AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH SUICIDE “Things go wrong that they can’t change. They don’t get shown the love they need. They say, ‘You don’t love me when I was here. Now you love me when I’m not here’ (Mangas, 2010).” Coloradas Mangas, a resident of the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, answers why he thinks suicide is so common with his peers. A then 15 year old Mangas chillingly recalled his recent encounter with a friend’s close attempt and the aftermath of his friends suicides, all occurring within the timespan of a few weeks. In light of the events and alarmingly high suicide rate of American Indian and Alaskan Native youth, he addressed his community’s desperation for help before a lawmaking panel at a US Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing. Coloradas Mangas is one among many American Indians that have personally been a victim of suicide attempt as well as a victim of grief for many of his friends and family. Coloradas’ story is a consequence of the lack of culturally appropriate and adequate mental health services for American Indian and Alaskan Native youth. Serious consequences resulting from the absence of such services are the high suicide rate, its impact on future generations of an already less populated ethnicity and the unfairness of having no resources to improve quality of life, thus proving that this is a pertinent problem that must be tackled now. This health disparity has been neglected for too long and is something that we, as a healthcare advocating country, need to start addressing. The advocation for more effective and adequate mental health services for American Indian youth should be prioritized in terms of allocating resources for a number of reasons. The first reason is the consequen... ... middle of paper ... ... 2010. Wexler, L. Inupiat youth suicide and culture loss: Changing community conversations for prevention, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 63, Issue 11, December 2006, Pages 2938-2948, ISSN 0277-9536, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.07.022. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953606003868. Wissow, L.S., Walkup, J., Barlow, A., Reid, R., Kane, S. (2001, November). Cluster and regional influences on suicide in a Southwestern American Indian tribe, Social Science & Medicine, 53(9), 1115-1124, ISSN 0277-9536, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0277-9536(00)00405-6. Woodard, S. (2012). Suicide is epidemic for American Indian youth: What more can be done? Retrieved October 20, 2013, from http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/10/14340090-suicide-is-epidemic-for-american-indian-youth-what-more-can-be-done.
The history of Indian Child Welfare Act derived from the need to address the problems with the removal of Indian children from their communities. Native American tribes identified the problem of Native American children being raised by non-native families when there were alarming numbers of children being removed from their h...
The main argument in this article is that there needs to be more ways to help people that are suicidal. The main point of this article is that they want to people to be more aware of how to help someone, and it is also full of information. The topics that are covered in the article are the issues at hand, the background with suicide in teens, and the next step that society needs to take. This article is about helping people that are suicidal and how to help them and let us know the next step that we need to take.
American Indians have had health disparities as result of unmet needs and historical traumatic experiences that have lasted over 500 hundred years.1(p99) Since first contact American Indians have been exposed to infectious disease and death2(p19), more importantly, a legacy of genocide, legislated forcible removal, reservation, termination, allotment, and assimilation3. This catastrophic history had led to generational historical traumas and contributes to the worst health in the United States.2 American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) represent 0.9 percent of the United States population4(p3) or 1.9 million AI/AN of 566 federally recognized tribes/nations.5 American Indians/Alaska Natives have significantly higher mortality rates of intentional and unintentional injuries, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease and chronic lower respiratory disease than other American.6
Historical trauma has brought psychological effects on the Native American community. Many suffer from alcohol and drug abuse, depression, and poverty. I wondered why they do not get help from the government and after watching the documentary California’s “Lost” Tribes I began to understand that in any reservation the tribe is the government, so they do not have the same rights as a city outside the reservation. Many of the the reservations were placed in areas where they could not do any form of agriculture, so they did not have a source of income. Many of this reservations have to find ways to get themselves out of poverty and many of the reservations within California have found a way to get out of their poverty by creating casinos
The United States educational system faces a major challenge in addressing the disenfranchisement of youth due to poverty and racism in the schools. The U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 found that “currently about one-quarter of Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are living in poverty in the U.S. compared to less than 10% of Asian Americans or Whites.” (Hughes et al. 2010, p. 2) Hughes, Newkirk & Stenhjem (2010) identified the stressors children living in poverty faced caused young adolescents to suffer mental and physical health issues which resulted in anxiety, hypertension, fear and depression. Lack of health care, neighborhood crime levels, joblessness, prejudice, and inadequate housing are among the many reasons multi-cultural youth from high poverty backgrounds become disenfranchised from the American school system. Race, racism, and poverty combine to create a triple jeopardy which severely impacts the fulfillment of the need of young adolescents to experience a sense of belonging and cultural competence. Lack of supportive environments both in school, society, work, and family life often prevent students from developing the cultural competence minority students must develop in order to become fully successful. For the purposes of this essay key issues were identified regarding the disenfranchisement of Native American youth, such as systemic prejudice and cultural bias within the school system which resulted in loss of connectedness of Navajo youth to school, teachers, and family. Galliher, Jones, & Dahl (2010) identified cultural connectedness as being the key component necessary in order to reengage the Native American student within the educational environment.
Spector, R. E. (2009). Health and illness in the American Indian and Alaska native population. Cultural Diversity in Health and Illness (7th ed.). (pp. 204-228). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
American Sociological Review, 3, 672-682. "Native American Youth 101." Aspen Institue. Aspen Institues, 24 July 11. Web.
Depression is the most common mental illness and the reason why many people commit suicide. It is commonly found when people fail to cope effectively with stress or experience painful, disturbing or traumatic events that overwhelm them. Suicide has become one of the main cause of death for young adults in Canada, leaving only tragic incidents behind; around 4000 Canadians die every year by committing suicide (“Canadian Mental Health Association”). America, by E.R. Frank, is about a young child, who goes through a lot of emotional and physical pain due to the people around him. When he is older, America hesitates to tell anyone about the traumatic events that he had gone through. America’s emotional state is damaged by his mother, Browning, and the whole system. In general, these people caused America to suffer emotionally and mentally. They did not take good care of America, forced him to think
Guerin, B. & Guerin, P. 2012, 'Re-thinking mental health for indigenous Australian communities: communities as context for mental health', Community Development Journal, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 555-70.
The history of Indian Child Welfare Act derived from the need to address the problems with the removal of Indian children from their communities. Native American tribes identified the problem of Native American children being raised by non-native families when there were alarming numbers of children being removed from their h...
Psychological distress, acculturation, and help-seeking attitudes were all measured using specific indexes and scales set for the point of interest. The hypotheses of this research was that even within the African American community, one would find disparities in the treatment of psychological issues – just based on the method of acculturation used, and their views on society. There are 4 basic modes of acculturation: traditionalist, assimilationist, integrationist, and marginalist. It is thought that the integrationist acculturation strategy is the best for optimizing and maximizing well-being. Although there is not a difference in the number of African Americans that have mental health problems when compared to European-Americans, the percentage of those who seek professional mental health services due to emotional distress is representatively lower. The rate at which African Americans receive psychological help services is half as much as that of European Americans – there is a need for an explanation of that statistic. The goal of this paper is to determine the reasoning behind the help-seeking disparities in African Americans and the field of psychological health. In order to make health services fair, we must first understand the reasoning behind why or why not one would seek out professional help in the first place. Understanding ethno cultural attitudes and other cultural variables will allow the health care field to better relate and help all people more uniformly and to the best of their needs.
Historically, health sector is an important social service sector in Canada and it is publicly funded. However, studies shows that the standard of utilization of health system especially community mental health services are varied in each province (Tiwari, & JianLi, 2008). There are many factors associated with the use of community mental health system among various ethnic immigrant groups. In Canada, non-European immigrants tend to under utilize the community mental health services due to various factors (Whitley, Kirmayer, & Groleau, 2006) From my experience as a community development worker in India, I encountered numerous challenges to link people those who are facing mental health issues to the health service system. This paper explains my experiences as an outreach health support worker in the context of Canadian and Indian social work; also I intend to articulate the acquisition of my new learning about Canadian social work practice. I argue that socio-cultural, economical and geographical factors are influencing the use of community mental health services (Whitley et al., 2006). An anti-oppressive social work practice can influence perception of the people about community mental health services in Canada (Larson, 2008). This research paper illustrates
Olson, Jeremy. "Teen Suicide Is Not on the Rise." Mental Illness. Ed. Roman Espejo. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "No Surge in Teen Suicides, but Many Myths." StarTribune.com. 2010. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 7 Nov. 2013.
My specific task for the practicum was to develop a mental health component for Project RICE. I carried out my assignments under the supervision of a faculty member; Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith is a Professor of Applied Psychology. Dr. Smith conducts research on the impact of immigration, community contexts, individual differences, and racial minority status on the mental health of individuals and families.
Dokoupil, Tony. A. The "Suicide Epidemic" Newsweek Global 161.19 (2013): 1 Business Source Premier. EBSCO. Web.