Slade Martin spent the majority of his adolescence in the Alaska foster care system.  During this time, he experienced homelessness, diagnoses, medications, therapy, multiple placements, and more.  Throughout his experiences as a foster child and afterwards, he saw the dire need for change in the system.  He does not want others to go through the same situations he experienced.  

In response, he joined a youth based advocacy group, Facing Foster Care in Alaska.  This group's mission is to improve the foster care system by sharing experiences and fighting for what is in the best interest of youth in care.  During the past four years in Facing Foster Care In Alaska, Martin has accomplished much to help improve lives of foster youth, and public awareness: the Foster Wear and Mentoring Spirits programs; educating foster parents, social workers, community members, speaking at conferences and workshops, national advocacy, getting bills passed, and advocating for youth on a personal level.  

Martin is currently a student at Alaska Job Corps in the vocation of Human Services.  His passion and enthusiasm is to have a career with FFCA.  He says, "The best thing I got out of foster care is a sense of reality and career." 

Dr. Charles supervises the administrative functions of the Native Resource Center and implements the recommendations from the Joint Advisory Committee. Dr. Charles is research faculty with the University of Alaska Anchorage in the College of Health and Social Welfare. He is a Yup'ik originally from Nelson Island, Alaska and has bilingual fluency in Yup'ik Eskimo and English. He was previously an assistant professor in the Rural Development Program and the Alaska Native Studies Department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Yupiaq was his first language and he credits this for giving him cultural perspectives beyond measure and expanding his cross-cultural awareness. Dr. Charles has written extensively on Yupiaq and Native Alaskan languages, religious studies and healing traditions. Some of his publications include: The Seen and the Unseen: Ritual Transformation through Yupiaq Song, Dance, Mask and Ceremony; Angalkugyaraq (The Way of the Angalkuq); and The Inner Language of Ritual. He has been a presenter at several conferences; including, Shamanhood: An Endangered Language Conference at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo. His Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara was in Religious Studies with emphasis in Native American Religious Traditions.

Larry Fricks is internationally known for his work designing the first Medicaid-billable certified peer specialists program in the U.S. during his nearly 13 years as director of Georgia’s Office of Consumer Relations and Recovery in the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Addictive Diseases. 

Larry currently serves as the Director of the Appalachian Consulting Group and Vice President of Peer Services for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. He is a founder of the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network that now has some 3,000 members, a founder of the Georgia Consumer Council, a founder of Georgia’s Peer Specialist Training and Certification and a founder of the Georgia Peer Support Institute. He served on the Planning Board for the Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Mental Health America and on the Advisory Board for The Carter Center Mental Health Journalism Fellowships.

Larry has a journalism degree from the University of Georgia and has won journalism awards from the Associated Press, the Georgia Press Association and Gannett Newspapers. He is the 1995 recipient of the Clifford W. Beers Award given annually by Mental Health America and the 2001 recipient of the American Association for World Health Award for significant contributions to improving community mental health. In 2004 he received the Recovery Award from International Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services and in 2008 the Lifetime Achievement Voice Award from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for the development and adoption of multiple innovative, recovery-oriented programs and services.

Larry’s recovery story and life’s work to support the recovery of others was published by HarperCollins in the New York Time’s best-selling book Strong at the Broken Places by Richard M. Cohen and was featured on the Today Show in 2008.