Recovery, behavioral health solutions discussed at North Star Connect Symposium

ANACORTES - The North Star initiative held its second North Star Connect Symposium on Thursday with the intent of collaborating on behavioral health and homelessness solutions.

The North Star initiative is a coalition of county and city representatives, community leaders and organizations that works to address homelessness and behavioral health issues in Skagit County.

About 250 participants got together at the Swinomish Casino and Lodge to learn about and discuss behavioral health.

This year's conference focused on the topic of recovery.

The symposium included keynote speakers Dr. Ijeoma Achara-Abrahams and Amy Pierce, who spoke about thinking about recovery-oriented systems of care, focusing on the community being aware of how recovery works and how to support people.

Keynote speaker Christopher Poulos spoke about his experience with substance use disorder, homelessness, his journey to sobriety, and his incarceration in federal prison.

"In this case, I was like, 'How come I'm going home and these folks next to me are not?' And that became my life's work," said Poulos.

Poulos spent the intervening years becoming a lawyer, then working in public service.

He now works as executive director of the Center for Justice and Human Dignity.

"I like to say that successful reentry occurs when internal healing and growth is met with external opportunity," said Poulos. "It's really that simple."

Attendees participated in breakout sessions on community-based systems of care, the data of the housing crisis, the role of court diversion programs, the North Star initiative itself, and other topics.

Skagit County District Court Judge Jenifer Howson was part of a session on the county's community court program.

"We knew the old system was definitely not working," said Howson.

Under the program, a judge talks on on one with participants with largely nonviolent charges, to understand how and why they're there, and to provide social services. It's been very successful, said Howson, who led the program.

In 2025, 70% of those who were at risk of recidivism did not face new charges within a year of their release.

The symposium's funding, about $25,000 worth, comes from the county's behavioral sales tax fund.

Skagit County Commissioner Joe Burns, who delivered the symposium's closing remarks, told the Skagit Valley Herald that he sees the event as necessary to create community engagement and revitalize attention about the work needed to solve behavioral health and homelessness issues, and to highlight solutions that have been found to work.

"I learned something new," Burns said of one of the keynote speeches.

North Star initiative staff also announced that it is "soft launching" the North Star Collective. Organizations, businesses, residents and other partners can join the collective to be part of "collaborative network" to respond to homelessness.

Those interested can apply to the collective, with the commitment of attending one North Star event a year and sharing nonproprietary data and information.

The soft launch is intended to gauge interest in the collective, said staff.

Several community members had reached out to help, but the initiative didn't previously have a mechanism to engage people not in the public-private North Star initiative.

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