2025 in Review at AKA

2025 was an epic year at AKA. We work behind the scenes to build organizational and community capacity for healing and change. All of our work is a gift. The concept and teachings of a gift economy come to mind, but this is something for another time. The people at AKA and the communities we serve are among the greatest treasures of 2025.

We love visuals and metaphors (from the Greek to carry across). Remember the old Chevrolet station wagons with the seat that faced backward toward the road? Well, we sit in these seats, watching time go by. We tell the stories, write the reports, celebrate the successes, and find the value. The backseat station wagon metaphor enforces the ethos that we are not called to lead anyone or anything. We support communities and leaders as they make these decisions- as allies, advocates, and champions.

Imagine our AKA team packed in the very back of the old Chevrolet wagon, looking at the roads we’ve traveled in 2025, the tracks that have been left, the people, and the bumps in the road. These are some highlights from the road in 2025.

January 2025—Good Road of Life evaluations with Wyoming Indian High School, Doya Natsu Healing Center, and Native PRIDE remind us that youth are the future, culture connects and heals, and all of this matters. AKA, Interns Yolanda and Kesiena jumped in to learn how we evaluate youth-led programs and interventions.

February 2025—We partnered with Montana State University, Fort Peck Community College, and many bright minds to develop the We R Here Now Toolkit. Jeanne Bowman’s designs in this Toolkit make information accessible to everyone.

AKA’s evaluation and support of the Pueblo of Pojoaque Regeneration Interdependence Outreach program remind us that collective healing is happening in communities we serve. 

March 2025— We traveled to Poplar, Montana, for Spotted Bull Resource Recovery Center’s Annual Wellness Symposium. Jaylen Aguilar’s photos and Linda Donahue’s designs of this information show reach, impact, and gratitude to all.

April 2025—Our partnership with the University of New Mexico Center for Native American Health continues to give us insight into what it means to support peer-led recovery from an Indigenous lens. Their Indigenous Peer Recovery Support Toolkit is a comprehensive resource for implementing peer support with Indigenous communities. We are excited for its formal launch in the coming year.

May 2025—Our partnership with Doya Natsu Healing Center continues to grow. We supported the evaluation of their Women are Sacred Conference- yes, another reminder of our sacredness. Macrina Singleton’s design shows the importance of healthy relationships and what participants learned.

June 2025—We worked with the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona to create a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) toolkit for tribal communities to use. This must-see resource, led by Kelley Milligan and Alejandra Cabrera, offers hope that generational improvements in wellbeing and health will occur during our lifetimes.

July 2025—Our partnership with the California Rural Indian Health Board took us down many roads. We developed the Tribal Adverse Childhood Experiences (TACE) Tool. We submitted the TACE validation paper to a peer-reviewed journal- hopefully, this will be available and in the world soon. In the meantime, we know that balancing adversity with cultural resilience and strengths is a must when working with AIAN communities.

August 2025—Elders have wisdom about how to live and walk through grief and loss that others do not have. Books do not offer, and therapists do not know… Our Healing with Grief Toolkit and elder presentations at the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council 2025 Health Conference gave us much to consider as we think about what healing means and how to evaluate healing programs. Marcus Red Thunder collected elder interviews and created the https://www.buzzsprout.com/2513709 Healing with Grief podcast.

The writing workshop with Tribal Epidemiology Centers and the release of my latest book, Write Well Live Well: A writing coach's guide to academic publishing, is by far one of my favorite trips of the past year. A easy to read, connecting and sometimes self-deprecating book about the academic writing process and more.

September 2025—Good Medicine Keepers at RMTLC is all about preventing tobacco-related cancers and building health equity in AIAN communities. This annual evaluation, designed by Breezy Gibson and supported by Dr. Emily Beamon, showcases the reach and importance of education and prevention activities nationwide over the past year.

October 2025—An elder once told me that relationships are forever in Indian Country. I did not know what they meant, but now I do. Our work has come full circle with the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. We have been working alongside them for over 20 years. They asked us to support their Restorative Justice grant with the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Court. We worked alongside them to develop a participant manual, weekly reporting forms, and an information brochure that will help people find recovery, hope, and restoration.

November 2025—Recovery housing is a must for anyone walking the Red Road. Doya Natsu Healing Centers Recovery Ranch gives us a lot of hope that sober housing will be available in rural and reservation communities. They are leading the way for a sober living project, tiny homes, culturally-based prevention and recovery supports, and reclaiming ancestral lands. 

December 2025—Preventing any kind of abuse is something we take seriously. Our partnership with the OUHSC National Center for the Sexual Behavior of Youth (NCSBY) supported our work to update the Restoring the Sacred Circle Toolkit, a must-read resource for preventing problematic sexual abuse.

As we prepare to step into the back of the old Chevrolet station wagon to collect the stories of 2026, we feel rested, grateful, and hopeful about what is to come. We will travel new roads and familiar ones. We will seek connection, meaning, and purpose along the way. We will remember we are called to serve others and love them. Here are some trips we are packing for…

• Publishing a narrative inquiry study with Indigenous elders, Frontiers 2026

• Publishing a graphic novel about public health for AIAN teens, AKA Published 2026

• Documenting lived experiences of AIAN medical school students, barriers, successes, and recommendations for thriving and closing the educational gap, UNM CNAH Indians Into Medicine, 2026

• Exploring the evidence from the NPAIHB’s Caring Text Message campaign (CTM) and reduction of suicidal risk factors in AIAN veterans, college students, and young adults, NPAIHB 2026

• Supporting culturally-centered, strength-based evaluations with Pueblo of Pojoaque, Doya Natsu Healing Center, Spotted Bull Resource Recovery Center, California Rural Indian Health Board, Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, Fort Peck Tribal Health, University of New Mexico, and the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians

What stories will you collect in 2026? Where will you be? How will you travel? Who will be with you?

Traveling the roads in the station wagon at AKA in 2026!

#AKA