Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/14
Outputs
Target Audience: The main site of the “Tribal Community Health Through Education Project” was the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center, a 28-bed, 45-day residential treatment program in Elma, Washington. The program serves about 225 Native Americans per year and specializes in chronic relapse patterns related to unresolved grief and trauma, including historic trauma from colonization.Based on patient interviews, a majority of patients who enter the treatment program do not have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Many of the reservations they live on are considered food deserts. However, native foods including berries, wild greens, seafood, fish, and wild game are readily available for many people. Through teaching classes on how to identify, process and preserve native foods along with how to garden, patients benefit in several ways. They gain access to nutritious foods, increase frequency of exercise, collaborate with community members, and build a positive cultural identity. The project also targeted students from the Northwest Indian College – the only accredited tribal college in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.Many students were raised on reservations and want to attend college at home.Curricula developed through this project have been run at the Lummi, Nisqually, Muckleshoot and Port Gamble campuses.Students are often interested in native foods and medicines, but do not know where to access them. Teaching culturally relevant classes, establishing community gardens, and coordinating field trips have been effective ways to build student knowledge and establish changes in food behaviors. The project served educators from the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and Alaska who serve native communities.Examples include health care providers, Northwest Indian College faculty, tribal educators from youth, elder and head start programs, community garden coordinators, drug and alcohol counselors, tribal emergency preparedness experts, diabetes prevention educators, and natural resource managers.These people utilized curricula and educational resources to teach thousands of individuals. Community classes and conference presentations offered through this project served native families and a broad audience of individuals and organizations who are interested in improving health through native foods and traditional medicines. Changes/Problems: The Growing Plants, Growing Communities Curriculum was abbreviated from eight classes to four classes. Elise Krohn planned to run it as a for-credit class at Nisqually, but due to changes at extended campuses, only core classes were offered at that time. Through talking with gardeners, our team received feedback that basic resources, including the gardeners guide and lessons on native gardening techniques, building good soil and seed saving would be most useful, so we focused on those topics. Instead of creating curricula on tribal food sovereignty and native culinary arts, we created the N.W. Native Foods Toolkit. This educational resource better meets the diverse needs of the educators we serve. It can be utilized in a variety of teaching spaces beyond classrooms. While it includes knowledge about food sovereignty and culinary arts, it focuses on the most common native foods and cultural ecosystems of our region. We believe that this will better serve students in learning and practicing the knowledge. Curricula development was slower than anticipated for several reasons including the time it took to secure funds to employ our project assistant and time challenges around scheduling curriculum committee meetings. We have learned that it is more realistic to allow two years per curriculum to complete the process of development, revision and training trainers. While participants consistently gave high marks on workshop content, presentation style, cultural appropriateness and learning something that they can teach or share with others, several people said that they would like more ongoing support with educational materials so that they get long-term experience. We addressed this by having less train the trainers workshops, but making them longer or offering them in several parts so that educators got a chance to learn new information and then practice teaching it. In 2014 our Cooperative Extension Department was restructured under the Coast Salish Institute (CSI). This has resulted in new leadership under the Dean of Indigenous Education and a changeover in program staff. The CSI leads the development of NWIC’s culturally-relevant curricula, institution-wide cultural infusion strategies, and language and humanities programming. Many of the educational materials that were developed under this project will be undergoing a cultural review process before they are further disseminated. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Key personnel from the Cultivating Tribal Community Health through Education Project including Elise Krohn and Elizabeth Campbell offered 246 classes or presentations to over 3,700 participants. The main site of our project was the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. Through participating in weekly classes, many patients said that they remembered the teachings of their ancestors and the wealth that they come from. Tribal elders and cultural specialists who gave bi-monthly presentations offered patients strong leadership and ongoing support throughout their recovery. Program evaluation demonstrated that most patients graduated with a significant increase in knowledge of native foods including how to grow, harvest and prepare them. A vast majority of patients reported that they accomplished their health goals during their 45-day program. Common goals include eating a healthier diet, improving energy and remaining clean and sober. A patient from the Port Gamble Sklallam Tribe entered the program with concerns of getting her blood sugar under control. She had only listed salmon as her tribe’s healthy traditional food. By graduation, she claimed that she had been eating healthier and said “I got my blood sugar controlled!” She listed red huckleberry, salmon, salmonberries, crab, shrimp, deer and elk as healthy traditional foods of her tribe. A patient from Inchelium, WA voiced her commitment to teach her son about herbal first aid plants and harvesting tea plants. When asked what her favorite part of class was, she responded, “I really enjoyed learning about the old ways and how people harvested and dried their foods. Everything was amazing. I learned so much!” Another graduate said she became a “plant person” through the attending classes. She is now working at a plant nursery and loves her job. Yet another graduate attended Northwest Indian College and did a summer internship on native plants through the North Cascades National Park. One graduate was hired by his tribe’s natural resources department and is using what he learned in resource management and educational activities for youth. Community classes were offered in many locations. Examples include the annual The Tribal Community Gardeners Forum (35 participants), the Insulin Resistance and Chronic Disease Prevention Symposium at Squaxin (45 participants), the Saving Seeds class at Nisqually (12 participants), the Plant Stories to Light the Way Storytelling Event in Seattle (50 participants) and Late Summer Berries at Nisqually (40 participants). Our staff presented at many conferences throughout the grant period including the FALCON Conference in 2012 and 2013, The Alaska Plants as Food and Medicine Conference, the Tribal Canoe Journey in 2012 and 2013, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Conference, The Tribal Food Summit, the Northwest Tribal Emergency Management Conference in 2013 and 2014, and the Salish Sea Conference. In addition, our staff coordinated the Our Food is Our Medicine Conference in 2012-2014 and offered several workshops as part of the conferences. Twenty train the trainers workshops were offered to over 300 participants. The Honoring N.W. Native Food Traditions Curriculum was taught to 12 tribal community educators in Seattle, Washington in 2012, and to 15 First Nations educators on Vancouver Island in 2014. Other train the trainers workshops included the Diabetes Prevention through Traditional Plants and Foods Curriculum, Making Plant Medicine, First Aid Remedies, Creating Herbal Gifts for the Holidays, Natural Remedies for Winter Health, The Medicine of the Trees and Making Cedar Bentwood Boxes. Much of the information in the N.W. Native Foods Toolkit, along with photos and food materials for the boxes, were gathered through offering all-day classes or train the trainers workshops on a single food or technology. These classes included Traditional Cooking Technologies, Camas Prairies, Cattail, Clams, Deer, Eulachon, Nettles, Salmon and Seaweed. Some were offered in multiple locations and a few were offered as 1-credit courses. Many people who attended train the trainers workshops are now utilizing teaching materials. For example, a Traditional Health Liaison from the Seattle Indian Health Board teaches regular classes on native foods and medicines for the urban Native Community. She also utilizes materials to write newsletter articles. A young woman from the Native Youth Leadership Alliance (NYLA) has taken most of the train the trainer workshops and is now teaching classes to other NYLA fellows, for Northwest Indian College and for several other native organizations. The Suquamish Traditional Plants Educator attended almost all of the train the trainers workshops and has utilized the model of teaching, curricula and materials to build a strong and flourishing program at Suquamish. Fiona Devereaux, RD, is a community nutritionist for Aboriginal Health in Canada who has taught several of the curricula to First Nations Communities. She works closely educators who attended trainings on Vancouver Island and says: Prior to learning about the work of NWIC Traditional Foods Program, much of the Indigenous food resources and movement was event-based and not linked to concrete educational resources or tools. The mentorship and programming that has provided to our area has been profound. Having access to tangible, credible and well-researched resources provided our region with the tools to set the table to bring this knowledge back to community. The train the trainers courses were always in high demand and many people were keen and passionate to learn and build their skills. Many people said that after the trainings, they felt whole. These courses are designed in such a way that helps build a greater cultural safety around food. They help bring voice to a food system and food sources that have been oppressed by the dominant food system. Many people have shared that ‘these trainings awoke the knowledge that they had been exposed to growing up and helped them ask more questions about food, plants and traditions in their families. It has also been shared that people feel validated seeing their foods presented in such a professional and respectful format. People loved the hands on activities and the connections made to the foods and plants. Many educators generated questions and sought additional resources as they utilized the curricula and teaching tools. Our staff responded to frequent emails and phone calls to offer ongoing support. We witnessed the continued development of a strong community of educators. For example, one of the outcomes of train the trainers workshops on Vancouver Island is the “South Vancouver Island Harvesters Network.” First Nations educators now meet on a regular basis to share techniques on harvesting, preparing and preserving native foods and medicines. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Curricula and other educational resources have been disseminated in a variety of ways. The curricula were offered during weekly classes to over 650 patients at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center. College classes utilizing the curricula were offered at Northwest Indian College Muckleshoot, Nisqually and Port Gamble sites to over 65 students. Over 240 classes or presentations were offered to 3,700 participants during the grant cycle. Gardening resources were disseminated at our annual Tribal Community Gardeners Forums. Since 2012, our team has coordinated an annual Our Food is Our Medicine Conference.Over 100 native people and those who serve tribal communities from throughout the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska attended.Several outputs from this projects were shared at the conferences including hands-on workshops on roasting fish, clams, and deer over a fire, roasting vegetables in a pit oven, cooking in a bentwood box, late summer berries, creating successful community gardens, best practices for teaching about native foods, seed saving, medicine making and more. Our educational resources including videos, photos, handouts and resource guides have been shared through social media sites including our website (http://nwicplantsandfoods.com), our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/nwiccommunity and our Vimeo page https://vimeo.com/user15256940/videos. These sites reach thousands of people on a regular basis. Many of our trainees are now teaching in the communities they serve. For example, Janell Blacketer is a Nisqually Tribal Member who works at the Nisqually Community Garden. She attended many of the train the trainer workshops and has received ongoing teaching support from our educators. She says: I enjoyed the one on one and hands on learning the instructors demonstrated. They were extremely knowledgeable about our culture and the plants we use as medicine.Since the trainings supplied us with the proper educational materials, we were able to make our very own chest rubs, healing salve, body scrubs, lip balms, incense, face toner, air fresheners, and teas.While we made these homemade items we also were fed with a deal of facts about every single thing we were putting into the medicines.These are all from mother earth and are chemical free. The plants can help you more than the chemicals made in the store can, and you can breathe and sleep better at night knowing everything around you is safe!I would love to attend more trainings, and I encourage other students to take the classes. We have to pass on our traditions, so it is not a part of history, it is a part of the future!! Inspiration comes out of me when I learn about how the plants can help and how I can save money and put healthier things on my body.” Janell is currently utilizing the trainings and educational resources to teach classes to youth, elders and general community members. The Nisqually community has voiced its interest and support in building a strong native foods and medicines movement that will help build resiliency. Tribal members like Janell who stand up as models and teachers have a lasting impact on community health. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Through the “Cultivating Tribal Community Health Through Education Project,” we created several curricula and teaching tools on topics related to native foods, food sovereignty, gardening, natural medicines and traditional foods technologies. These were utilized by our staff in teaching over 245 classes or presentations that reached thousands of participants. In addition, we offered train the trainer workshops on how to utilize curricula and resources to over 300 educators. The first curriculum entitled Honoring Northwest Native Food Traditions includes 30 hours of teaching time related to native foods nutrition.Each three-hour class features a type of food, a traditional foods principle, and a cooking demonstration. Handouts with recipes and Power Point presentations are included in the curriculum. Our team coordinated an Insulin Resistance and Chronic Disease Prevention Symposium in 2013 and brought together educators and health car workers to further knowledge about diabetes and related diseases. Presenters shared recent research and innovative, culturally specific methods for teaching, which were incorporated into the curriculum. Individual classes from the curriculum were taught at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center. The curriculum was also run as a 10-week course at Northwest Indian College Muckleshoot, Nisqually and Port Gamble campuses. Two train the trainer workshop on the curriculum were offered to over 30 educators. Growing Plants, Growing Communities is the second curriculum that was developed through this project.It includes resources and lesson plans on gardening including native gardening principles, permaculture, garden design, soil health and seed saving.Classes have been piloted, refined and taught at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center in 2013-2014. The treatment center has several demonstration gardens and a compost program that were developed through this project. Students had opportunities for hands-on learning about cultivating indigenous foods along with designing, planting, maintaining and propagating garden plants. Many patients from the treatment center utilized their knowledgeto create their own gardens. Four graduates went on to get jobs at a tribal community garden. Miguel Hernandez is the Muckleshoot Tribal Community Gardener who taught a six-week summer class to ten students utilizing elements of the curriculum. Resources and activities from Growing Plants, Growing Communities were also shared at our annual Tribal Community Gardeners Forums, and at the Our Food is Our Medicine Conference in 2013. In addition, staff created a resource guide entitled Creating Community Gardens: Guidelines and Resources for Gardeners in the Pacific Northwest in February 2013. It was published at http://nwicplantsandfoods.com. In the beginning of this project we planned to develop a curriculum on culinary arts. We taught seven hands-on culinary classes to an average of nine cooks at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center and the Squaxin Island Tribe’s Elder’s Program. Topics included healthy native snacks, cooking with culinary herbs and spices, spring wild foods, filleting salmon, utilizing garden vegetables, native berries and more. The treatment center cooks worked to integrate native foods and fresh garden vegetables into the regular menu, and this has continued. They also hired a full time employee to keep up the gardens, harvest and preserve native foods and cook meals with native foods on a regular basis. Recipes and notes from culinary classes were integrated into the Honoring Northwest Native Foods Curriculum and the Northwest Native Foods Toolkit. This class was not developed as a for-credit course because Northwest Indian College extended campuses are prioritizing core classes and also lack sufficient cooking space. An educational team met several times to compile resources on food sovereignty with the intention of developing a for-credit course. Valerie Segrest piloted the class at Northwest Indian College Muckleshoot Campus where students learned about the impacts of the global industrial food system, treaty rights and indigenous food system models. They were encouraged to plan a sustainable food system for Muckleshoot in the future. While students found the class useful, their feedback was that the subject matter was too advanced for a beginning college level class. Ms. Segrest concluded that the subject was more appropriate for a Masters level class. After this, our curriculum team interviewed educators we serve and received recommendations to creating classes on specific native foods and cultural ecosystems. We focused our efforts on developing the N.W. Native Foods Toolkit, which can be utilized in a wider range of circumstances including classrooms, field classes, conferences and health fairs. In addition, research for the curriculum was utilized to create a tribal food sovereignty page at our website, which can be found at http://nwicplantsandfoods.com/food-sovereignty. The N.W. Native Foods Toolkit is an educational resource for people to learn about common indigenous foods in the Coastal Pacific Northwest Region. The kit includes a book with an overview on harvesting, safety, cooking and preservation methods, and detailed accounts for twelve foods. Each account includes an activity, recipe or story. With six contributing authors and many cultural specialists, this resource is a collaborative effort that represents a broad base of Northwest Native People. The book will be reviewed by a Northwest Indian College cultural committee before it is disseminated. The toolkit also includes a cedar bentwood box, dried samples of 12 native foods, cedar display baskets, fire tongs, cooking rocks and teaching cards. The teaching toolkit is for tribal nutrition and cultural arts educators, public school teachers that serve native students in grades six through 12, NWIC faculty who teach classes related to native foods, and staff for conferences and events. Eleven teaching boxes were produced and have been placed in educational resource centers including tribal museums and NWIC sites. Much of the information in the N.W. Native Foods Toolkit, along with photos and food materials for the boxes, were gathered through facilitaing all-day workshops on a single food. Several participants from these workshops commented that they were proud to be practicing the innovative technologies that their ancestors utilized. Many of these technologies are as applicable today as they were centuries ago. A Traditional Heritage Specialist from the Suquamish Tribe said, “Seaweed Gathering at Freshwater Bay was a great day and we learned so many interesting things about the health and nutrients of eating sea vegetables! Several videos on native foods were produced as part of this project. The videos are available on the NWIC Plants and Foods Vimeo Page and are also a part of the N.W. Native Foods Toolkit. Footage for the videos came from the camas, clams, nettles and seaweed workshops as well as the Our Food is Our Medicine Conference and other program workshops. Our education team anticipated developing a Northwest Plants as Food and Medicine Curriculum to be taught as a three-credit course. Due to restrictions on what classes could be taught at Northwest Indian College extended campuses (core classes only) and to the needs of tribal community educators, we developed resources on making plant medicine and seasonal remedies. This allowed tribal community educators to utilize basic medicine making guidelines as a template, then add their own plants and cultural traditions into what they teach. Train the trainers workshops included Making Plant Medicine, Herbal First Aid and more. Valerie Segrest utilized the Making Plant Medicine handouts to teach a 3-credit Introduction to Herbal Medicine class and a 3-credit N.W. Medicinal Plants class at Muckleshoot to 25 students.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Fourth World Journal Article. Krohn, E. Recovering Health through Cultural Traditions. Spring 2013. Vol. 12, Num 1. pp. 93-98.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2014
Citation:
Tribal College Journal. Krohn, E. Empowered Learning: Bringing Culture into the Classroom. Spring 2014: 25-3. In Protecting and Preserving Knowledge.
- Type:
Other
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Traditional Food Principles Poster. Northwest Indian College, 2013
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
http://nwicplantsandfoods.com
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Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/13
Outputs
Target Audience: The main site of our project is the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center, a 28-bed, 45-day residential treatment program in Elma, Washington. The program serves mostly Native Americans and specializes in chronic relapse patterns related to unresolved grief and trauma, including historic trauma from colonization. Based on patient interviews, a majority of patients who enter the treatment program do not have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Many of the reservations they live on are considered food deserts. However, native foods including berries, wild greens, seafood, fish, and wild game are readily available to many people. Through teaching classes on how to identify, process, and preserve native foods, along with how to garden, patients benefit in several ways. They gain access to nutritious foods, exercise more frequently, collaborate with community members, and build a positive cultural identity. The project also targets students from the Northwest Indian College – the only accredited tribal college in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Many students were raised on reservations and want to attend college at home. To date, curricula have been run at Nisqually, Muckleshoot, Port Gamble, and Swinomish extended campuses. Students are often interested in native foods and medicines but do not know where to access them. Teaching culturally relevant classes, establishing community gardens, and coordinating field trips have been effective ways of build student knowledge and establish changes in food behaviors. The project also serves tribal educators from various positions. Examples in the last year include health care providers, Northwest Indian College faculty, tribal educators from youth, elder and head start programs, community garden coordinators, drug and alcohol counselors, tribal emergency preparedness experts, diabetes prevention educators, and natural resource managers. These people serve multitudes of native people throughout Washington State. This year we extended our service area to British Columbia and offered a three day train the trainer for 23 Canadian First Nations dieticians, diabetes educators, and cultural teachers. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project has provided weekly classes for over 225 patients at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center. Upon graduation, several patients have gone on to work in jobs related to traditional foods and medicines. For example, one woman from the Chehalis tribe is now working on a community food project. A man from Nisqually is working in their community garden. A woman from Spokane is teaching youth what she learned. Several graduates have become Northwest Indian College students. The Honoring Northwest Native FoodTraditions Class (3 credits, previously called Honoring the Gift of Food) was taught to Northwest Indian College Students at Muckleshoot, Nisqually, Port Gamble and Swinomish sites this year. Over 45 students completed the course. In addition, five Traditional Foods Seminars were run at Lummi, Muckleshoot, and Nisqually campuses for over 65 students. We coordinated several tribal community workshops and forums this year as a means to gather knowledge for curricula development. Experts, cultural specialists, and elders shared their expertise with participants. The Celebration of Smelt gathering was attended by 45 students and included speakers and demonstration cooks. The gathering was documented and has contributed to the creation of the Gift of Northwest Native Foods Teaching Kit. Our fourth annual Tribal Community Gardeners Forum was attended by 35 gardeners. The Muckleshoot Northwest Indian College campus hosted and we toured several local gardens. Presenters shared best practices and resources. A report was distributed to gardeners and the knowledge that was documented is contributing to the development of the Growing Plants, Growing Communities Curriculum. The Insulin Resistance and Chronic Disease Prevention Symposium brought together educators and health car workers to forward knowledge on preventing diabetes and related diseases. Presenters shared recent research and innovative methods for teaching. The information from the symposium has contributed to content in the Honoring Northwest Native Food Traditions Curriculum. We had over 100 participants at our first annual Our Food is Our Medicine Conference in September of 2012. Native people and those who serve tribal communities from throughout the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska attended. Several outputs from our project were shared at the conference including hands-on workshops on roasting fish, clams, and deer over a fire, roasting vegetables in a pit oven, cooking in a bentwood box, late summer berries, creating successful community gardens, best practices for teaching about native foods, and more. Several train the trainers workshops were offered through the project in the last year. These include the Honoring Northwest Native Food Traditions class with 12 educators from Western Washington, and another training with 23 First Nations educators in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? A report on the Our Food is Our Medicine Conference was disseminated to all participants. It was also posted on our website athttp://nwicplantsandfoods.com. Reports for the Tribal Community Gardeners Forum and the Insulin Resistance and Chronic Disease Prevention Symposium were also disseminated to participants. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The Honoring Northwest Native Food Traditions Curriculum is going through a final revision before offering another train the trainer in fall of 2013. The curriculum will be available through Northwest Indian College and another partnering organization. Train the trainers will be offered on a yearly basis. A booklet that accompanies the Gift of Northwest Native Foods teaching kit is currently being written and designed. The scheduled publishing date is October, 2013. A train the trainer workshop will be offered to Washington State public school educators and tribal educators in winter of 2013. Classes for the Growing Plants, Growing Communities Curriculum are currently being developed and piloted at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center and Muckleshoot. We will share some of the classes at our annual Our Food is Our Medicine Conference in September of 2013. The curriculum will be offered as a train the trainer in spring of 2014. During fall quarter 2013 we will also be running the Northwest Plants as Food and Medicine Curriculum at the Muckleshoot and Nisqually campuses. In winter through spring this curriculum will be revised, then a train the trainer will be offered in summer of 2014.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Through the Cultivating Tribal Community Health Through Education Project, we have created several curricula on topics related to native food, gardening, and health. These curricula will be available for trainers to utilize in their own communities. The first curriculumis a series of full-day seminars on native foods that have been run as for-credit courses and community education classes at Lummi, Muckleshoot and Nisqually. The seminar topics include: 1. Salmon Technologies: techniques for processing, cooking and preserving salmon. Stories about fishing rights and cultural traditions were included along with nutritional information on native fats. Students also leaned how to tan salmon skin and made something from their work. 2. Harvesting and Processing Deer and Elk: Hunters shared techniques for butchering and preserving deer including canning. Nutritional information was included along with stories and protocols. Local hunters spoke about their role building food sovereignty in their community. 3. Spring Wild Greens: A workshop took place at a tribal farm with many wild greens including nettles, wild lettuce, horsetail fertile shoots, maple blossoms, dandelion, and other spring foods. Students learned how to identify many edible plants and prepared dishes including a wild greens salad, dandelion pickles, maple flower fritters, sautéed greens, and more. Each student had a special project where they harvested a wild food and completed a report. 4. Camas Harvest and Pit Roast: Students learned about camas prairies as a culturally maintained landscape, then traveled to a local prairie to harvest edible camas bulbs. Other culturally significant plants were covered including edible lily bulbs, roots, berries and wild nuts. Methods for sustainable harvesting were emphasized. Students also leaned how to roast vegetable in an earthen oven by heating hot rocks and then burying them in the ground. 5. Edible and Medicinal Seaweeds: Students traveled to the beach at low tide to learn how to identify and sustainably harvest seaweeds. The second half of the day was spent in the kitchen preparing recipes including seaweed salad, kelp pickles, and ocean chocolate pudding. Many students reported that they went home to teach their families about how to harvest wild foods. Some shared stories about creating their own wild foods recipes. Others felt a sense of cultural pride in learning about the innovative techniques their ancestors used to prepare native foods. Many of these technologies are as applicable today as they were centuries ago. The second curriculum entitled Honoring Northwest Native Food Traditions includes 30 hours of teaching time related to native foods and basic nutrition principles. It has been run at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center (110 students) and the Northwest Indian College Muckleshoot, Nisqually, Port Gamble and Swinomish campuses (45 students). Many students reported that they have changed what and how they eat. For example, when they grocery shop they make choices based on what foods their ancestors would recognize and value. Many report that their relationship with the land around them has been enriched. A train the trainer workshop on the curriculum was offered in spring of 2013 to 12 educators. Growing Plants, Growing Communities is the third curriculum. It includes 30 hours of class time on gardening including native gardening principles, garden design, soil health, plant propagation and planting, seed saving, and attracting pollinators and wildlife. The classes are currently being developed and several have been piloted at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center along with the Northwest Indian College Swinomish and Muckleshoot campuses. Through compiling resources from previous tribal cooks classes, we developed a teaching kit on wild foods called The Gift of Northwest Native Foods. We are currently completing an educational booklet to accompany the kit along with six five-minute videos about native foods. Over six hours of footage has been recorded for the videos. The teaching kit has been piloted during classes at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center and at Nisqually and Muckleshoot. It was also piloted at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the FALCON conference in the last year.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Krohn, E. (2013). Recovering Health through Cultural Traditions. Fourth World Journal. Spring. Vol 12 Num 1. pp. 93-98.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
nwicplantsandfoods.com
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Krohn, E. and Campbell, E. Northwest Indian College Traditional Foods Teaching Tools. Presentation or new teaching resources at the FALCON Conference in Albuquerque, N.M. October 27-30.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2012
Citation:
Krohn, E. and Campbell, E. Presentations on Late Season Berries and the Gift of Food Teaching Kit. Our Food is Our Medicine Conference, Bainbridge Island, WA. September 5-7.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Krohn, E. Keynote presentation on Recovering our Medicine: Healing Addiction through Traditional Plants. Alaska Plants as Food and Medicine Conference, Girdwood, AK. May 24-27.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2013
Citation:
Krohn, E. and Campbell, E. Multiple Presentations on Traditional Foods and Medicines including curricula and the Gift of N.W. Native Foods Teaching Kit. 10th Annual NWTEMC Tribal Emergency Preparedness Conference, Spokane, WA. August 13-15.
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Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Current outputs include two curricula plus educational materials and teaching tools that will be components of three other curricula. A new berry garden at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center is being used for plant identification, gardening activities and for providing fresh nutritious food to patients. Weekly classes were offered to 220 patients at the Northwest Indian Treatment Center. Tribal elders and cultural specialists offered bi-monthly presentations. Monthly workshops for cooks at the treatment center and the Squaxin Island Tribe are being used as building blocks for the culinary arts curriculum. Five train the trainers classes were offered to tribal educators including: Natural Remedies for Winter Health with 13 educators. Diabetes Prevention through Traditional Plants Curriculum Training with 11 educators. Growing Gardens, Building Communities: 3rd Annual Gathering for Tribal Community Garden Coordinators with 18 gardeners. Train the Healers: First Aid for the Canoe Journey with 25 educators. Making Plant Medicine with 11 educators. These trainings will be used as building blocks for the five curricula that are being developed through this project. Tribal community classes that key personnel coordinated helped to foster partnerships and to build educational materials that are being incorporated into curricula. These included Traditional Seafood History and Harvesting, hosted by the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe with 60 participants, Natural Remedies for Winter Health, hosted by the Suquamish Tribe with 55 participants, Spring Wild Green Harvest at Discovery Park, hosted by United Indians of All Tribes with 50 adult participants plus 40 children grades K-3, Seaweed Harvesting and Cooking, hosted by Northwest Indian College Lummi Campus with 20 participants. In addition, we presented on the project at several conferences over the coarse of the year. These include: Vancouver and Coastal Communities Indigenous Foods Conference, Vancouver Island, Canada with 150 participants. Plant Gathering on Public Lands Conference, hosted by the Tulalip Tribes with 35 participants. FALCON conference, presentation on tribal food sovereignty in Denver, Colorado with 40 participants. Salish Bounty, Traditional Native Foods of Puget Sound, public event at the Burke Museum of Culture and Natural History in Seattle, WA with 60 participants. Short Takes on What the World Eats, presentation on revitalizing native food traditions at public event at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle, WA with 400 participants. Ethnobiology Conference, presentation on native foods in Denver, CO with 75 participants. Alaska Plants as Medicine Conference, presentation on program at Northwest Indian Treatment Center in Anchorage AK with 65 participants. Smithsonian National Folklife Festival, cooking demonstrations and a Tribal Food Sovereignty booth in Washington, D.C. with hundreds of participants. Community Alliance for Global Justice Annual Dinner, presentation on cultivating tribal food sovereignty in Seattle, WA with 300 participants. Traditional Knowledge and Healthy Ecosystems Summit, presentations on native foods and teaching gardens in Stevenson, WA with 100 participants. PARTICIPANTS: The project coordinator for Cultivating Tribal Health through Education is Elise Krohn, M.Ed. Elise has over twelve years of experience working in tribal communities coordinating community gardens, teaching classes and developing educational tools. Elizabeth Campbell is the project assistant and has been working as an educator for the Northwest Indian College for over four years. She is a member of the Spokane Tribe and grew up harvesting wild foods and medicines with her family. She has educational background in native studies and sustainable agriculture. She also runs an organic farm with her family. Valerie Segrest is our Northwest Indian College Cooperative Extension Nurtritionist. She is a member of the Muckleshoot Tribe and is the coordinator of the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project. She is co-developing several of the curriculum for this project. Miguel Hernandes is another member of our Northwest Indian College staff who is contributing to curriculum development. He is the Muckleshoot garden coordinator and is studying permaculture design. While we lack the funds to pay other curriculum developers, we realize that using local expertise strengthens the viability and effectiveness of each curriculum. We overcame this obstacle by fostering partnerships with individuals and organizations that share common goals. In fall 2011, we formed a curriculum committee for Sharing the Gift of Food that includes four of our staff, two Nisqually Tribe farm coordinators, the Nisqually Tribe Cultural Program Director, the managing director of GRuB (an Olympia nonprofit committed to building food justice through community gardens and youth programs), and a graphic designer who specializes in community mapping and building community food sovereignty. We are working with native cooks including Elaine Grinnell from the Jamestown Tribe, Inez Bill from the Tulalip Tribe, Pam James from the Colville Tribe and Trudy Marcellay from the Chehalis Tribe and others to begin creating a course on native culinary arts. We have hosted two cooks forums to get direction on course design. David Sienko from the Tulalip Language Department has recorded footage from classes, cooks forums and other gatherings that will be used to create a short movie for the course. TARGET AUDIENCES: The main site of our project is the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center, a 22-bed, 45-day residential treatment program in Elma, Washington. It is run by the Squaxin Island Tribe and serves Native Americans who live in Washington and other nearby regions. The program specializes in chronic relapse patterns related to unresolved grief and trauma, including historic trauma from colonization. Based on patient interviews, most patients who enter the treatment program purchase most of their foods at mini-marts and have little or no access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Many referring reservations are considered food deserts. Leisure activities are sedentary and patients have a lack of regular balanced meals. Through offering a program on native foods, gardening and traditional medicines, patients benefit in several ways. The program is culturally based, encouraging patients to remember the teachings of their elders and to build positive cultural identity and a sense of pride. Classes are hands-on and participatory so that many types of learners will retain information. Learning about how to grow, gather, harvest and prepare plant-based foods and herbal medicines increases patients' access to highly nutritious foods. It also teaches them healthy physical activities that can combat obesity and diabetes. The project also targets students from the Northwest Indian College - the only accredited tribal college in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Many students were raised on reservations and want to attend college at home. To date, curricula have been run at Muckleshoot and Swinomish extended campuses. Students are often interested in native foods and medicines but do not know where to access them. Teaching culturally relevant classes, establishing community gardens and coordinating field trips have been effective ways of building student knowledge and establishing changes in food behaviors. The project also serves tribal educators from various positions. Examples in the last year include health care providers, educators from youth, elder and head start programs, community garden coordinators, counselors, natural resource managers, the manager of the Seattle Indian Health Board, an educator at a native homeless shelter in Tacoma and an educator for the Whatcom County Jail program who serves native people. These educators serve multitudes of native people throughout Washington State. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Curricula development has been slower than anticipated for several reasons including the time it took to secure funds to employ our project assistant and time challenges around scheduling curriculum committee meetings. We were unable to run our first curricula called Honoring the Gift of Food as planned at the new Northwest Indian College Nisqually Campus because of low student enrollment at this new site. The class will be run in fall of 2012 and then released broadly. While we anticipate that we will be able to complete all five curricula by the end of the grant period, we are currently three months behind schedule. We have learned that it is more realistic to allow two years per curriculum to complete the process of development, revision and training trainers. Train the trainer evaluations from the last year are being used to guide upcoming trainings. While participants consistently gave high marks on workshop content, presentation style, cultural appropriateness and learning something that they can teach or share with others, several people said that they would like to have more ongoing support with educational materials so that they get long-term experience. We are planning to address this by having less train the trainers workshops, but making them longer or in several parts so that educators get a chance to learn new information and then practice teaching it.
Impacts
The Cultivating Tribal Community Health through Education Project is meeting growing demands for traditional food and medicine classes in tribal communities through creating five curricula, then training educators to teach the curricula. In the fall of 2011 we conducted a community needs assessment that guided us toward developing five eight-week classes including: 1) Honoring the Gift of Food; 2) Sharing the Gift of Food: Recovering Native Food Systems; 3) Native Culinary Arts; 4) Growing Plants, Growing Communities; and 5) Our Healing Roots: Northwest Plants and Foods as Medicine. The first two are in final stages of completion and the other three are in early phases of development. In the last year our program provided 225 classes or presentations to over 1,750 participants based on components of the curricula. The main site of our project is the Northwest Indian Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center. Through participating in program classes, many patients remembered the teachings of their ancestors and the wealth that they come from. Tribal elders and cultural specialists who gave bi-monthly presentations offer patients strong leadership and ongoing support throughout their recovery. Monthly family classes gave patients opportunities to share what they learned and to do activities that can be replicated at home. Program evaluation shows us that most patients leave with a significant increase in knowledge of native foods including how to grow, harvest and prepare them. A vast majority of patients report that they have accomplished their health goals during their 45-day program. Common goals include eating a healthier diet, improving energy and remaining clean and sober. After graduating, many return home and share knowledge they learned. Some have started their own gardens. Others have integrated native foods into their diet and have consumed less unhealthy foods like sugar and poor quality fats. One graduate says she became a "plant person." She is now working at a plant nursery and loves her job. Another graduate is attending the Northwest Indian College and is doing a summer internship on native plants through North Cascades National Park. One graduate who was hired by his tribes natural resources department is using what he learned in resource management and educational activities. Courses offered at NWIC Muckleshoot and Swinomish extended campuses met growing demands for classes related to traditional foods and building native food systems. Many students report that they changed the way that they eat and how they interact with the natural world. Students also report that harvesting and cooking with family members has become increasingly important and rewarding. It is a time when different generations share knowledge and cultural traditions. Train the trainers workshops that were offered by key personnel in the last year supported over 45 educators. The Cowlitz and Samish tribes are using tools from the trainings to educate youth in summer culture camps. Other educators are using the curricula in tribal diabetes, elder, youth, garden, counseling and treatment center programs. A strong network of people is forming though these trainings.
Publications
- Our Food, Our Right: Recipes for Food Justice. This book was published by the Community Alliance for Global Justice in August of 2012. Elise Krohn and Valerie Segrest submitted a chapter on Traditional Foods of Puget Sound, native foods recipes and photos. Salish bounty: Traditional Native Foods of Puget Sound. Exhibit at the University of Washington Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, January through June, 2012. Elise Krohn contributed text, audio and photos. It is now a traveling exhibit and is scheduled to show at tribal museums and public spaces over the next several years.
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