The hope & wellness screening toolkit: developing a community based suicide and substance use screening program for American Indians and Alaska Natives

ABSTRACT

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the U.S. In American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) urban communities and rural reservation communities, youth experience high rates of suicidal ideation, attempts, and deaths. An urban AI organization partnered with a university to respond to this crisis with SAMHSA funds that supported the development and implementation of youth suicide prevention and intervention programming through screening, identification, and treatment of youth. They engaged the community in developing suicide prevention and intervention programming, and designed and tested procedures for implementing community-based suicide screenings, which led to the creation of the Hope & Wellness Screening Toolkit.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide prevention
• mental health screening
• substance use
• American Indian/Alaska Native
• youth
• community-based organizations

Acknowledgments

Miigwetch, thank you to the AIHFS Sacred Bundle Suicide Prevention Team: Ashley Tuomi, DHSc; Nickole Fox MA; Lauren Lockhart, MSW; Karen Marshall; Darius Watkins, BBA; John Marcus, AS; Sandra Momper, PhD; Debbie Tauiliili, MSW, MS; Jennifer Hopson, MHSA; Elizabeth Chapleski, PhD; Michael Krall, PhD; Christy Bieber BA; Amelia Mueller-Williams, MPH, MSW. Miigwetch to advisory councils; community members; Tribal representatives; and the University of Michigan School of Social Work who all participated in this project. A special thanks to the team members and supporters who appeared in the training and intervention videos, Abigail Eiler, MSW; Celina M. Doria, MSW; Karen Marshall; Jennifer Hopson, MHSA; and the staff members who filmed, edited, and developed the videos, especially John Marcus of AIHFS.

If we have overlooked anyone we apologize as it was not intentional.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Garrett Lee Smith State and Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention Grants (Grant # 1U79SM060395-01 and Grant # 1U79SM061738-01). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of SAMHSA.