Post by DawnDay on Jan 12, 2011 23:44:55 GMT -5
Leaders at Crow Creek attempt to stem rash of suicides
FORT THOMPSON — The Crow Creek tribal chairman is seeking assistance from outside agencies to stem a recent rise in suicides and attempted suicides on his central South Dakota reservation, and a suicide task force has been created as a result.
By: Melanie Brandert, The Daily Republic
FORT THOMPSON — The Crow Creek tribal chairman is seeking assistance from outside agencies to stem a recent rise in suicides and attempted suicides on his central South Dakota reservation, and a suicide task force has been created as a result.
Two young mothers died the week of Christmas and three youths and one man tried to kill themselves, according to Chairman Duane Big Eagle, 61. The two young mothers’ obituaries were both published in December in The Daily Republic. One was 19, and the other was 26.
“We want to keep our parents alert and healthy to take care of their kids and have something to live for,” Big Eagle said.
The reservation has a history of high rates of suicide and suicide attempts. From 2000 to 2003, 282 youths tried to kill themselves. In just six months in 2004, the number was 77. Of all those attempts, 12 died, according to Indian Health Service data. But Tolly Estes, an IHS community health representative, estimated in 2008 that real suicide attempt numbers were much higher than IHS data indicated.
The tribe, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Crow Creek Circles of Care organization are working with Indian Health Services’ suicide prevention team, looking for ways to approach the issue, Big Eagle said.
Estes has called poverty one of the leading factors in the suicides. About 38 percent of the people in Buffalo County, which contains most of the Crow Creek Reservation, are below the poverty line. The statewide average poverty rate is about 13 percent.
Eugene Koster, Circles of Care community coordinator, said suicides had decreased and no suicide deaths had occurred on the reservation until recently.
Big Eagle didn’t know if the mothers’ deaths were alcohol or drug related.
“There had to be something involved for a person to do something like that,” he said.
The community also has been affected by the Dec. 13 suicide of a Crow Creek High School graduate who was living in Fort Yates, N.D., and the Aug. 22 suicide of a 20-year-old man on the reservation, Koster said.
“We are trying to do everything we can right now internally,” Koster said. “We know it has to be the community effort to change it. … We just have to sit down and work together.
“I knew these people. It hurts.”
The fact that kids don’t have teachers in which to confide during holiday breaks is part of the reason that Circles of Care opens its Safe House. It offers a safe place for youth from November to Jan. 1.
“It’s bad times (with) the holidays here on the reservation,” Koster said. “You get more calls from Thanksgiving to New Years. There’s more calls here than any other time, and it’s just sad.”
The Rev. Doug Todd, who just started his third year as pastor of the Baptist church in Fort Thompson, works as an emergency medical technician for Crow Creek Ambulance and provides chaplain services for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the ambulance. He learned of the incidents while serving as an EMT.
“My heart is broken for the people and the families they leave behind,” Todd said via e-mail, adding the family’s pain overwhelms him. “I can’t believe it’s happening. … I just want to go home and give my children a hug and kiss my wife.”
Todd cited a couple of factors for the incidents: The holiday season seems to accentuate the problems in a person’s life, and some tribal members suffer from a lack of connection with spiritual and cultural traditions.
Danelle Rose, a Pierre psychologist, asked Todd to conduct a community meeting last week at his church, and he said he thought it was a good way for residents to come and discuss their emotions. While Todd declined to disclose what was discussed at the meeting, he said he is concerned about suicide and attempted suicides because he believes that some people will consider that a viable option to the problems in their lives.
A suicide task force made up of community agencies, churches and tribal departments began meeting recently to facilitate communication among the groups and pull in resources to better serve people, Todd said. It was created as a result of the initial meeting of tribal officials, BIA, IHS, Circles of Care and churches, he said.
While none of Todd’s members have attempted or completed suicide, the congregation is trying to reach out to friends and relatives to provide a support system for them, he said.
Circles of Care has some programs aimed at suicide prevention. Peer Helping Peers is a summer program started in 2004 in which youths receive training to prevent their family and friends from committing suicide. The Natural Helpers Project, which runs 16 weeks during the school year, is aimed at teaching youth participants ages 12 to 18 effective ways to help their friends, positive ways to take care of themselves and ways to contribute to a safe and supportive school environment.
The Youth Suicide Prevention Program, which is funded by a different grant, helps promote suicide awareness in the community and effective prevention and intervention system strategies.
Koster plans to teach another Question, Persuade and Refer class — a method of suicide prevention — with Natural Helpers participants. The idea of conducting more cultural activities has been suggested, he said.
But Big Eagle also seeks the help of organizations that can promote suicide prevention.
“The only way we can do it is to try to head it off,” he said. “There’s a lot of professional agencies that can help and don’t know what’s going on in our area.”
U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., is on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and has supported efforts to increase federal funding for suicide prevention efforts. One of the major initiatives was his co-sponsorship of the $82 million Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, which established programs under a three-year grant in 2004. He has voted to fund those programs annually.
An effort to double funding from $3 million to $6 million for American Indian suicide prevention efforts from fiscal years 2010 to 2011 and two of Johnson’s earmarks for the reservation in the 2011 federal spending bill were quashed.
Those failed earmarks included $150,000 for the Three Districts Boys and Girls Club on the Crow Creek Reservation and $300,000 to build a new community center for low-income tribal members in Fort Thompson, according to Johnson’s spokeswoman, Julianne Fisher.
Johnson said this week he is ready to assist the tribe in any efforts to reverse the trend.
“My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by these tragedies,” he said via e-mail.
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