Projects

Community participants generating ideas writing on poster sheets

Promoting Community Conversations about Research for Effective Solutions (PC CARES)

A crosscutting community intervention developed as an evidence-based practice is PC CARES: Promoting Community Conversations About Research for Effective Solutions, which prevents suicide and harms of substance use, and has been implemented in dozens of Indigenous and rural communities and schools.

This project includes:

PC CARES – Alaska in Partnership with the Rural Human Services Program – IRINAH & IPC

These projects are done in collaboration with the Rural Human Services (RHS) program at University of Alaska-Fairbanks (UAF), in which Alaska Native adults enrolled in the program are trained as PC CARES facilitators. For questions about either of these projects, contact Lisa Wexler or Lauren White.

PC CARES – ASU (At Risk Substance Use) – State of Alaska

This project adapts the PC CARES suicide prevention curriculum to address polysubstance use. The goals of this project are to engage local people in communities of practice that balance cultural strengths with research based best practices, expand life saving strategies into hard-to-reach communities, and strengthen local linkages to care. For questions about this project, contact […]

PC CARES – NCREW Yakama Nation, WA

To address the urgent increase in overdose deaths in Yakama Nation, this project takes a solution oriented, community driven approach, working with individuals with lived experiences to oversee the process. This collaborative effort is working to develop a PC CARES curriculum and implementation strategy for an intervention that reflects Yakama priorities and issues, whilst integrating […]

PC CARES – U-M

Using youth participatory methods, this project is tailoring PC CARES to prevent suicide and promote mental wellness among university students. The project team is currently adapting the PC CARES curriculum to address student mental health and convening a pilot workgroup of graduate student leaders to collaboratively advise and evaluate the curriculum structure and content. For […]

PC CARES – Michigan

This two-year project (Oct 2025 – Sep 2027) partners with the Bay Mills Indian Community, Gun Lake Tribe, and Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, with the University of Michigan serving as lead. The goal is to reduce youth suicide and substance use risk by building community-led prevention capacity through Learning Circles (locally facilitated sessions) and training […]

Before PC CARES, I [thought of] preventing risky substance use as a difficult task, and saw as being out of my scope of work/outside of my capacity as an individual. Some of what I have learned in PC CARES is that anyone can play a role in preventing or reducing substance use. Since learning in PC CARES, I now think/feel preventing risky substance use can be done by doing little things that can lead to positive outcomes or help to educate or even just simply help others struggling with substance use. – Design Lab participant

Project Website

https://www.pc-cares.org/

Investigators

Lisa Wexler

Elizabeth Evans

Lauren White (UW)

Funding

NIH