Uniting Communities to Support Counter Drug Efforts

In this episode, our guests Capt. Kimberly Westfall and Tech Sgt. Elijah Gutierrez of the Alaska National Guard’s Counter Drug Support Program explain that, while vulnerabilities often exist in rural drug treatment and harm reduction, a number of support factors unique to rural life also exist. Learn how the Alaska National Guard’s Counterdrug Advisory Council has recently received national recognition for their work using these support factors to reduce stigma, increase access to harm reduction services, unify coalition partners and unite communities across the largest state in America.

To contact the coordinator for your state or territory’s Counter Drug Support Program, you can reach out to Technical Sergeant Elijah Gutierrez at Elijah.Gutierrez@alaska.gov.

Transcript

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  00:00

And we're not coming in with the answers. We're coming in with ways to help find the answers and help find out what work needs to be done in that community.

Beth Brown  00:16

Welcome to Breaking Barriers in Rural Health, a limited series podcast from Mountain Pacific. We are sharing what is working in rural mental health and health care and discussing ways to replicate these successes. We're also shining sunlight where it's needed by identifying breakdowns and gaps in care. Ultimately, we aim to improve the health and well being of our health care communities, and anyone listening into this podcast. Now here's the latest episode in Breaking Barriers in Rural Health.

Amber Rogers  00:52

Welcome, everybody, today, we have another set of folks from the great state of Alaska. This is Breaking Barriers in Rural Health. And I'm your host today, Amber Rogers, from the great state of Montana. And we are here to welcome Kim and Elijah from Alaska. So we'll start with Elijah, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and then we'll move on to Kim.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  01:19

Absolutely. So my name is Tech Sergeant Elijah Gutierrez and I say that because you can't see me, it's a podcast, I got all dressed up. Today, I'm in uniform, and we're with what's called the Counter Drug Support Program. My goal today is try to help those understand what the candidates work program is and how we can be utilized in their communities.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  01:40

I am Captain Kim West Hall, and I am the counter drug coordinator, which means that I'm the director of this counter drug task force as a whole. We're here mainly to talk about our one line of efforts that is drug demand reduction, which is our prevention arm. Wait.

Amber Rogers  01:55

And we also have joining us Kyla Newland, she is the pharmacist from Alaska as well, Kyla.

Kyla Newland  02:03

Yes, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks, Amber. And I've had the pleasure of working with these folks from the Counter Drug Support Unit. There's some of the coalition work that we do at Mountain Pacific. So happy to have you here today and highlight the things that are happening in Alaska and across the nation with your program.

Amber Rogers  02:20

Right. So why don't you just talk a little bit about what your program that as Elijah, you kind of talked just briefly about the program and how it supports the community? Do you want to talk a little bit more about exactly what that means in your community?

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  02:38

Yeah, absolutely. So, Alaska is a gigantic state. I think most people know that. And part of the Counter Drug Support Program is DDRO, drug demand reduction outreach. And we have a goal of doing just that trying to reduce the demand for drugs in communities across Alaska, trying to prevent the demand for drugs, preventing addiction. So we work with public health agencies. We work with coalitions, as Kyla was saying, we've worked with grassroots organizations who work with people that have a drug nexus or work in the prevention of substance misuse across the state to try to bolster their efforts to try to ensure that their work is as effective as it possibly can be. We're not necessarily always experts, but we end up being bridge builders in our communities and connecting people who are the experts, so their work the most effectively done.

Amber Rogers  03:32

So do you cross multiple, multiple communities? And because there's a lot of communities in a state as big as Alaska?

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  03:40

Amber, that's a great question. In fact, I just had this conversation with two of our partners. And the first question was, "Hey, who is your community? Who are you referring to when you say, our community?" And so for each partner that we've worked with, that answer is going to be different. For us, we do serve the entire state of Alaska. But for each of the partners that we've worked with, their definition of community can be very different. It can be a neighborhood, it can be a school, it could be a college, it can be a town or city or municipality or borough, or it can be the entire state when we're working at the state level.

Amber Rogers  04:16

Cool. I like that idea that every community is different, because that's how we do make a difference is finding who that individual is who might be working with folks that are recently released from jails or prisons. And that is a very unique community versus people that are in a school or high schoolers versus people in just a small town. So it's very important to know who your target audience is.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  04:47

It really I think it helps narrow down what it is you want to do. Also, folks want to do good. Organizations want to do good. A coalition wants to do good, but it's difficult to to say where you're gonna start at. And once you define the community that you're trying to serve, then it can start helping create those data points of "Okay, now that I understand the community that I'm working for, what are the data points that are relevant to the community, and how can we best serve these people?" I think that question is pretty important.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  05:19

I think Elijah and I have this conversation a lot when we're talking to a larger national audience about what does DDRO do. And we always begin to get in the conversation by saying, well, once you've seen how one DDRO works, then using one DDRO works, because a key part of any counter drug task force, regardless of the line of effort is to identify the local drug strengths and vulnerabilities to understand the landscape and then do a needs assessment. Where does this community this state, this particular village, this particular organization need support, and how can we plug in to provide that? We memorize the square mileage, it's like 665,000 square miles or something in Alaska, and dozens of languages, dozens of different cultures, different regions. And so what that means for Alaska to identify the need is that we identify multiple means to multiple parts of the state.

Tammera Nauts  06:18

Very unique. Very, very unique. I suppose you have to travel by playing by boat, by car by you name it.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  06:34

Wait till the river is frozen and travel on the river. And I hear that's a key way of transportation. I think something that is unique to Alaska and some other more rural states is the lack of infrastructure. And so as I discussed that, it's important to identify our drug threats and vulnerabilities, it's really important. And I am constantly advocating for the need to identify rural as a vulnerability when it comes to the negative effects of illicit substances on our areas. And being rural means that there are some protections built in, perhaps, but being rural also has some vulnerabilities built in access to treatment, access to resources have a lot of different varieties, but transportation or access is just one of many potential vulnerabilities when we're talking about the negative effects of illicit substances in our states. 

Amber Rogers  07:30

And so part of your technical assistance that you're providing these communities, you're physically going to these communities and your needs assessment that you're providing them. You're getting folks together, what other kinds of tools are you bringing to the table?

07:49

Elijah definitely needs to answer the meat and potatoes of this question. But first, what I'll say is that, you know, as the leader of my task force, the biggest thing that I need all of my folks to know before they're either going into communities or providing support remotely to communities is to be very culturally humble, and to be ready and be trained in a way that you're not saying, "I'm the government's and I'm here to help." And being culturally responsive is the first step in being able to provide support to those communities. But from a technical aspect, Elijah, since you're boots on the ground, I'm going to hand that over to you.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  08:26

So it really does depend, we have been initial responder in some communities when overdoses are happening to get out to rural Alaska, it can be challenging, right? So, to get out of rural Alaska and coordinate travel, if an overdose spike is happening or a suspected overdose like is happening, we probably wouldn't respond to that in person as much. We would definitely coordinate with local ORPs. Find out what resources are needed, make sure that information is going out to our coalition partners, people that we know in the area are ready, send out some naloxone if needed, and then try to identify what's causing the overdoses? Is it opioids? Is it something else and what resources need to be amplified or additional hobbies to be amplified? For the folks in that community, there's a lot to be said about being able to go somewhere in person and meet face to face, there's so much value in that. At the same time, you can't ignore the value of being able to connect digitally as well and utilizing those resources. Even now, you know, we're all getting on Teams to have this conversation, whereas we would normally have to sit down in a room and meet up and get to a studio, because we have this resource that makes this podcast possible. So it's understanding the right time, place and going to each community do have to have that cultural humility that Kim was talking about. And we have to meet people and organizations, local governments, where they're at, and we're not coming in with the answers. We're coming in with ways to help find the answers, and help find out what work needs to be done in that community. And so we're not there bringing anything to the table, except for an opportunity to find out what is on the table and what can be worked with. I was just talking with a community worker visiting, I think next month, and you had a plan in place within the county to do a three day kind of big group meeting and do all the strategic planning. And then it got pushed to the right a little bit we called again and said "Hey, are we going to come down?" And it completely changed, "Hey, we don't want that type of support anymore. We're kind of looking at doing something else. We're shifting gears." And I said, "I'm not coming down with any type of agenda, I don't need to come down to complete a certain task. I want to know where you're at, what you need for me, and I want you to leave feeling great, that this is successful." And we're in a better place now. So wherever they're at, we want to go down there and meet them in that place, and be as helpful as we can be.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  11:01

I've heard you tell stories about being invited to communities in support of other organizations. By the way, anytime counterdrug does stuff, we're not spearheading any missions or efforts, we are always acting in support of another organization. But Elijah, I've heard you tell a lot of really good stories are really good timelines,  "There I was," sort of stuff associated with community cafes. So you're invited to a community to do a community assessment, or community cafe. Can you tell a story an example of one of those, you have some really good work out there?

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  11:34

Oh, I feel like this is like a difficult question. Because selfishly with this job, I love Alaska, and I love being able to have this opportunity to travel all over Alaska. So you asked that question, "Tell us a specific example." And my mind goes to so many different places that I've been to, and my love for each of those places, right then. So now trying to pull one and say, you know, what was what's coming to mind right now is Sitka, Alaska, went down to Sitka, Alaska, I want to say, 2017. When he and we got down there, we were with the state, the Office of Substance Misuse and Addiction Prevention, we're doing this community cafe, and the community cafe was a way the state wants to develop a statewide opioid action plan. And we developed this method of collecting data that would influence a statewide opioid action plan would also be an opportunity for communities who communicate with one another, kind of have like this networking meeting, and create this data packet that they would then also receive for themselves, so that we could do their own work and discover what's going on their communities and have these magic moments that, "Hey, I'm doing this work in my community." And, "So am I, we're at the same meeting." And you can talk and start collaborating, and down at Sitka, there was just so many people that were doing amazing work. And it was just amazing being down there. It was then in Sitka, where I was meeting with this organization, and what their requests were so different from everyone else. And as with the naloxone kits, specifically, where typically with Project Hope we would build naloxone kits, and then ship out the kits directly. And they said, we have a good organization going, send us the resources to build the kits, we'll build them. And then we'll be able to do the distribution and back then reduce the amount of stress needed of the state. So that way, they get the kits faster, the state has to do less for getting volunteer work to fill up the kits, and just recognizing that each community is in a different place, and that their requests wouldn't be different, based off where they were at.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  13:34

I think that's great. I think in between the lines, what I'm hearing is that you are invited to a community, you facilitate conversations with people within the community, do a needs assessment for all intents and purposes. And then the follow on partnerships that happen are what are requested from the community, whether it be helping to establish an Overdose Response Program in that community, whether it be coming back to provide more events or education, whether it be to provide consultation on what is prevention, maybe they need a SAPST training or something. Let's coordinate all of our friends but all the friends together to figure out how we can you have that delivered. And then you said the community gets to talk and figure out what exactly is out there preventing duplication of efforts but also the different communities that are potentially siloed. Those community cafes can really bring them together in a really key part of addressing the drug problem in communities is connecting the different siloed entities. So for example, public health, and public safety entities are sometimes operating parallel without a lot of intersection, both in identifying the drug threat and addressing the drug threats and vulnerabilities connecting to public health and public safety efforts is something that organically happens with a lot of TDRO efforts. 

Kyla Newland  14:56

I was just thinking to back to what you said Elijah about the naloxone kits. Instead of just, maybe just, because public health, you're making it like a community kind of gathering event that folks are able to make those connections, as Kim was just saying. And I think that's really important too, to just build awareness in the communities.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  15:15

Absolutely. And we have done a number of those with products with different organizations that volunteer to put them on and help support them and coordinating them for work with the Anchorage Health Department. And we try to compete on how this can get built in an hour, two hours, with a certain amount of people.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  15:33

My favorite events are the builds. People are getting together. Everybody's happy, there's a competitive spirit and you are doing something minute by minute that at the end of five hours or three hours or even one hour, you can see a pile of work that you've done that potentially could be saving lives and Alaska, building those naloxone kits is my favorite kind of event to do.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  15:55

And you're having conversations with people as you're building these kits together. You have your one job as your one station, you're having conversations with people, you're building these connections in the community. And also I find that it's a way to destigmatize the idea of having naloxone, right? And so many times I hear it when you're in there, people are talking they're having a good time. Why are we doing this? Who is this for? Where are these kits going in Alaska, and somebody will have a decent stigma about the naloxone kits and harm reduction, but then someone else in the room will have a direct experience with naloxone, whether it's a loved one or themselves or someone else. And those moments come together where it's the "Aha" moment of the DEA says overdoses closer than you think. And it really is, we're all one or two steps removed from someone we know unfortunately, 

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  16:43

I think it's interesting work. We're doing prevention, we support prevention efforts in DDRO. And it's really easy for people, it seems to get behind the prevention of first use for drugs, let's get in there and talk to those kids and prevent first use. But it's harder, for some reason to get everybody to rally behind prevention on a different part of the spectrum. And really, as in a lot of communities, Alaska is facing the reality that we are trying to prevent first use, we are trying to do universal prevention, we are at a point that we need to be focusing on preventing more deaths. And so it is a logical progression that we are following the need as a prevention entity. And supporting harm reduction supporting naloxone kits building supporting the training associated with that. But those kits building events are one part of how we're humanizing the harm prevention part. And it's just getting people to talk in person conversations make all the difference.

Amber Rogers  17:49

It's so sad. But as many people have said before, you can't recover if you're dead.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  17:55

And at the same time, too, you know, we don't just do naloxone. And that isn't the only thing that's being done across the state. I'm not trying to minimize loss. And I think it's super important. And it is a tremendous amount of work that we do with that. But at the same time we're doing other things as well, right? We do we're working with is, hey, we're distributing naloxone, what's next? What else? What's our next step? What are we doing? We said that naloxone is a band aid, right? It doesn't solve the problem. It's a band aid, it's a temporary fix. What's your next step so we can start moving forward. And that's what we're looking at. That's what we're coming to the data identifying that this community wants to work with. So that way, they can really hone in and say, Okay, these are the areas we want to focus on. These are strategic points we want to do. These are our data points, we want to affect and create change on. One of the things that's been kind of cool that I stumbled upon, was we were doing the community cafes back in 2016, 17. Was this idea of just getting rid of medications. Through those cafes, we discovered all across the state, how do I get rid of my medications? How do I clean out my cabinet? We know we do Drug Take Back Day, twice a year, which is another thing that we have support cause we work with the DEA. April and October, we were that that happens nationwide. On top of that, where can you get rid of your drugs year-round? I was working with the DEA and talking about medication disposal, because you have to stamp off on those. And there is an increased amount of drug disposal sites across the state, a tremendous amount more. So then the question comes into play. Who knows about this? How can we educate the public that a lot of these pharmacies now have medication disposal sites that are available throughout the year? And make sure that information is getting out there? So while we're doing naloxone, what are the other areas that we're focused on that is making Alaska a healthier place? 

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  19:49

You're plugged into a lot of strategic prevention efforts, but those are potentially the most over time most impactful strategic efforts are the hardest ones to describe and then also communicate the impact. It's a lot harder to say I'm pointing to the strategic effort in supporting this organization. This is what we're doing. And this is why it matters. But it does matter. And it is important. 

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  20:12

Right, doing primary, secondary and tertiary prevention is all the same time all across the state, all in different communities, trying to at least, and then trying to regurgitate that, yeah, it's really just how do we quantify that work?  Right. 

Kyla Newland  20:27

And sometimes it is really hard.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  20:29

This actually kind of brings me to another point on who we are and how we identify ourselves. So DDRO nationwide, has kind of been retooling our strategic plan, and tries to say, "Hey, what is it we do? Are we the prevention experts in our community?" And finally we were able to sit down and say, "Hey, that's not really what we're doing. We're a support program. And our job isn't to initiate prevention. Our job is to bolster organizations that are initiating that prevention." So that's kind of been our new focus is saying, not what are we doing specifically, but who are we supporting specifically, who are we partnering with? And are those prevention efforts utilized?

Kyla Newland  21:11

I was just going to ask when we talked about kind of the cultural environment in some of these rural areas. And I'm wondering what barriers you may have run into, especially with Alaska Native communities, and how you've been able to overcome those or kind of address those.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  21:27

We don't go into communities or try to provide support unless we're invited, that prevents a lot of issues. And then once we're in communities, our emphasis on support and reading the room and making sure that we're not trying to dominate or wag our finger at anybody, I think that helps as well. There have been issues that we've identified in, we get to a location and the proper POC is not always easily identified, in that sometimes there's some deconfliction necessary between the tribal government versus the city governments versus the nonprofit's in town, and some of what our visit uncovers and can help remedy is that a lot of the conversations aren't happening organically between those entities. But that's the only barrier that I can think of. 

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  22:17

Thanks a great answer. And if you don't know, POC means point of contact. We had not properly identified the right point of contact and that can, which is really about, you know, making sure we have everyone at the table who needs to be at the table, everyone represented.  Challenges we found? Yes, ma'am. I think you hit that on the head. I think that's a great answer. And maybe I'm just an internal optimist. But there are so many risk factors. But there's also so many great protective factors. And culture and community are huge protective factors. And I really love to focus on those things in communities, again, like Captain Westfall said, when we're invited, right? When we're invited, this is such an amazing opportunity to come to communities to learn about the culture and learn about what these communities do and how they thrive and how they live in these harsh harsh environments, and have survived for so long. And how do we help, if wanted? How do we help bolster reconnecting to some of those cultural things. So there are some challenges there, getting out there travel, those types of things, making sure everyone's at the table and all representation is there. But there's so many positive aspects to the Alaskan Native community that can really be leveraged. You hear time and time again, from different resources that when folks have connection to culture and community that just sends your positive data points off the charts, right? And so that's a great thing for people to capitalize on. Starting right there is connection to community and culture.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  23:53

I love the more official recognition that culture as prevention is getting when you're talking to evidence-based practices and whatnot, culture as prevention is being recognized as it should be something that certainly can be applied in our Alaska Native communities. 

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  24:11

And there's so much great work being done on that across the state. There's always more work to be done, right? But it's been really cool to kind of sit back and watch and observe. And when we do get invited to just be able to be honored to be there and participate [unintelligible].

Amber Rogers  24:26

Positivity and connection, get those positive dopamine hits from togetherness instead of drugs, right?

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  24:34

Absolutely.

Amber Rogers  24:35

So why don't you talk a few minutes as we kind of near the end of our talk about some recent events that you've done. I'd like to be in some of those events. They sound pretty cool.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  24:47

So I think we just start with our most recent Red Ribbon Week event, where we went to six schools in October-November timeframe, over a two week period. Three in the Mat-Su, three in Anchorage, we typically do this. But this year, Captain Westfall said that this was the best Red Ribbon week she's ever seen. So I'm going to make sure that's here, on this podcast [unintelligible].  We were able to get helicopters to come out to the event. We tried for helicopters every year. And it just never really works out. There's a lot of coordination involved with that. And we were going to go for helicopters again this year, like, let's go to every school, you know, shoot, shoot for the moon. And we're like, Okay, well, maybe we'll just do one helicopter, at the very first school, the first kind of event, and we kept pushing for getting a helicopter to each school. We had the right people on orders, people trusting us, Captain Westfall trusting me for whatever reason, and the stars were able to align the right people signed the right paperwork, and made it happen. Here, we did a helicopter to schools. So every kid who was involved got to have this experience, to which the schools did a quick presentation, rushed everyone outside, set up our safety perimeter, helicopter lands a DEA agent gets off and does another little kind of reinforcement speech of what we just talked about, decides to get back onto the helicopter, it takes off. And then we do show and tell with first responders and local law enforcement, and just a really positive engagement with kids and law enforcement, and first responders, and then just get healthy choices, messaging, again, trying to reduce that demand for communities. So it was a pretty good year. Ma'am, do you have any thoughts on that?

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  26:34

I did say, "This is the best Red Ribbon Week event that I've ever seen in my 15 or so years of doing Red Ribbon Week events." As the school principals would say it wasn't just because we had helicopters landing, but I think it was an I'm going to use the word synergy. I think it was an example of the synergy that I hope that our prevention efforts and counterdrug are, we provided a lot of really good training when it came to counterdrug. Aviation, counterdrug aviation is something that we need to develop and expand in Alaska, given our lack of infrastructure, and the needs of our law enforcement partners. So some really good training in landing and taking off and coordinating the militarily unique skill set of a helicopter and support of our law enforcement. It was excellent participation and buy-in from our mission partners, both on the public health and on the public safety side. And I think it was a really good example of a perfectly executed law enforcement outreach mission. And counter drug is the only DoD-funded drug prevention entity that really touches domestic drug threat. It's the only thing that saying, hey, homeland, let's look at the drug threat and do something about it. And so this is just an example of all the National Guard domestic operation capabilities coming together to do some training, do some prevention, do some high vis, hey, we want to celebrate healthy choices. And we did six events and got some good press coverage. And it was just everything just perfectly aligning very grateful to Elijah and his team for putting things together so well. And also to our mission partners for having such amazing baIance this really important idea of celebrating normative positive choices and healthy choices over drugs. 

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  28:34

I live in the Mat-Su Valley, out in Palmer. If you Red Ribbon Week, we've [unintelligible] the Mat-Su. And it was, like I said, October, November. I don't know what day it was. But there was a good trick or treat street and I took my kids out we're trick or treating downtown palmer and doing that. And, so I'm in civilian clothes and in fact I'm in civilian clothes, and on my head, I have a unicorn, and I'm dressed as unicorn and holding my baby and she's dressed up as a unicorn. And this kid recognized me and says, "Hey, you came to our school and did the presentation, it was so great!" And he introduced me to his mom and dad and [unintelligibile] "This is the guy that came to our school, I was telling you about him." And the fact that a kid recognized me out of uniform while I was dressed as a unicorn. That was like pretty amazing to me, because you typically don't get recognized when you change your clothing out of uniform. So I was too removed from where I was and he still recognized me. And I was like, Okay, that's a pretty good impact. I think he remembers that event a little bit.

Kyla Newland  29:28

Elijah, I was at the same event with my kids.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  29:31

Oh yes?

Kyla Newland  29:31

There were so many people I didn't run into you. 

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  29:35

That would be great! Trick or treat. Yeah, I was I was pretty busy running around my kids. So that's awesome. Yeah, trick or treat street was great this year.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  29:47

The Secretary of Defense recognizes prevention entities. There's a couple of different categories and for the National Guard, the community prevention program of Alaska DDR was recognized as the best in the entire nation,

30:04

It is the Secretary of Defense Community Drug Awareness Award.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  30:09

So Oliver Meza and Elijah Gutierrez and their team are recognized as being the best National Guard program in the whole DOD. So that's a huge testament to the kind of work that they're doing. The award focuses a lot on that law enforcement outreach stuff, that response to the fentanyl threat this year is kind of the focus how they executed Red Ribbon Week last year, and this year was a big factor and why they were recognized, very well deserved. Super cool.

Amber Rogers  30:40

So tell us a little bit as we wrap up how other folks can get in contact with their counterparts in their states and their communities.

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  30:51

Montana definitely has an excellent counterdrug program and working on getting some prevention stuff up and running as well. For example, Elijah, did you have any other info? 

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  31:01

Absolutely, yes. Some of you guys might email alleged peers in Alaska, that if you are from whatever state and you're like, Hey, do I have the kind of drug in my state, this person reached out to shoot me an email, and I'll get you in contact with whoever your DDRO representative is in your state. 

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  31:19

Just don't be confused, because there are some amazing counterdrug schools. There's five counterdrug schools and so those pop up too.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  31:29

Thank you so much for having us. Thank you for making this happen. 

Capt. Kimberly Westfall  31:31

I do want to say thanks for having us. And thanks for doing your work to breaking barriers in rural health. I think that as Alaska counterdrug. Members, we're all advocates in bringing light to the challenges of rural health specifically having to do with having a positive difference in the negative effects of illicit substances. I could go on and on and on about that, but I'll just say thank you for your efforts in that. 

Amber Rogers  32:01

Thank you.

Kyla Newland  32:02

Yeah, thank you for your partnership. Just really appreciate the partnership, able to highlight the work that you're doing. 

Amber Rogers  32:09

It takes a team, right? 

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  32:10

Yeah, it does.

Amber Rogers  32:12

Thank you much.

Tech. Sgt. Elijah Guitierrez  32:13

Thank you.

Beth Brown  32:20

Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to Breaking Barriers in Rural Health, and learn more about Mountain Pacific at www.mpqhf.org