Becky Mettao leads a group discussion at a workshop that concluded on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025.
AT a community mental health workshop held on Thursday, Aug. 7 at LaoLao Bay Resort, the Community Guidance Center offered its Pacific Way to Wellness curriculum to 10 residents of Saipan.
The goal of the workshop was to deepen participants’ understanding of Pacific Islander cultural beliefs and their “impact on mental health and wellness.”
The agenda included small- and large-group sharing activities covering various mental health topics such as “unraveling mental health and wellness tales in the Pacific,” recognizing mental health signs in the community, compassionate communication, embracing cultural wellness, and more.
Becky Mettao, a program manager for the CGC, conducted the training alongside Evelyn Pangelinan.
Mettao explained that the workshop follows a curriculum training method developed last year by the Pacific Behavioral Health Collaborating Council, which includes mental health advocates from American Samoa, Guam, the CNMI, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. The council created the curriculum and training method for dissemination across member communities.
She emphasized that the workshop was designed “for Pacific Islanders, by Pacific Islanders” to connect mental health care with local cultural values. This session marked the final phase of the curriculum’s “pilot stage.” CGC will submit feedback from the workshop to the Pacific Behavioral Health Collaborating Council at its upcoming meeting later this year. Other member countries have also been using the pilot curriculum in their communities, and the council will review results from across the Pacific.
“We decided to take a different approach and really make it worthwhile and meaningful to our people by involving them in developing the curriculum,” she said. “Because of the diversity of our community, it’s important that we’re at the table when discussing things that relate to us.”
Mettao added that after the next council meeting, CGC plans to use the curriculum in more workshops throughout the CNMI to promote cultural and mental wellness.
“We want people to understand that culture is a very strong factor when it comes to mental health,” she said. “It alone can foster so much wellness. It’s about marrying culture and mental health — and reminding people that it’s not as technical as it sometimes seems when it comes to taking care of our mental health. It boils down to the basic values we learned growing up in our communities and reflects how our culture is embedded within them.”
To that end, care has been taken to avoid mental health jargon, making the training more approachable for average residents.