Building Trust Between Tribal Communities and Community Organizations Through Cultural Awareness

Building trust between Tribal Communities and organization can be difficult. This workshop will examine how how building partnerships with tribal organizations and community agencies can be a great way to build trust and respect.

Tribal communities are unique in that they are sovereign entities with their own governing bodies. Sometimes it can be a challenge to provide services and resources to American Indian/ Alaskan Native populations due to barriers. Partnerships between tribal organizations and community organizations can be a way to build trust and foster relationships while bringing necessary resources to the community.

In our rural tribal community, there are service gaps for mental health and substance abuse prevention the community, we have found that outreaching to organizations to form engaging and collaborative partnerships that are creative and mutually beneficial while focusing on increasing capacity, communication and efficiency while improving outcomes.

Highlighted throughout the presentation will be opportunities for the creative use of concrete social work knowledge and skills to promote the integration of culture and practice in a community setting.

The presentation will identify some of the challenges encountered when working with tribal communities and American Indian and Alaskan Native populations. Specific to the discussion will be issues that often create barriers to such partnerships, such as, understanding tribal culture; engaging tribal leadership; building and sustaining partnerships; underlying motivation for partnerships; measuring outcomes; program planning; and obtaining resources.

Importantly, the presentation will offer some practical methods and examples for addressing these barriers. Additionally, methods for articulating the mutual benefits of such partnerships will be identified and discussed. The benefits of partnerships to tribal organizations, as well as outside community organizations, will be explored.