Grants Dashboard

The Native Connections Alliance is a joint effort the between the Oklahoma Area Tribal Epidemiology Center (TEC) and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. This initiative brings epidemiological expertise and the determination of a Native community to bear on Native youth suicide. The two organizations will use a combination of evidence based prevention practices and strength based traditional approaches to reduce youth suicide. We request $200,000 per year for five years of grant funds through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Native Connections grant SM-17-005. Native youth and young adult suicide has reached epidemic proportions. The rate of Native youth and young adult suicide is rising and, in Oklahoma, is now at its highest point ever. Recent (2015) data from the Oklahoma Department of Health’s, Violent Death Reporting System shows that Native residents over age 10 committed suicide at the rate of 43 per 100,000 population, compared with the national average for all races of 13.3 per 100,000. The physical, psychological, social and spiritual toll upon Native tribes like the Cheyenne Arapaho is great. The Native Connections Alliance will bring intensive suicide prevention to a population of about 10,000 American Indians, living in non reservation settings, within the four county Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal Jurisdiction. The TEC brings administrative and subject matter expertise to assist the Tribe to successfully implement programs, policies, and practices that are a combination of the best clinical evidence based practices with traditional strength based approaches that resonate with Natives. The Native Connections Alliance will use school based programs such as Lifelines and Native American Life Skills combined with community based traditional healing practices including ceremonies, sweat lodge, and Native ways of knowing. In the first year, the project will complete a Cheyenne and Arapaho Suicide Prevention and Response plan. Intervention after the fact of a suicide (postvention), will be an essential part of the plan to bring aid and comfort to survivors and to reduce the possibility of additional suicide. The project will focus on building protective factors that have been shown to reduce suicide. Native Connections Alliance will measure the number of suicide attempts and completions as well as indicators of depression and substance abuse among Native youth in the target communities. The project will be evaluated by staff TEC epidemiologists and the professional evaluators of the ETEAM at the University of Oklahoma. Native Connections Alliance will serve a minimum of 800 youth and young adults per year in years 2-5 for a total of 3,200.

The Sacramento Native Connections Program will provide resources to the Sacramento Native American Health Center (SNAHC) to plan and implement culturally competent substance abuse prevention, suicide prevention, trauma reduction, and mental health promotion services for urban American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth, birth to 24, living in Sacramento County. SNAHC is plays a major role as a part of the “safety net” in the Sacramento area; it is a Federally Qualified Health Center and Indian Health Service clinic that provides primary medical, dental and behavioral health care services to the medically underserved residing in the County. The urban AI/AN population reflects the mental and physical health disparities documented nationally. High rates of suicide among AI/AN youth is the most profound and troubling indicator of community need for Sacramento’s urban AI/ANs. At 16.93%, the suicide rate for AI/ANs of all ages is much higher than the overall U.S. rate of 12.08%. Nationally AI/AN youth are the highest suicide risk of all age and race groups. A recent community survey identified suicide as the most serious issue of concern for the local AI/AN community. One hundred percent of families in SNAHC’s home visiting program have at least one family member who has experienced an Adverse Childhood Experience, a traumatic experience that puts individuals at high risk for substance abuse, suicide and other compounded impacts of trauma. Sacramento Native Connections Program will provide services to 200 people annually and 400 over the life of the project. It will use a Community Readiness Assessment to conduct planning activities to address these issues. SNAHC expects to provide interventions in Tiers 1-3, including: provision of direct prevention services through the Gathering of Native Americans, increase of suicide and substance use risk screening in the Home Visiting program, and development of collaborative partnerships to create a more effective response to suicide attempts and completions in the community. Sacramento Native Connections Program goals are to: 1) develop capacity to implement effective community-based culturally-competent substance abuse and suicide prevention programming; 2) create a Community Resource/Asset Map that addresses suicide prevention and substance abuse; 3) implement prevention strategies the result in increased wellness for AI/AN, including decreased impact of trauma, reduced suicide and suicidality, and reduced substance use; and 4) increase organizational and community capacity to respond to suicide. The Sacramento Native Connections Program will measure its success by assessing the degree to which the community feels their concerns are addressed, establishment of policies, protocols and inter-agency agreements, establishment of an effective data assessment system, increases in screening, assessment and referral for suicide, positive impact on cultural identity and community connection, reduction in substance use, increase in sense of hope, and increase in community partners that can effectively identify, refer and treat AI/AN.

Project Name: Finding Hope Population Served: Rural non-Reservation American Indian Youth age 12-24 The College of the Muscogee Nation, seeks to fashion a comprehensive and integrated suicide prevention, substance abuse prevention, trauma-informed, and mental health promotion system to detect, prevent, and provide early intervention services to rural non-reservation American Indian youth and emerging adult students who reside within the area of central Oklahoma served by the college. This system shall both expand and enhance the current program and shall provide the foundation for establishing a prevention prepared community, data-driven management, meaningful partnerships, and delivering and sustaining effective, efficient, and culturally appropriate services for American Indian youth age 12-24. The College of the Muscogee Nation’s Finding Hope project shall define the need for services, the gaps between needed and available services, barriers to care, and other problems related to the need to implement suicide and substance abuse prevention, trauma-informed care, and early intervention services for American Indian youth and emerging adult students at risk of or currently experiencing issues that may lead to suicide. The project shall engage communities, assess needs, identify organizations, improve coordination, implement evidence-based strategies, and serve students at risk for suicide within the tribal service area. Further, the college shall enlist Muscogee (Creek) Nation, area communities, tribal members, students, area youth-serving agencies, educational institutions, health facilities, and public schools in the planning, assessment, implementation, and evaluation phases of this project. The result will raise awareness, improve the continuity of care, and save lives. Goal 1: Reduce the prevalence suicide among the youth and young adult student and perspective student population (12-24) in the area of rural Oklahoma served by the College of the Muscogee Nation. Goal 2: Increase the capacity, effectiveness, and efficiency of suicide prevention services for American Indian youth and emerging adult students, age 12-24, who reside within the area served by the College of the Muscogee Nation. Goal 3: Actively promote systems level change at the organizational level to embrace suicide prevention as a core strategy.

The Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma in partnership with area schools and community events will work to lower substance abuse and suicide rates in American Indians/Alaska Natives between the ages of 12 and 24. Utilizing ""Zero Suicide"", one on one counseling services, and promoting community education to recognize the signs of substance abuse and/or suicide, and prevent and intervene in substance abuse and suicides and suicide ideation. The AST-Strength of Tradition Project will serve Native youth, ages 12 to 24. Both male and female will be served through this project. The project will include after school programs, community events, health fairs, and other events that include the age population. The program hopes to serve over 300 youth per year, for a minimum of 1,500 youth served through the life of the program. The goals and objectives of the program are to decrease the number of youth who are active substance abusers, decrease the number of participants experiencing suicidal thoughts, and improve the overall morale of the communities members that fit the criteria for this program.

Friendship House Native Connections Project Abstract The Friendship House Native Connections Project(FHNCP) provides direct suicide and substance abuse prevention services to American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth that mitigate trauma and promote mental wellness. FHNCP will engage a community-based process to assess strengths and needs, create protocols for suicide assessment, intervention, and postvention, and train staff and community in this area. Friendship House Association of American Indian (FH) serves AI/AN youth under 25 in the San Francisco Bay Area through 3 mechanisms: 1)a community-based prevention program that serves youth 10-25 that live in the local community; 2)a culturally-based residential substance abuse program that serves adults, including those 18-25; and 3)a specialized residential program that serves mothers with children 0-5. FHNCP will provide collaborative community planning processes and direct prevention services to 80 per year and 200 over the life of the grant. FHNCP’s goals are to: 1) Improve the capacity at FH to identify high risk youth engaged with existing programming; 2) Improve community capacity to offer cooperative and collaborative services for high risk youth up to age 24; and, 3) Improve the internal capacity of FH to contribute and assess surveillance and tracking data for mental health, substance use and suicide measures for youth in the community. FHNCP will conduct a community needs assessment to inform decision making and assist an Advisory Group to identify current unmet needs and gaps in service. FHNCP will train AI/AN youth-serving staff on culturally competent assessment of suicide risk, awareness and screening. FHNCP will engage a collaborative process with community service partners, traditional healers. An Advisory Group will develop suicide assessment, intervention, and postvention protocols and procedures for all youth under age 25 in FH, which are strengths-based, and guided by indigenous culture, knowledge and approaches. These protocols will include linkages to mental health support and intervening with individuals at high risk, coordinating care, and following up on connection and impact of services. In Years 2-5 FHNCP will provide youth culturally-based traditional health services from Traditional Healers. These services will include one-to-one and group healing practices, and cultural education and ancestral ceremonies, like the Sweat Lodge and The Wiping of Tears. FHNCP will be built on the values and experiences of American Indian people: love, tolerance, reciprocity, humility, and respect for all life. The focus of FH and FHNCP is to assist youth to develop a strong sense of place, the sacred, the beautiful, and of humanity, so that an individual may stand in the “center of life” and in good relation to all points and directions of the world circle.

Suicide and substance abuse has had a significant impact on the Fresno community as a whole, as well as the Native American community in and around Fresno. According to the California Department of Public Health, Fresno County’s average death rate from suicide was 9.2 per year from 2005 to 2007, with a total of 84 deaths (for all ages, races/ethnicities). For the three-year period spanning 2013 to 2015, Fresno County had 10 teen suicides. But there were eleven youth suicides in 2016 alone. In fact, one local high school had three student suicides in a three month period. In addition, one of the local area tribes have had two youth suicides in the past year, indicating the community may be experiencing suicide contagion. The Fresno American Indian Health Project (FAIHP) submits this proposal for the Fresno Native Connections Project (FNCP) Cooperative Agreement. FAIHP seeks five years, $200,000 a year, to serve 200 children and families, over the course of the project, using culturally based indicated interventions (tier 3) targeted to reach American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) transitional age adolescents and young adults ages 15-24 in Fresno County. In year one, FNCP will work with the GPO and the Tribal Training and Technical Assistance Center to develop a plan to support the agency’s work which will be completed and approved by the GPO and will establish the plan for years 2-5. FAIHP will collaborate with our community advisory board, and youth council to conduct a community systems analysis, community needs assessment, readiness assessment, and create a community resource asset map that specifically addresses substance abuse prevention and suicide prevention. The assessments will be conducted utilizing the SAMHSA Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF) model, to expand community comprehension of the specific needs of at-risk AIAN transitional age youth, and facilitate the development of a prevention strategy that appropriately engages community members and organizations, at-risk youth, and the project in meeting the needs of transitional age youth. The goals of the project include: • Goal #1: Prevent and reduce suicidal behavior among AI/AN youth. • Goal #2: Reduce the Impact of mental and substance use disorders on the Fresno AI/AN Community by fostering culturally responsive models to reduce and respond to the impact of trauma. • Goal #3: Support AI/AN youth and young adults transition to adulthood by facilitating collaboration among agencies.

ABSTRACT American Indian and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) that live in urban areas suffer from the highest health disparity rates of mental health issues, however this racial group only composes 1.7% of the total U.S. population. These same disparities affect the youth and young adults in those communities at an astounding rate. Urban AI/AN youth suffer higher rates of depression, which can be attributed to isolation from tribal lands and identity, lack of adequate mental health care, and poverty. They are also often geographically dispersed and disconnected from other urban AI/AN youth. Overcome with a high prevalence of alcoholism, and increased risk for mental health issues and suicide the need for better systems of care and improved community capacity to assist in recovery is high priority. The National Council of Urban Indian Health’s (NCUIH) Supporting Urban Native Youth (SUNY) proposes to build the capacity of urban communities to assist urban youth to live healthy lives through community support. The goal of this project is to develop a community-driven comprehensive urban youth suicide and substance abuse response plan for urban Indian communities to address the needs to provide prevention and recovery supports to AI/AN young people up to 24 years of age. Through the creation of a National Urban Youth and Young Adult Advisory Council for youth living in urban areas, NCUIH hopes to engage youth to become active in their communities as ‘gatekeepers’ to promote mental health among AI/AN young people living in urban areas. NCUIH will select youth champions from their urban community to spearhead this endeavor, and provide training on trauma, mental health best practices, and ways to open communication with friends. Through the assistance of a National Behavioral Health Advisory Council, made up of experts from the urban community, a social media campaign on awareness and prevention will be developed for a national release to the urban community. This ongoing relationship will lead to better equipped youth in urban settings to respond to community crisis. As the youth are helped to develop as leaders, the SUNY Project will also provide guidance to two Urban Indian Health Organizations (UIHOs) to assist in the facilitation of a community assessment and service assessment, in order to build the capacity of these two urban communities in order to reduce and respond to the impact of suicide and substance abuse in their communities. It is hoped that through this community-driven project to provide support for youth mental health, a more sustainable system of care will see reduced barriers to mental health screening and reduction in the number of Native youth suicides and suicidal ideations. Overall, the SUNY Project will proved better access to health care, improve health equity, and sustain services for AI/AN transitional youth.

The Comanche Nation “Native Spirit Project” would like to fill a service gap by forging a comprehensive family driven, community and youth guided services to reduce suicide and promote and expand the safety net of suicide prevention and intervention for urban and rural Native Americans. Native Spirit’s goal is to identify and connect the behavioral health service organizations that exist within our community; decrease the stigma of suicide, substance abuse prevention, address trauma and promote mental health. Native Spirit Project will improve and implement evidenced based approaches and strategies to reach the native community. By integrating suicide prevention into the values, culture and leadership the following will foster culturally responsive models to reduce the impact of target population of 10-24 years by: Native Spirit Project will: 1) Improve culturally appropriate behavioral health care to meet these goals and outcomes. 2) Extend an Outreach to develop collaborative relationships with community members (State and tribal), 3) increase the services of educational institutions (College and Public schools) and youth serving organizations to expand training to mental health, professionals, gatekeepers, community members and tribal affiliations. 4) Create a sustainability plan for the communities to ensure the ongoing mental health and well-being of our youth that would go beyond the grant cycle. The Native Spirit will utilize The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on various media projects. Also various media avenues and expressive arts will be used to reduce the stigma of suicide within the native community. Clinical service providers will be trained to manage, assess and treat native youth at risk for suicide. These four measurable outcomes will include: 1) Increased Outreach for suicide awareness and reduce suicide stigma 2) Expanding training and technical assistance to improve ability of local and tribal/community members and to provide training to professionals to identify, manage and treat youth at risk 3) and continue screening to increase identification of at-risk youth 4) Improved and expanded treatment measured by an increase of at-risk youth. To successfully meet these goals and outcomes.

The Pala Band of Mission Indians proposes to plan and design a comprehensive model to deliver improved mental health and substance abuse prevention services for tribal children and adolescents age 25 and under who have serious mental health needs. The length of the project will be 36 months and will serve approximately 1,260 tribal members. The program, entitled “Building Bridges to Promote Mental Health and Wellness for Pala Youth and Families” (“Pala Bridges”) will address the current fragmentation in the system of care on the Pala reservation. We will develop a comprehensive mental health service delivery model which draws on the principles, traditions and values of the Pala tribe. The model will be developed in collaboration with a cross-disciplinary team of other youth-serving tribal agencies including mental health, law enforcement, education and health care, in consultation with elected tribal leaders. We will bring together these and other agencies in a series of meetings to plan and design the model, supported by research, assessments and other activities. Cultural advisors from the tribe will play a critical role in the planning process, as well as youth and families themselves. At the conclusion of the planning grant Pala Social Services will deliver a culturally appropriate system of care model grounded in Pala’s rich cultural traditions, involving coordinated case management that improves the mental health, substance abuse prevention and wellness services for the tribe’s children and youth who have serious mental health challenges.

Population: It is proposed that the Strengthening Our Nets (SONs) project will take place among urban and rural Unangax̂ (Aleut) populations specifically targeting young men ages 12-24 years old. This project, however, will not exclude individuals interested in addressing the wellness of Unangax̂ communities. Furthermore, this project will rely on traditional wisdom bearers, including Elders and other adults who have mastered or are mastering a traditional and/or subsistence lifestyle. Therefore, in the rural settings this project has the potential to reach up to 100% of the population, if not directly, then indirectly through positive impacts within family networks. We propose to partner with rural communities: Atka, Nikolski, Unalaska, St. George, and Belkofski tribal members residing in King Cove; in addition to working with Unangax̂ individuals who have relocated to the urban hub community of Anchorage. Strategies/interventions: Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc. (APIA) is invested in the health and wellness of Unangax̂ communities. In the fall of 2014, APIA partnered with a wide variety of for-profit and not-for-profit industries including law enforcement, travel, health organizations, fishing, and economic development agencies to host a summit addressing substance abuse in the region. From that summit, a strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis was conducted specifically to assess services for individuals struggling with substance abuse disorders. Regional specific intervention and postvention needs were identified as areas of needed growth. Also, the stigma in the region related to behavioral health services was identified as a barrier to care. There are passionate, vocal community members APIA can rely on to provide feedback and guidance. Year One strategy is to focus on hearing the less vocal community members, namely young men. The goal is to capture their input on prevention, intervention, and post-vention services for their peer group. Rather than completing a typical community needs assessment, a skilled iqyax̂ (kayak) maker will travel to three of the four communities and present at the Urban Unangax̂ Culture Camp model iqyax̂ making “train the trainer” classes. During these week-long classes, targeted conversations will take place to inform the following four years of this project. Project goals and measurable objectives: The overall goal of this project is to reduce feelings of hopelessness and despair, which lead to substance abuse disorders and/or thoughts of suicide among young Unangax̂ men. In Year One, each model iqyax̂ making “train the trainer” class can have up to 10 participants. The goal of this class will be to transform the participants into future iqyax̂ instructors. Four classes will take place. The following years it is anticipated that up to 40 young men will be served by this project through services identified from the activity based inquiry sessions. This will be a total of 200 individuals with direct services. This does not include indirect figures, which in small communities reaching one person has exponential impacts.

Abstract Keep the Fire Alive For over a quarter of a century the Indigenous Peoples Task Force (IPTF), an urban non-profit Native organization, has been vital to providing access to traditional and western health services. Our programs are aimed at improving the quality of life for our clients, families, and partner tribal communities. The efforts proposed in this Native Connection project will go far in building the needed support to serve Native youth and young adults through the age of 24 who are living in the IPTF service area. The project will directly serve/educate/train approximately 500 youth per year or a total of 2,000 youth. IPTF proposes to launch Keep the Fire Alive, a Native Connections project aimed at developing strategies built on the voices of the youth and families in the community to: 1) reduce the impact of mental and substance use disorders; 2) establish a swift and culturally based response to any suicide intent; and 3) increase the inclusion of Native data in state suicide surveillance reports, which will then increase the potential for funding for Native programs; and 4) increase the efficacy of the local surveillance of suicide, suicide attempts, and mental health challenges. IPTF provides culturally grounded programs addressing women’s health, tobacco cessation, teen pregnancy, and childhood diabetes, as well as culturally appropriate programs to prevent further transmission of HIV - programs that include both education and direct services. IPTF weaves theater, experiential learning and traditional knowledge, and arts and crafts into its work, especially in programs designed for Indigenous youth. The service area defined for this project is the metropolitan area that encompasses a fourteen-county area of Minnesota, and includes the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Mille Lac Band of Ojibwe and the White Earth Nation. Year one will consist of a planning period in which we intend to build new relationships and enhance current partnerships, establish and improve local surveillance, determine what services are most needed, identify the gaps between existing services, identify the barriers youth have to accessing care, and examine other issues surrounding the implementation of an effective and receptive system wide response to suicide attempts. Years two through five strategies will rely on the information gathered in year one to implement a Strategic Action Plan that is consistent with the scores obtained through year one’s Community Readiness assessment. Keep the Fire Alive will also be grounded in the concepts of Readiness. Mikwanedun Audisookon means ""remember our teachings"" in Ojibwe. IPTF bases its programs in Native values and traditional ways of knowing. We are committed to the wellness of our youth and our community and follow the directive to “strengthen the health and education of Native people”. Caring and teaching are woven throughout all of our projects as we build the project for our youth, their families, the providers and the community. The earth has a fire within and like the fire, we each have a fire within too. We need to fan those flames to keep our fire burning.

Suicide is an issue in that haunts the Wabanaki people. Coming from the belief that the youth are our future; these losses undermine the community’s sense of hope and exacerbates chronic anxiety and despair. Much like circles in a pond, the traumatic effects are seen at multiple levels. Our vision for the Native Connections grant program is to increase the capacity of youth and young adult (up to age 24)-serving agencies to provide a holistic approach to suicide prevention. This will be accomplished by increasing community knowledge and support, providing culturally and linguistically appropriate substance abuse, mental health, and suicide prevention services, and empowering youth through engagement in cultural activities and leadership opportunity. Wabanaki Health and Wellness will engage community-level public and private non-profit entities, tribes and tribal organizations collaboratively to prevent and reduce the onset of substance abuse and mental health issues among Tribal youth up to age 24.

The name of our project is, Santa Clara Pueblo Behavioral Health Connections. We are applying for Tier 2, Selective Prevention Strategies for addressing the needs of at-risk young tribal members up to 24 years old. Our rationale for prioritizing this tier in our community is based on the fact that we do not know additional specific mental health issues that exist in our community. In order for our Pueblo to effectively respond to an overall mental health promotion approach as well substance and misuse among the community, we need additional data. We believe that the Tier 2 requirements will allow us to target a prevention strategy with specific target population, especially since we do have data from 2012 that can strongly support our request to SAMHSA. We also believe that an assessment and SAMHSA technical support can assist us in developing, administering, and analyzing data we receive from a community assessment. The outcome of a community assessment will also allow us to identify additional mental health issues and needed resources from community, that we otherwise do not know at this time due limited data collection and newly established collaborations. We have identified 4 goals of our project, and they are the following: • Goal 1: Establish Santa Clara Pueblo services and support for youth and young adults to reduce the impact of mental health, substance abuse, and prevent suicide. Objective 1: To identify current services and support that exist and serve Santa Clara Pueblo members who are identified as youth and young adults. Objective 2: Create a community resource guide that identifies metal health services, substance abuse, and suicide prevention for youth and young adults. • Goal 2: Create a community driven array of services to support at-risk youth and young adults and their families. Objective 1: Develop a service map that identifies where services exist within our community. Objective 2: Develop a tribal action plan. • Goal 3: Establish a community assessment process that can be used as a foundation to develop and/or enhance services. Objective 1: Develop and administer a community assessment to be used in our community. Objective 2: Analyze community assessment feedback. Objective 3: Develop a report for tribal council and community members that reflect assessment results. • Goal 4: Establish a youth and young adult wrap-around service delivery system that includes community stakeholder input and community service collaboration. Objective 1: Create an advisory team based on commitment letters and stakeholders to ensure continuity of team function. Objective 2: Develop wrap-around services focused on youth and young adults for our community that includes Pueblo resources for mind, body, and spirit wellness. Objective 3: Develop brochures that educate community members about our service to ensure appropriate amounts of outreach. The Pueblo believes that in order to create a path of wellness and resiliency for our youth – we must find ways to not only support our youth, but establish grounded learning through culture and tradition. Despite our historical trauma, we believe that it is our responsibility to preserve our culture and tradition by taking control of all of our programs and services to ensure that we not only prevent illnesses that impact a healthy person but also intervene in the early stages of growing trends in mental health, including the factors and indicators related to suicide. Our Pueblo community population is approximately 2,500 tribal community members, but that does not mean that we do not experience mental health and suicidal behaviors at any less than a larger community, per capita. Our goal would include to serve 200 community members per year during the 5 year project.