Editor’s note: Through a partnership with Casey Family Programs (CFP), Fred Fisher recently joined the NNCTC as our first-ever Community Development Advisor. We are excited to help Fred realize his vision for promoting tribal resilience through community development, and we are honored to have the opportunity to promote our mission in this new area of programming. We asked Fred to say a few words about his plans and about the connection between community development and trauma.
I want to begin by thanking Marilyn Zimmerman and the NNCTC for giving me the opportunity, as Community Development Advisor, to advance their mission through a focus on tribal community and economic development. I have been with Casey Family Programs for the past 24 years, initially serving as the organization’s first Community Development Director in what was then the Helena-Missoula Division. This externally facing position involved developing local, regional, and statewide community collaborations across Montana to improve outcomes for youth in foster care or at risk of involvement with the child welfare system. As a Director with Casey’s Indian Child Welfare Programs for the past ten years, I was detailed to USDA Rural Development, where I provided support to the Obama-era Tribal Promise Zones initiative and to the Center for Indian Country Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where my focus was on tribal housing and homeownership and improving educational outcomes for American Indian students.
These experiences have led me to believe in the promise of broadening our approach to addressing many of the most pressing health, mental health, and community-level issues among tribal members. Over the past 20 years, organizations like the NNCTC have begun to fill an enormous gap by equipping human service providers to promote resilience and recovery from the collective and individual traumas that tribal people experience. This work is vital, due to the disproportionate rates of trauma exposure in tribal communities and among American Indians and Alaska Natives more generally. But in addition to this vital work, I hope to promote prevention of the conditions that lead to disproportionate trauma rates in the first place.
I define prevention as “the act of creating conditions in communities that promote the health, safety, and well-being of children and families.” This definition implies a broad, comprehensive, systemic, and collaborative approach. As with all of the NNCTC’s projects, these prevention activities will be grounded in culture, health, safety, and support for all families. By drawing on the strengths of tribal communities and the vision of tribal leaders and administrators, we can support the development of countless opportunities for children and families to thrive.
In my new role at the NNCTC, I will provide consulting and technical assistance on tribal nation building research, strategies, and tools. By reducing insecurities and disparities in the realms of housing, health, finances, and education, tribes can arrest the cycle of disadvantage and trauma that characterizes too many American Indian and Alaska Native children and families.
One of my first efforts at NNCTC will be to develop a hub for community development resources on the NNCTC website. I envision this hub, which is currently in its early stages, as a central repository of freely available resources and information on tribal community and economic development strategies that improve the health, safety, and well-being of American Indian and Alaska Native children and families. These resources and informational products will include links to recorded interviews with national tribal nation building experts, essays and op-eds on tribal community and economic development, links to research on the connection between the built environment and tribal infrastructure on health and well-being, links to practical tools such as the Casey Family Programs’ Community Opportunity Map and the Opportunity Atlas, and opportunities for peer-to-peer consulting.
An introductory centerpiece of this effort will be the hosting of a “Trauma-Informed Nation Building” webinar series sponsored by NNCTC in partnership with Casey Family Programs Indian Child Welfare. I have begun the process of inviting panelists and developing topics for these webinars. Our first webinar in the series will be held on July 29 and will be available afterward in archived form on the NNCTC website.
I look forward to meeting the NNCTC’s tribal partners and peer organizations either virtually or in-person to discuss these topics further. Please contact me at fredfisher810@gmail.com to say hi and share your thoughts and ideas. Be well.