Abstract

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"How Do Indigenous Peoples Do Indigenous Community Mental Health?" An American Indian Alaska Native Cultural, Socio-Political Participatory Perspective."

-Nancy "Lynn" Palmanteer-Holder

Indigenous peoples worldwide shoulder a disproportionate share of mental health concerns and problems. After generations of displacement, forced assimilation, intergenerational trauma, poverty and neglect, many American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities are struggling with the traumatic aftermath of these events, particularly with respect to poor mental health-related outcomes such as high rates of substance use, violence, and suicide. For example, according to the Indian Health Service (IHS), the suicide rate for Indian youth and young adults 15-24 years old is three times higher than the national average for this age group. According to the 2006 National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), culturally-grounded mental health services and policies are needed to improve social and psychological conditions of Native communities. Towards this end, AIAN communities have been developing tribal mental health programs and policies to address mental health disparities and strengthen community wellness in Indian Country; yet little has been written or researched with respect to how indigenous mental health policy and practices are currently being developed, implemented, experienced, or evaluated within tribal mental health systems and communities.

This POS will provide a foundation to investigate global, national and local contemporary indigenous epistemologies, theories and worldviews regarding mental health systems and the state of these serving systems in American Indian and Alaska Natives communities. Additionally, this POS will allow me to examine international indigenous mental health movements, practices (e.g., decolonizing methodologies and indigenous participatory protocols), and policies to note their translatability and transferability for US-based tribal mental health systems and communities.

Thus, this POS proposes the following goals: (1) to explore culturally relevant theories, indigenous epistemologies and traditional indigenous approaches that shape contemporary tribal mental health systems; (2) to examine culturally relevant participatory research approaches, methodologies and corresponding worldviews that have been used in indigenous health research and other community or tribally-based approaches as well as an exploration of qualitative methodologies, and (3) to explore culturally relevant participatory interventions currently used in tribal mental health programs, policy development and include community empowerment/capacity building theories and models.