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Our mission is to provide community-driven, culturally centered public health and social services to all Wabanaki communities and people while honoring Wabanaki cultural knowledge, cultivating innovation, and fostering collaboration.
Our organization was established in 1996 as the Wabanaki Mental Health Association, to respond to unmet mental health needs in the Native community and provide mental health case management, medication assisted treatment, and peer run recovery services. The organization became Wabanaki Health Wellness in 2007.
The formation of the Tribal Public Health Unit in 2008 was a direct result of the four federally recognized Tribes in Maine coming together in partnership with the Maine CDC. This became The Wabanaki Public Health District, established in statute in June 2011, to provide public health services including nutrition education, environmental health programs, youth engagement, infectious disease, and cultural and language resources to Wabanaki community members.
In 2020, Wabanaki Public Health & Wellness was formed as a merger between Wabanaki Health and Wellness and Wabanaki Public Health to better support the overall healing and wellness of the Tribal communities. That same year, Wabanaki Healing & Recovery services were added that centers culture, ceremony, language, and traditions at the heart of the recovery journey. Physical locations for Healing & Recovery services began opening in November 2021.
