Introduction To develop scientifically-informed, community-led prevention and intervention activities within diverse and culturally-distinct communities, our project focuses on training community health workers to build local communities of practice through PC CARES, a model that has worked successfully in Alaska. The proposed work builds upon our states Community Caf planning discussions, where citizens from nine communities identified a need for peer support, harm reduction, linkages to care, and recovery support as important factors to address the unacceptably high rates of morbidity and mortality associated with self-harm and polysubstance use. Responding to these community-identified needs and extending the reach and sustainment potential of initiatives in low-resourced Alaskan settings, this proposal seeks a partnership with PC CARES: Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide. PC CARES was developed by and for Alaskan communities. The model aims to develop local Communities of Practice (CoP) to tackle the overlapping issues that contribute to the morbidity and mortality associated with overdoses, intentional self-harm and polysubstance use. Rooted in social learning theory, a CoP is a group of people that cultivate three inter-related elements: shared interest, common community, and practice. Often, people within a CoP represent different perspectives and areas of expertise, and therefore learn about and address complex issues from multiple angles. CoP can strengthen community helping networks by building bridges among family, community and institutional resources, so that connections and care more easily occur before a crisiswhen more can be done to promote health and resilience, reduce harm, and support recovery. In Alaska, particularly in rural areas where the service infrastructure is limited, CoP is a sustainable way to translate research into practice. Through a Community of Practice, institutional helpers can connect with the families they serve and get feedback for practicing cultural humility and local responsiveness. Additionally, peer support workers from multiple sectors of the community (tribal health, law enforcement, injury prevention, public health, religious institutions, schools and universities, municipal, tribal and city governments, etc.) can each contribute and can work synergistically to prevent these harms, reduce risk, connect and integrate people into care. Community-level systems are essential to address the multilevel complex contributing factors related to at-risk substance use morbidity and mortality and suicide. Used successfully in remote and rural Alaska, PC CARES provides curriculum, materials, training and support to host a series of learning circles (LCs) within a community in order to translate scientific research to culturally-tailored, community practice. LCs bring key stakeholders together from different sectors of a community to participate in a process designed to develop a local community of practice, which can develop culturally-tailored and locally-relevant strategies to improve health, proactively. PC CARES LCs invite participants to interpret and discuss evidence-based information related to best practices to effectively reduce risk of morbidity and mortality associated with overdoses and other self-harm. Each Learning Circle reviews different best practices and real-time information (‘What does the research show?’) to better understand risk factors, geographic ‘hot spots’, learn best practices to prevent escalation of substance use and reduce substance-related harms to self and others, reduce harm/risk if someone is experiencing addiction, and promote help seeking and peer support for recovery and wellness. Strategies and information are reviewed and discussed within the context of the participants lived experience (‘What do we think?’) and LCs provide important discussion time to explore how they might integrate strategies (‘What do we