lower high school graduation rates, and  poverty. Those who self-identify as Hispanic are slightly more likely to live in a high need area compared to their non-Hispanic peers. The Native American population is much more likely to live in a high need area, as are those who identify as “other race.” (Community Benefit Report, St. Joseph Hospital, 2021).

Humboldt County, the area served by Two Feathers, is home to eight federally-recognized tribes and has the most Native Americans per capita in the state. Two Feathers focuses its service delivery on the regions of Humboldt County with a concentrated Native American population, like the Hoopa Valley (approximately 86% Native American), the Klamath region (home to the Yurok Tribe and Resighini Rancheria and approximately 31% Native American).

The county’s dark history of White Supremacy and regional isolation are compounded by limited economic opportunities for Native American communities. Unemployment and barriers to economic opportunity are significant. In predominantly tribal areas, unemployment was estimated as high as 60% during the COVID pandemic. (Northern California Indian Development Council Community Needs Assessment, 2021).

Economic and social hardships are also reflected in limited educational opportunities for Native American youth and stark disparities in educational attainment. Native American students face higher rates of exclusionary discipline, chronic absenteeism, and lower academic outcomes than their non Native peers. Native American students in Humboldt County experience suspension rates five times the state average for white students and experience chronic absenteeism at more than double the rate of all students throughout the state.  The rates of college and career readiness for Native American youth pale in comparison to other groups, which reinforce economic and social challenges. (ACLU Northern California, Failing Grade: The Status of Native American Education in Humboldt County) Geographic and economic hardships, as well as limited educational opportunities contribute to depression, isolation, and feelings of hopelessness for Native American youth and families in Humboldt County, which exacerbate generational trauma borne from family separation, forced cultural assimilation, and violence directed at youth. 

Our solution will support meeting the immediate needs of Native American youth (e.g., connection, cultural mentorship, healing), while also helping to develop future leaders in the community. In addition, the innovative wellness village model will support rethinking the Native Mental Health field in California.

Humboldt County, the area served by Two Feathers, is home to eight federally-recognized tribes. Two of the largest Indigenous communities that Two Feathers serves are the Yurok and Hupa peoples. The Yurok and Hoopa Valley reservations constitute a part of the tribes’ ancestral homelands, with neighboring tribes to the south, north and East. The areas’ landscape and rich natural resources structure each tribe’s respective territories, with the Klamath River and Trinity River serving as the important points for the Yurok, Hupa and other tribes worldviews. Despite their linguistic diversity, these tribes share their spiritual orientations as believers of the “world renewal” belief system, coming from local Indigenous conceptions of spirituality. Traditionally, local tribes of Northwest California, were organized at the village-level.

Two Feathers engages deeply with our local natives peoples, especially around ways to heal from intergenerational trauma and support with community empowerment. Numerous community leaders and county data underscore the need for innovative engagement strategies (especially culturally-based mental health services and providers), as well as more intensive behavioral health services for Native children and families who struggle with deeply entrenched patterns of unnecessary suffering.  There is a major lack of service providers to offer ongoing care to referred youth— particularly in the schools.  

Worse still, Two Feathers has found the the few services that are available are often not Native focused, culturally appropriate or long term, which limits their effectiveness. In 2016, the county’s civil grand jury received several complaints about the county’s mental health branch, with staff and local mental health advocates reporting dysfunctional work guidelines, distrustful relationships, unresponsive upper management, mass resignations and an unsupportive environment.   

These conditions, particularly those struggling with mental health issues, have worsened since the onset of the global pandemic. This lack of services is acutely urgent. In 2022, one of the two major local hospitals, Mad River Hospital, reported seeing a 200% increase in mental health visits compared to two years ago, one hospital spokesperson stated, “we’ve never seen this many young adults, between 12 and 18, coming in with mental health challenges.

To better understand solutions to these problems, Two Feathers has engaged Native youth to better understand their needs, including hosting listening sessions, working closely with young people on projects and providing youth employment opportunities. 

Two Feathers leadership and numerous staff worked closely with a local Community Advisory Committee and local Cultural Consultants to theorize and develop an epistemological foundation based in cultural knowledge to guide Two Feathers program development and implementation and evaluation. The 16 person Community Advisory Committee consisted of the foremost local elders, tribal leaders, cultural practitioners, language speakers and medicine people. The group spent a year utilizing talking circle methodologies to engage in discussions around “best practices” for cultural based mental health practices with the local tribal communities. The Community Advisory Committee helped build culturally based definitions of mental health and advised on best practices for evaluation and cultural based interventions for Two Feathers prevention and intervention programming including the proposed wellness village project.

Two Feathers has been providing culturally-based and relevant Native mental wellness programming since 1998. Through a blend of innovative approaches and funding streams, which center on community building and cultural affirmation, it has become a national leader in Native mental health advancement and is uniquely positioned to promote wellness in Two Feathers’ geographically isolated and economically challenged region. 

Two Feathers’ approach to providing culturally relevant and responsive care involves providing traditional mental health and substance counseling tailored to meet the unique needs of individuals and communities. This includes flexibility to meet clients where they are, both physically and in terms of readiness to receive service. It involves putting in the time to develop trust and rapport with clients and the community by traveling to schools, engaging youth in their specific interests, and community events that allow the community to learn about Two Feathers services and get to know staff.

Two Feathers employs 30+ employees, of whom 60% are Native, and includes local Native leadership at the Board, Executive Director, and Supervisory levels.  Two Feathers’ services and staff are widely accepted within the community and are generally regarded as excellent. Two Feathers aims to hire individuals with either lived or professional experience working with the client population. Our onboarding procedure ensures new hires are trained in basic cultural competency to work with Native individuals and groups and that they are aware of all relevant internal policies and procedures.  

As part of Two Feathers’ 2022 strategic plan, staff training, support, and accountability practices and procedures are being reviewed and strengthened based on sector-wide best practices and trauma-informed client services provision to better support staff through relevant trainings, properly aligned workloads, and preparation to lead, both at Two Feathers and beyond. 

Two Feathers’ Leadership Development programming includes a Youth Peer Support Ambassadors program, an intergenerational youth employment program that supports Native American youth (14-18) and Transition Aged Youth (19-24) in developing leadership and advocacy skills, with a focus on multi-stressed youth. As a result of this program, Two Feathers has employed 56 Native Youth in 2022. Many of these Ambassadors have helped to create, design and come up with the wellness village solution. 

For example, numerous Ambassadors were part of the Two Feathers "Home away from Home" Project. In collaboration with the Yurok Tribe, Youth Ambassadors wrote an application for the Business Plan Competition, held in partnership with National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED). Their application was accepted and numerous youth attended the annual Reservation Economic Summit in Las Vegas to participate in the onstage business plan competition on May 23, 2022. The team traveled to Las Vegas and presented their business plan, along with four other groups. They won first place and were awarded $5,000 in recognition of their business plan and presentation. The youth outlined a Business Plan to design a safe place where youth can hang out, share positive cultural experiences, study, learn how to cook, play games, have fun, and be with friends, a "wellness village."

We are applying to Solve for specific financial and technical assistance. We are hoping to find partners to advance our solution to promote culturally informed mental and physical health and wellness services for Indigenous community members. The hope is to refine our solution to support community empowerment and to offer an innovative solution to youth mental health struggles that others can replicate. We believe a locally defined, culturally based wellness village can support transforming youth mental health systems.

Two Feathers employs 30+ employees, of whom 60% are Native, and includes local Native leadership at the Board, Executive Director, and Supervisory levels.  Two Feathers has 15 mental health clinicians, 1 SUD counselor, and numerous cultural prevention specialists. In addition, TF employs a grants manager, operations director, and two administration coordinators. 

Two Feathers’ services and staff are widely accepted within the community and are generally regarded as excellent. 

Two Feathers has strong relationships with local Native serving schools and all of the tribes in the area. In 2018, Two Feathers began providing mental health services in the Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School District on the Hoopa Reservation, where close to 90% of the students are Native. Two Feathers has been the only consistent mental health provider to serve the district, serving close to 30% of the high school student population.

From 20+ interviews  during our 2022 Strategic Plan process, community members and partners described our connection with the community in these ways: 

“One thing I appreciate about Two Feather's evolution is that they have been working hard to fill significant gaps in and around children's mental health. That has been severely lacking in the region for a long time” - Community member

“They provide cultural programs and appropriate interventions, but we don't have to call it that… that is just how they naturally show up in community and they are responsive to quickly moving community needs” - Community member

“They are amazing. They do important [work] with the most high need kids… They are so creative with bridging culture, suicide prevention and substance abuse prevention. They are building resiliency, which is what the research says [is critical] for Native youth. Forget about working on reducing depression, it's about building resiliency, connecting to culture. They really are doing that” - Community Partner

“I don’t know of another program that does as much outreach as Two Feathers. Nor do I know of another program who tries to educate the school based on mental health activities, who is bringing together those professionals in the school to enlighten them about Native American ways, or what trauma is or historical trauma. I don’t see that in other organizations” - Community Partner

“TF has so much community trust, it’s unheard of. There is less of a sense of threat, and more trust at TF. We provide the community with opportunities to do soft meetings, so it’s not just ‘hey I’m so and so, I’m your therapist now,’ it’s: ‘Oh hey I saw you when we had one of our million events at tree planting or peace night.’ Having those opportunities to meet and build trust, and get exposed to youth and families helps with rapport” - Staff member

Native people in Northwest California have withstood over 150 years of persistent assaults aimed at destroying their way of life and overall population. Practicing distinct cultural healing traditions has been central to their survival. However, problems remain that require re-imagining child welfare, social service and mental health systems. Today, Native young people in Northwest California experience an increasing number of health problems, including elevated rates of suicide and substance abuse.  

Native American mental health and child serving systems must cast its net wider and investigate the ways in which many of the institutions and fields are broken. Encouraging and supporting Native young people to proactively learn ways to rethink mental health and wellness in Native communities is imperative.

Two Feathers is proposing to create a Native Wellness Village. This Two Feathers Wellness Village will leverage a place-based, community and culturally defined approach to youth substance abuse and mental health programming for local Native American youth and their families. By creating an advisory board, listening to input from the community, incorporating knowledge learned through previous experience with youth on the reservation, leveraging existing relationships, and having a place located on the reservation, this project will turn an idea that our community has hoped for into a reality - an innovative youth wellness and empowerment approach.

The overall goal of Two Feathers’ Wellness Village is to implement effective, culturally based mental health and substance abuse programming for multi-stressed Native youth in Humboldt County. To achieve this goal, Two Feathers’ team will work with Two Feathers’ Native Youth Ambassadors (ages 14-25) and local community leaders to create a culturally defined, place-based substance use program. The model will rely on alternative approaches to treatment including personal relationships, the use of local cultural values and traditions, without relying on traditional psychiatric methods. 

Program Goals

1.     Advance community support for an alternative model of mental health programming centered on local Native American values and teachings that provide intensive, long-term support for youth suffering from acute substance abuse and historical/intergenerational trauma. 

2.     Coordinate with youth substance abuse systems on local Indian reservations to create a culturally driven, first of its kind, native youth Wellness Village model. 

3.     Advance Youth Ambassadors’ leadership skills and awareness of substance abuse prevention to develop community champions of change. 

4.     Identify and implement community-based engagement/outreach strategies to increase awareness of, and participation in the creation and use of the Wellness Village. 

5. In 2024, 100 Native youth will use Wellness Village programs to promote healthy development without the use of substances.

6. Develop a plan to sustain the youth Wellness Village in other Humboldt Native communities.

Two Feathers blends research and culturally based, highly relational approaches to local youth and community needs and interests, removing traditional barriers (e.g., cultural relevance, stigma, lack of trust, long distance) to mental health services, education, and more. Two Feathers counseling and prevention services are cited by county and state mental health leaders as among the “best” regionally, and nationally. Two Feathers strives to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all  Native young people ages 8-24; through our youth leadership and cultural programming we also aim to reduce inequalities in Native communities. 

Specific progress indicators include: 1) Increase awareness of mental health, substance abuse, and co-occurring disorders among school-aged youth; 2) Increase mental health literacy among individuals who interact with school-aged youth to understand and detect the signs and symptoms of mental illness, substance misuse, and co-occurring disorders; 3) Promote and foster resilience building and mental health well-being for all school-aged youth; 4) Provide positive behavioral health supports; offer targeted and intensive services to those who need more support; 5) Connect school-aged youth who may have behavioral health issues, including serious emotional disturbance or serious mental illness and their families to needed services, including developmentally appropriate, and trauma-informed school and community-based activities and services.

Since 2017, Two Feathers has grown its staff from five to 32, serving 50 youth in 2017 to over 350 youth in 2022. Two Feathers has forged strong relationships with the community, tribes, tribal organizations, and local youth-serving organizations – these are foundational connections enabling Two Feathers to meet ambitious goals. 

During the previous five years, Two Feathers services have led to significant reductions in suicidal ideations, substance abuse, and violence among Native youth. Local Native youth in schools that Two Feathers has worked have increased their help-seeking behavior for mental health 10 times, positive contributions to their community three times, as well as their hope for the future, and overall social skills and supports. 

Two Feathers has been the only consistent mental health provider to serve the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation (largest reservation in state), serving close to 30% of the high school student population. As of 2022, Two Feathers has the highest number of licensed clinicians (15) among Native-serving organizations in the county; the majority serve Hoopa. In 2020, California Assemblyman James Ramos awarded Two Feathers a Certificate of Achievement for “invaluable healthcare contributions that will continue to build generations of healthy Indian communities.” He mentioned Two Feather’s exemplary service around youth mental health and crisis work in his award. In 2023, Two Feathers was nominated by the McKinleyville Chamber of Commerce for Excellence in Community Services. In addition, the Child Abuse Prevention Coordinating Council of Humboldt County and the California State Legislature gave Two Feathers the Children First Award for doing exceptional work in the field of child abuse prevention and interventions.

Humboldt County is the ancestral territory of the Wiyot, Hupa, Yurok, Karuk, and Tolowa people in the heart of California Indian country. It is home to eight federally recognized tribes, and has the most Native people per capita in the state. Humboldt County is a federally designated rural county and among California’s most secluded. Two Feathers’ client base experiences disproportionate burdens due to a legacy of colonialism - burdens seen in elevated rates of Native substance misuse, depression, and suicidality. A major challenge to supporting Native well-being is the severe workforce shortages among healthcare professionals. Humboldt has little to no treatment for child and adolescent substance abuse and mental health challenges. Among the most glaring deficiencies facing Native American youth is the lack of access to effective, innovative mental health services that positively impact the individual and community.

Approaches to working in Native communities must be culturally and locally relevant, tailored specifically to Native youth, and developed in consultation with Native leaders and community members. 

Two Feathers' approach to community struggles is a whole person strategy that strives to impact local Native youth and the environment around them. Creating a strengths-based approach to Native youth mental health that uplifts the voices and cultural traditions of local Natives has been key to Two Feathers’ success. 

Two Feathers is at the forefront of providing comprehensive, culturally informed mental health services to Humboldt area Native youth and their families. Services include traditional mental health and substance counseling tailored to meet the unique needs of regionally isolated communities, with the time required to build deep rapport, and the flexibility to meet clients where they are regarding location, as well as readiness to begin services. Two Feathers accomplishes this by working with schools, traveling to meet clients in remote areas, and offering programs that engage youth. The programs are based on their interests, including cultural offerings, leadership development and paid work experience. Events and activities are open to the wider community providing opportunities for youth and families to learn about Two Feathers and build trust with staff over time. Participation in community activities and events often serves as a first step for engaging with Two Feathers and precedes client referrals for direct services. 

Two Feathers has found the traditional biomedical approach to youth substance abuse and mental health programming is not fully effective for meeting community needs.  We have learned that youth need more intensive, culturally based services to heal from intergenerational trauma, address substance use issues, and develop their best potential. By providing a culturally infused, place-based alternative approach to treating youth substance abuse and mental health struggles, we expect the Wellness Village to facilitate these community change outcomes:

1. Improve mental health status among multi-stressed Native youth
2. Destigmatize seeking help for mental health struggles and work to transform existing mental health models
3. Develop future Native wellness leaders to become social change agents 

Native youth can grow beyond deep intergenerational trauma when they learn about their histories and the root problems of dehumanization and racism. Equipped with accurate information, they are better able to reject damaging narratives and build self-efficacy. This self-awareness can support every aspect of their lives and decrease internalizing racial trauma and toxic stress. As they resist harmful narratives and actions, they reframe their stories and experience wellness by standing in their power and turning their attention to empowering their community to do the same.

The use of traditional healing practices and culturally appropriate services based on local ancestral wisdom is critical to empowering Native youth. When attending a ceremony of Northern California, Native youth might be told “be aware of what you say, think, and feel at ceremony, because every spoken word is a wish for yourself.” In Northwest California, there are two main ceremonies based on local Native tribes as world-renewal people. The first is the Jump Dance Ceremony and the second is the White Deerskin Dance. Both dances are meant to support health and healing for human beings and the earth. For example, throughout the day in White Deerskin Dance ceremony there is dance, songs and local Natives speak with the fire to offer positive energy to help recreate a healthy world filled with balance and harmony for the coming seasons. According to local tradition, humans connect with the spirits to renew the earth. 

The concept of K’winya’nya:nma’awhiniw (“the human way”), means living in balance and harmony with the world by having honor and respect for community members, the environment, oneself, ancestors, and creation. It is believed that through the process of living the “human way,” concepts of resilience and healing can emerge. It is also believed that ceremonies and traditional values and practices support Native young people to live in a positive “human way.”  

For Indigenous families that are out of balance due to trauma, oppression, and colonialism, it is critical to reweave the social fabric and recapture their old traditional ways in re-centering and reclaiming indigenous knowledge. In this way, children build a strong connection to local cultural teachings that offer tools to deal with marginalization perpetuated by mainstream society. A big component of the work of local healing and thriving is place-based and grounded in Native epistemologies. Accordingly, Two Feathers Wellness Village will be a model to create a placed-based healing space helping Native youth to live in K’winya’nya’nwa:nma;awhiniw. Two Feathers Wellness Village will be located on the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation

Two Feathers is led by Native people from the local community. As a result, our staff is widely accepted and highly respected in the community. Two Feathers aims to hire individuals with either lived or professional experience working with the client population. Our onboarding procedure ensures new hires are trained in culturally competent ways to work with Natives.

Generally, the Two Feathers team has exceptional expertise in the local languages, concepts, attitudes, norms, and values about mental health and wellness. This includes a range of personal experiences, including growing up in a community infused with these issues, understanding the deep-seated multigenerational trauma that has caused substance abuse and mental health struggles. In addition, staff members are trained in a broad array of trauma-informed, evidence-based practices including Motivational Interviewing, Trauma Affect Regulation Guide for Education and Therapy, Attachment, Regulation and Competency framework, and Equine Therapy.

Unlike all other domains of medicine in which patient outcomes have dramatically improved in the 20th century, psychiatry and mental health outcomes have failed to improve. For Native American people, the need to reform mental health and youth services is urgent, as Native youth continue to suffer from well documented disparities in mental health status. The status quo is unacceptable.

Two Feathers aims to improve mental health programming and outcomes for Humboldt County Native youth (8 to 25) and their families. The primary client population is those with experiences of multiple, systemic stressors. Two Feathers serves Native people, regardless of tribe or enrollment. Humboldt County is the ancestral territory of the Wiyot, Hupa, Yurok, Karuk, and Tolowa people, located in the heart of California Indian country. Two Feathers’ client base experiences disproportionate burdens due to a legacy of colonialism and white supremacy, seen in elevated rates of substance misuse, depression, and suicidality in Native residents.

Two Feathers works with over 300 youth annually providing a combination of culturally based behavioral outreach, prevention and treatment services. The service population includes youth experiencing substance use, trauma, and/or suicidal ideations, as well those who identify as 2SLGBTQ+, and young Native men. 

Two Feathers works collaboratively with nine local schools, including three in the Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School District (KTJUSD) that serve Hoopa Reservation youth. The approach is to engage youth where they spend most of their time and build out immediate mental health prevention, promotion, screening, crisis intervention, and referral services. 

In 2022, Two Feathers worked with over 75 Native youth struggling with co-occurring substance use and mental health issues, and provided an average of 300 counseling services per month. This included family contacts, advocacy, crisis management, and case management support. Further, the Youth Prevention Program employed 67 youth in the Ambassadors work program. In 2022, Two Feathers provided culture-based outreach and prevention programs serving over 1,000 people through a variety of community activities and events. Culture-based programming allows Two Feathers staff to engage youth in a meaningful way, including helping to decrease the stigma around intensive behavioral health services. 

Two Feathers offers all services at no charge to Native American community members. Two Feathers income will be derived from foundation and grant funds, Medi-Cal revenue, consulting income, and private donations. 

Two Feathers has been successful in obtaining funding through grants and private foundations. Currently, Two Feathers has several multi-year grants with Indian Health Services (five years), Sierra Health Center (three years), SAMHSA (multiple), and the California Department of Public Health (four years), in addition to smaller grants renewed annually. Two Feathers consults with grant writers and evaluators who are experts in the mental health field, who have helped to secure numerous grants. Two Feathers is consistently considering grant opportunities and pursuing funding where needed.

Two Feathers has partnering relationships with private foundations that provide regular consistent support. Two Feathers works closely with Vesper Society, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, The Cal Endowment, and California Wellness Foundation. Medi-Cal Revenues are also part of our sustainability plan. The current organizational provider contract between Two Feathers and the Department of Health and Human Services Behavioral Health Branch allows Two Feathers to be one of the first and leading providers of behavioral health services to Humboldt Native American Medi-Cal recipients. The Department of Health and Human Services is a strong partner of Two Feathers. Each year, Two Feathers executes a contract with the County of Humboldt. The current contract is for $300k and  is expected to grow over time. Two Feathers recently hired an Intake and Billing Coordinator who monitors Medi-Cal activity and compliance requirements to ensure Two Feathers continues to be an approved provider. As a chartered non-profit by Big Lagoon Rancheria, Two Feathers has the full support of the Tribe.  

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Garrett Lee Smith/Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention Program- This grant program supports states and tribes with implementing youth suicide prevention and early intervention strategies in schools and educational institutions, substance use and mental health programs, foster care systems, and other child- and youth-serving organizations. This grant program will fund up to $4.4 million over five years, including $3.7 million from the American Rescue Plan, for up to six grantees. Two Feathers was awarded a five year Garrett Lee Grant.

Elevate Youth California- a California Capacity Building Cohort, with grants up to $400,000, the awarded grassroots organizations implement community-driven projects for substance use disorder prevention for youth ages 12 to 26. The partners will focus on youth social justice, peer support and mentoring in low-income communities of color, including Tribal communities and LGBTQ communities. Two Feathers was awarded a 400k grant.

SAMHSA Native Connections: Cooperative Agreements for Tribal Behavioral Health. The purpose of Native connections is to prevent and reduce suicidal behavior and substance misuse, reduce the impact of trauma and promote mental health among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) young people up to and including age. Award is $250,000$ per year for 5 years