Hello, my name is Doreen Bird, I’m from
Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico and today
I want to talk to you about suicide prevention
in Native American communities.
I do tend to use the term “tribal communities”
a lot, but I’m talking about Native American
communities, American Indian communities,
rural and urban populations.
So, one of the challenges we have in suicide
prevention is that our Native American youth
have some of the highest suicide rates in
the country, and although that is a generalization
that’s made, I think it’s really important
to note that tribal communities are really
unique and genuinely different amongst each
other so it’s important to not generalize
and say all Native American communities have
high suicide rates.
Some of our tribes have very low suicide rates
and some have zero.
Some of the challenges that we’re facing
in doing our work in suicide prevention is
that some communities consider it taboo to
talk about suicide or to even say the word
suicide.
And so it’s important to gauge how ready
is your population to tackle this subject.
There are generational differences in communities
as well, I’ve seen where elders have a harder
time saying suicide and talking about death,
where the youth are just ready to talk about
it, it’s no sugar-coating with them.
Another challenge that I’m seeing when doing
the work in suicide prevention with Native
American communities, is cultural competency.
There are so many unique tribes in our nation,
you can’t be culturally competent with each
tribal community.
And so, it’s important to note that you
don’t know everything, and it’s also important
to build off the human aspect, we’re all
humans, and so when doing work with Native
American communities that you may not know
everything about, I like to go back to being
human and being genuine.
When we have people coming, new to our community,
we often like to share a meal, and I say,
break bread with the people that you’re
working with, that’s a very important and
easy way to build authentic relationships
with the communities that you’re working
with.
Another one of the challenges that we’re
facing is using evidence-based practices in
our communities.
Often times that evidence was based on a population
that didn’t include Native Americans, so
when we try to bring those evidence-based
practices into our communities, often times
there’s a clash of values that occur.
There’s a term called “Practice-based
evidence” that’s kind of on the flip side.
When you’re facing a clash of values, you
need to go to the people that you’re working
with and include them in your program development,
because ultimately they know what works in
their community and you can build off of the
strengths that they have.
One of the recommendations that I’d like
to share is changing the paradigm of the way
we talk about Native American communities.
Often times we hear of all the risk factors,
all the negative health problems that we have,
and I think it’s time to change that paradigm
and start talking about what are the strengths
in our communities, what’s protective, what’s
made us so resilient that we’re still here
today, given all the trauma that some of our
ancestors have faced.
Yet we’re here still and we’re proud and
we’d like to move forward in a positive
way.
When I heard the surgeon general said that
connectedness is a protective factor in suicide
prevention, I was really excited because I
think, wow that is something that Native Americans
are really used to, and that’s something
we can build off of.
We’re connected to our culture, Native Americans
are connected to the land that we come from,
we’re connected to each other in a way that
it’s really hard to explain, it just comes
through our being that we have this connection
as native people no matter where you are in
the world.
And so, when you’re doing your work of suicide
prevention in Native American communities,
consider the term “connectedness” and
see how you can use that to inform your program.
Working with tribal populations on suicide
prevention, it’s really important to bring
in the community members with the work that
you’re doing.
This empowers the community and it ultimately
makes your program, your services, your engagement
with the community a whole lot better in reducing
suicides.
