BY STAFF REPORTS

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – A youth-suicide epidemic is sweeping Indian Country, with Native American teens and young adults killing themselves at more than triple the rate of other young Americans, according to federal government figures.

In pockets of the United States, suicide among Native American youth is nine to 19 times as frequent as among other youths, and the numbers are rising. From Arizona to Alaska, tribes are declaring states of emergency and setting up crisis-intervention teams.

“It feels like wartime,” said Diane Garreau, a child welfare official on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, in South Dakota. “I’ll see one of our youngsters one day, then find out a couple of days later she’s gone. Our children are self-destructing.”

The situation is so dire that 23 grants the U.S. federal government awarded nationally to prevent youth suicides on Sept. 10 went to Native American tribes or organizations, with most of them receiving nearly $500,000 per year for three years.

A former Democratic senator from North Dakota, Byron Dorgan, who chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for 18 years, called those efforts good but insufficient. Dorgan is founder of the Center for Native American Youth, which promotes Indian child health and emphasizes suicide prevention. 

He describes the Indian Health Service, which serves the nation’s 566 tribes, as chronically under funded.

“We need more mental-health services to save the lives of our youngest First Americans,” he said. “Tribes and non-profits may get two- or three-year grants to address an issue that cannot possibly be resolved in that amount of time. We fund programs then let them fall off a cliff. 

“The perception may be that tribes have a lot of gaming funds, but that is simply not true for more than a few,” Dorgan added.

The suicide risk factors for Native youth are well-known and widely reported. In their homes and communities, many Native youngsters face extreme poverty, hunger, alcoholism, substance abuse and family violence. Diabetes rates are high, and untreated mental illnesses such as depression are common. Unemployment tops 80 percent on some reservations, so there are few jobs – even part-time or after-school ones. Bullying and peer pressure pile on more trauma during the vulnerable teen years.

Native youngsters are particularly affected by community-wide grief stemming from the loss of land, language and more, researchers reported in 2011. As many as 20 percent of adolescents said they thought daily about certain sorrows, even more frequently than adults in some cases, researchers found.