Honoring Native heritage, always
At Crosswinds News, honoring Native American heritage is part of our mission 365. This work is woven into everything we do: every season, every story, every day.
November marked the completion of the first phase of our Solutions Journalism “Returning to Balance” series, created to uplift the cultural strengths and Native-led solutions guiding our communities toward balance and wellness.
Thank you all for your support and engagement with our work. As part of our commitment to the Native communities we serve, we strive to elevate Native voices and focus on more than just the problems that exist.
This series was an opportunity for Crosswinds to highlight Native led solutions to common problems including suicide, substance use disorder, and domestic violence. Crosswinds News Senior Journalist Rachael Schuit reported on the way sweat lodges are being used to assist people struggling with substance use in the Osage Nation and the Seminole Nation. She also spoke to Native health leaders about the importance of instilling cultural identity and education in Native youth as a way to reduce suicide.
In October, the series explored the ways culture can be used to assist domestic violence survivors who are dealing with abusive situations. It’s not just the survivors who need healing. Our most recent story in the series focused on the efforts of Gene Red Hail’s approach to heal men who are abusers by helping them return to Native values and reclaim their honor.
Have you read one or more of our Returning To Balance stories? Please take our brief survey to let us know what you think!
Another large part of this project was obtaining sponsorship. Crosswinds News Operations Manager Brittany Harlow led the sponsorship efforts to ensure this work would be funded. Crosswinds is grateful to Native Oklahoma Insurance for their sponsorship and support of this work. Their support as a presenting sponsor allowed us to not only produce these stories but present them at our Indigenous Roots American Indian History Symposium as well. Attendees at the symposium had the opportunity to ask questions about the series and share their thoughts.
Learn more about their incredible efforts to insure Native Americans here.
As part of our commitment to telling these types of stories, we would love to partner with more organizations and businesses that are interested in sponsoring this culturally grounded health reporting.
We are also preparing to expand this series in 2026 to explore how Indigenous foodways can support harm reduction, restore balance, and heal food-related trauma that Native people have carried for generations.
Story ideas include looking at how reconnecting to ancestral foods, land-based practices, and community food teachings can reduce chronic disease, strengthen identity, and repair the harm caused by commodity foods, displacement, and the loss of traditional food systems. By uplifting Native-led efforts in food sovereignty, nutrition, and cultural healing, we hope to illuminate yet another path toward balance, one rooted in the foods and teachings our ancestors left for us.
Our Returning to Balance page on our website details the different levels of sponsorship that are available and what they include. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please email Brittany Harlow at bharlow@verifiednews.network to set up an introductory meeting.
Our goal is to carry Native-focused solutions journalism reporting into 2026 and we hope you will support us in doing that.
With gratitude for all of our supporters,
The Crosswinds News Team
