Funded Projects - SPIP
Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) will contribute to enhancing Alaska's infrastructure addressing suicide by providing suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention services to reduce suicide prevalence among Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI) people. ANTHC will improve care coordination and expand behavioral health care services by developing or expanding activities to implement early intervention strategies for AN/AI youth at risk for suicidal behavior.
Aleut Community of St. Paul Island
The Aleut Community of St. Paul Island will provide a venue for healthy youth and community programs to address the growing concerns relating to suicide on St. Paul Island, Alaska. In this grant cycle we will develop a suicide response plan and a crisis response team, develop a community safe room for those in need of crisis stabilization, work with youth and young adults to provide healthy activities, connectedness to peers and family members, and start a Hope Squad program through hiring three elected Youth Tribal Council Members.
Fairbanks Native Association
The purpose of the All Together project at Fairbanks Native Association is to provide comprehensive, culturally appropriate behavioral health services that reduce the prevalence of suicide among AI/AN in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. All Together will increase access to comprehensive, culturally appropriate health care services and promote quality programming to address Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention (SPIP).
Kodiak Area Native Association
The Kodiak Area Native Association’s SPIP project will address the challenge of suicide among the Alaska Native/American Indian population of the Koniag region of Alaska. The Project will work to improve care coordination for individuals experiencing suicidal ideation by improving suicide screening and intervention rates in healthcare organizations and community partners, expanding community education about warning signs of suicide, providing training for remote, rural Village Response Teams, and addressing gaps in the Kodiak region’s continuum of care for suicidal individuals. This project will also aim to expand behavioral health treatment through training treatment providers and improving integrated care in remote village health clinics. Finally, SPIP staff will coordinate with community partners to conduct a viability assessment for youth peer-to-peer mental health support models, organize youth and family engagement activities, and support the development of a joint Tribal Youth Council.
Southeast Alaska Regional Health Corporation
Working first in the villages of Kake, Angoon, and Hoonah, the SEARHC will work with community groups to talk about the suicide prevention needs of the community. SEARHC will offer to train local leaders and implement Mental Health First Aid as well as cultural activities that build resilience in these communities. Then SEARHC will expand these services to as many communities as possible in the southeast region.
Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council, Inc.
Healing Hearts is a Circle of Life Behavioral Health Network program, administered by Eight Northern Indian Pueblos, Inc. (ENIPC). We provide a bridge between behavioral health programs within the Eight Northern Pueblos of New Mexico and the communities they serve. At Healing Hearts, we serve youth, teens and their families, and through that service build healthier, more stable communities – one individual at a time. Our primary goal is to create positive, culturally relevant communication and relationships between service providers, youth, and families. Through social media, educational mental health and wellness summits, events, and trainings, Healing Hearts promotes positive messaging, positive relationships, and positive interactions. Our goal is to assist service providers and clients with support for a seamless and consistent System of Care.
Five Sandoval Indian Pueblos, Inc.
Five Sandoval Indian Pueblos, Inc. is strengthening and improving the health of its community members by providing prevention, intervention, and postvention services to the communities of Cochiti, Jemez, Sandia, Santa Ana, and Zia with the goal of reducing youth suicide and suicidal ideation. We will focus on reducing the impact of trauma while promoting mental health and resiliency to all tribal members in such a manner that the value of tribal sovereignty, traditional culture, and community integrity are respected and preserved. This project will include tribal community members being involved in all grant activities including planning, program implementation, and evaluation.
Mescalero Apache Tribe
The Mescalero SPIP project's goal is to improve community wellness, including physical, social, emotional, and mental health by reducing depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and suicides. Our program took years of data gathering and community engagement to implement strategies that are community based, addressing the need of mental health awareness and building on the resiliency of the Mescalero Apache people.
Pueblo of Acoma
The Pueblo of Acoma (POA) SPIP Project centers on community engagement, workforce enhancement, and SMART goals and objectives. The goals are to reduce the risk of suicidal ideation, attempts and completions through evidence-based practices and practice-based practices. The POA SPIP project will incorporate the Acoma language, concepts, attitudes, norms and values about suicide within the Pueblo of Acoma. Each year the POA SPIP project will include training opportunities, awareness events and comprehensive care.
Ute Mountain Ute Tribe
The overall goal of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe's (UMUT) Protect Life project is to leverage evidence-based strategies to increase access to comprehensive, culturally appropriate services and programming that promotes suicide prevention among UMUT youth and adults. The UMUT will build on its highly successful Growing Ute initiatives that have promoted intergenerational cultural learning and leadership by youth and elders developing solutions to serious tribal issues.
Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians
Through the SPIP Program, Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians (LTBB) will improve our health system infrastructure by implementing a coordinated care approach to suicide prevention, intervention and postvention. The project focuses on two primary goals: 1) comprehensive, culturally-appropriate programming and services through a coordinated care approach and 2) to create a resilient community by increasing awareness of suicide warning signs and resource, as well as improving referral processes. To achieve these goals, project activities include creating and implementing an SPIP Plan, educating Health staff on model practices, providing the community with appropriate services, strengthening internal and external service provider relationships, providing trainings and workshops to the community, and implementing youth-based programming.
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe – White Earth Band
The White Earth Mental Health SPIP project will strengthen services on the White Earth Reservation by improving collaboration and coordination of care, improving access to mental health services through re-evaluation of service delivery including the referral process, providing suicide screening across all healthcare systems, and implementing youth programs that enhance healthy development through culture and connectedness. The project will focus on partnerships to improve care coordination and sustain project goals, and will enhance suicide prevention and intervention skills for community members, program staff, and mental health clinicians using gatekeeper trainings from LivingWorks and clinician-based suicide care trainings.
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
The purpose of this project is to reduce suicide prevalence among the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe (CSKT) population. We will accomplish this through continually improving care coordination between providers, divisions, and departments and expanding behavioral health services by using culturally appropriate, evidence-based models. This project sets out to educate, train, and support Tribal Health practitioners, Tribal youth and community members, and all those living on the Flathead Reservation to recognize, assess, screen, and care for those at-risk for suicide. We will work toward these goals in coordination with existing CSKT behavioral health programs and efforts with compatible goals and objectives. We will utilize trauma-informed suicide prevention, intervention and postvention approaches, bringing trainings to the community and schools, as well as implementing culturally-appropriate community connectedness activities, guided by Tribal elders and cultural knowledge keepers.
Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes
The Fort Peck Tribes call center and treatment program will develop and implement a Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention (SPIP) program to address the high volume of 911 dispatch calls on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. This effort includes setting up a local community call-in telephone number that will offer resource referrals for local counseling services, telehealth services, emergency services, case management services, and native cultural activities that promote healing for suicide ideation patients. This effort will also establish a centralized database system on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation for suicide ideation calls, which will provide a surveillance system and program evaluation tool for the SPIP call center and treatment program.
California Rural Indian Health Board, Inc.
The Healing Our Own People (HOOP) Project will work with Tribal communities and Tribal Health Programs to build knowledge and increase the capacity of staff, providers, and community members to raise awareness, eliminate stigma, and recognize the signs of suicide risk. The HOOP Project will help Tribal community members further develop the skill necessary to intervene when someone is concerned about the suicide risk for oneself or someone else. These goals will continue to increase capacity of the participating Tribal Health Programs to address suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention among AIAN youth, parents, and community members.
Toiyabe Indian Health Project, Inc.
The purpose of the Toiyabe Indian Health Project, Inc. is to raise community-wide awareness about the prevalence of suicide risk in Toiyabe communities, provide extensive culturally-honoring prevention education and services, increase identification of at-risk patients, provide services/referrals, and enhance intervention/postvention care coordination. The proposed program will strengthen care coordination within Toiyabe and with care provision partners and has the support of all seven tribes, as the program will increase services to each of the communities served. Toiyabe is eager to improve care coordination across Toiyabe staff, Tribes, and community partners through mental health training and the formation of a Suicide Response Team through new and existing staff, who will collaborate with key community partners to improve response to youth and adults-at-risk of suicide.
Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board
Our project, Connecting with Our Youth (CWOY) extension, expands the direct services of the CWOY program from serving Native youth ages 10-24 to serving American Indian individuals and families of all ages in the Rapid City area of South Dakota. CWOY extension program will train Oyate Health behavioral health providers on new trauma-informed, evidence-based therapies. CWOY Extension will also provide culturally appropriate suicide care, including group and family therapies, for participants who exhibit suicidal risk. CWOY extension program aims to provide suicide prevention education to the community and lead community-based strategic planning to address the long-term suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention needs in Rapid City for American Indian people.
Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska
The Santee Sioux Nation SPIP Program will keep culture in the forefront of service development, delivery, and evaluation, while uniting community and partners in growing a collaborative infrastructure to meet the needs of young people. Northeast Nebraska, where this project occurs, is considered a "professional desert" in its lack of mental health providers. Our work will significantly increase service by engaging behavioral health professionals to provide culturally based services and prevention programming. Evidence-based curricula and tools include Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, American Indian Life Skills, Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools, and Historical Trauma Scales.
Mississippi Band of Choctaw
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw SPIP project will address the public health concerns of suicide by providing community-level access to effective prevention, intervention and postvention services and promote mental health awareness and wellness within Choctaw tribal communities through education. The project continues to reduce the harmful, corrupting influence of substance use, suicide, and suicide-contagion by providing suicide care, crisis response, and trauma-informed care services, along with substance use treatment. Healing aspects of Choctaw culture will be woven into treatment services to improve the concept, acceptance, and participation in treatment, recovery care services and support efforts for living a life in recovery. The project will expand available behavioral health care treatment services out to the Choctaw Health Center Satellite Clinics located in rural tribal areas through face-to-face and tele-health care services and improve crisis response care to individuals and families. As part of the Generation Indigenous Initiative, the Choctaw project also aims to integrate suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention services in tribal schools and within youth groups and ensure that Choctaw culture and the strength and resilience of Chatah people is highlighted in learning.
Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe
The Akwesasne SPIP Program will focus on the goal of providing suicide safe care for all the community members of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. We will expand and improve our screening, assessment and treatment for those at risk of suicide, work with partner programs to collaborate and create safety nets for our community members, provide ongoing training and education regarding suicide prevention and intervention as well as how to respond after a death by suicide. We will work towards decreasing the prevalence of suicide activity in the community of Akwesasne.
Fort Defiance Indian Hospital Board, Inc.
The Fort Defiance Indian Health Board, Inc. (FDIHB) will provide suicide prevention education to decrease stigma related to mental health treatment. Project staff will conduct proactive suicide risk screenings in schools/communities, and bridge counseling referrals to mental/behavioral health services. We will also implement evidence-based/best practice strategies, coordinating and collaborating with schools and communities within the FDIHB service delivery area to reduce risk factors for substance use and suicidal behaviors for AI/AN youth up to 24 years old.
Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation's SPIP program is designed to reduce the prevalence of suicide among American Indian and Alaska Native youth and young adults in Cherokee Nation communities. The activities of the program are designed to facilitate a reconnection to traditional healing practices of our Native communities. The program aims to instill cultural pride and self-awareness among the youth of the target community and provide them with the tools they need to overcome the impact of historical trauma and to understand that mental health is key to overall health and well-being.
Chickasaw Nation
The Chickasaw Nation (CN) SPIP project proposes the implementation of a Training and Transition (T&T) Suicide Prevention Program to provide a robust array of gatekeeper coursework expanding capacity for care coordination and transition tracking for patients at-risk of suicide within and around the CN treaty territory. The dual-focused program offers the opportunity to assist in direct patient care coordination when training courses are not being conducted. With the program staff, the tribe will expand both the training capacity and training opportunities for suicide prevention to both CN employees and CN community partners (schools, law enforcement, Boys and Girls Club facilities, etc.). Staff will additionally serve as transition care coordinators for CN patients identified as at-risk of suicide on the suicide care pathway (SCP) by providing check-ins, caring contacts, follow-up care reminders and ensuring patients at risk are monitored throughout their care. The program's dual focus aims to integrate trainers with clinical service provision to inform training areas of focus, content development and inclusion of the team's patient experiences with their training coursework to align training with real life experiences of those at risk within the CN treaty territory.
Comanche Nation
The Comanche Nation's Native Spirit SPIP Project will incorporate programming to conduct a tribal needs assessment and develop a strategic action plan based on identified priorities. Proposed activities to support the plan include: (1) increasing community awareness and early intervention strategies; (2) creating broader targeted substance use disorder and suicide prevention; and, (3) expansion of behavioral health care through prevention, treatment, and recovery programs to support suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. Our goal is for these initiatives to create a coordinated behavioral health infrastructure using the intra-tribal and community partnership approach that we are implementing with this project.
Modoc Nation
The Modoc Nation Healing House and Lost River Treatment Center have partnered on this SPIP project to address the rising suicide rates and higher than average occurrences of major depressive episodes among American Indian and Alaska Natives youth in Ottawa County. The program was designed to improve care coordination, expand access to behavioral health care services, and support youth at risk for suicidal behavior with prevention activities that reinforce their connection to their cultural identity. Program staff will establish community partner referral systems, utilize evidence-based practices including the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality, and conduct community outreach and education in order to build local capacity for culturally competent suicide prevention strategies. The program relies on strategic partnerships and engagement with community members to inform all stages of its implementation and to ensure its sustained impact on culturally appropriate programs which encourage treatment, reduce stigma and improve the support system for those considering suicide.
Muscogee Creek Nation
The Muscogee Creek Nation SPIP project will expand community partnerships, outreach, awareness and cultural based practices of oral history, song and storytelling to honor and promote positive self-identity. The project staff will implement school-based awareness and education such as "Hope Squad" in rural schools on the Muscogee reservation. The project will also offer QPR and Talk Saves Lives trainings for community members, public schools and health professionals.
Reno-Sparks Indian Colony
The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony project will promote awareness, education, and prevention of suicide by challenging current norms and solidifying traditional Native American values and beliefs with key activities such as: talking circles, art therapy, interactive storytelling, family wellness workshops, community and staff safeTALK trainings, community and staff ASIST trainings, and community Positive Indian Parenting trainings. The rapid growth and large-scale adoption of telehealth services over the past year due to pandemic restrictions has allowed the Reno-Sparks Tribal Health Center to deliver a broad range of badly needed services to patients in an innovative, cost-effective manner. The project will continue to utilize phone and video chat platforms for individual and group therapy as well as community events to expand the department's ability to reach those who are ill, quarantined, or unwilling to visit a health center for services during the pandemic. Telehealth enables providers to strengthen continuity of care. The project will also be used to facilitate the use of wrap-around services within the Reno-Sparks Tribal Health Center and outside agency participation and thus increase the capacity of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony to address suicide prevention.
Spokane Tribe of the Spokane Reservation
Through the We are Thankful for the Sun project, the Spokane Tribe of Indians (STOI) Health and Human Services (HHS) department provides multiple support services to local tribal members, their families, and the overall community. The STOI HHS department will utilize evidence-based, practice-based, and culture-based interventions to help prevent suicide and suicide attempts, and decrease risk factors that stem from suicidal ideation. In addition, the STOI HHS will use a strength-based approach with strong cultural considerations in their suicide prevention, intervention, postvention, and outreach efforts.
Puyallup Tribe of Indians
Using the Zero Suicide Model as a foundation, the S'puyalepabš Project aims to create a comprehensive community-based system of care within the SPIP program for youth living with suicidal ideation. The project will include an interagency steering committee of key stakeholder programs. With a collaborative spirit, engaged staff will develop school protocols for managing a suicidal student. The project will provide trainings in best-practice trauma-informed treatment models as well as culturally specific strength-based teachings for academic and mental health staff alike. With increased staffing of dedicated mental health professionals at the school we will reduce barriers to care and increase efficacy for those students needing support. Finally, this project is committed to growing suicide readiness in the community by continuing to provide culturally rooted community outreach and education that builds up youth and empowers our families to be resilient.
Quileute Tribe of the Quileute Reservation
The Quileute Health Center SPIP program’s purpose is to provide education and training to our community as it relates to suicide prevention. This will include activities that will address personal trauma that lead to thoughts of suicide. In addition to creating a local acute response team, we will raise community awareness through outreach from our New Beginnings Program team. These teams will utilize trauma-informed, culturally relevant methods and resources to help our community prevent suicide and other traumatic events.
American Indian Association of Tucson (Tucson Indian Center)
The Tucson Indian Center's (TIC) Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention program will provide Education and Prevention Specialists to offer training in the areas of suicide prevention, motivational interviewing, and trauma-informed care. The TIC will develop and offer case management, referrals, and services in conjunction with key partners, local tribes and non-tribal organizations in a Coordinated Community Response (CCR) approach. Staff and partners will develop, deliver, and disseminate culture and language appropriate suicide prevention materials, media messaging, and programming.
American Indian Health Service of Chicago
The AIHSC will incorporate the Operation Snowball philosophy (Illinois Teen Institute on Substance Abuse) into our seven traditional teachings to help youth, families and adults focus on healing from intergenerational traumas. Through this prevention-oriented process, youth and adults focus on prevention and promotion of personal and interpersonal growth, leadership skills, healthy decision-making, and healing regarding the IGT faced by AI/AN community members. The AIHSC will go one step further through incorporating individual and group therapies for participants who are interested in continuing a longer healing process. Though Operation Snowball focuses on abstinence from drugs and alcohol, we will further push the boundaries to discuss self-harm, suicidal ideations, and suicide. Through cross-age teaching and youth/adult and staff coordination, we can develop a comprehensive program to assist community healing from the intergenerational traumas that impact individuals.
Bakersfield American Indian Health Project
Bakersfield American Indian Health Project (BAIHP) intends to build its capacity to better serve the local Native American community. The program goals and objectives are designed to reduce the overall prevalence of suicide in the community by increasing the capacity of BAIHP’s behavioral health team, improving care coordination, and training, and increasing suicide prevention and early intervention efforts. The first goal is to reduce the prevalence of suicide among the American Indian and Alaska Native population of Kern County. The second goal is to increase suicide prevention efforts and suicide awareness in the American Indian and Alaska Native community in Kern County.
Fresno American Indian Health Project
Fresno American Indian Health Project's (FAIHP) Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention (SPIP) program will include activities related to prevention, intervention, and postvention of suicide ideations, suicide attempts, and suicides among our American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) population. The SPIP program will expand care coordination for those vulnerable to or impacted by suicide, behavioral health services, and suicide prevention services by utilizing culturally-appropriate models for AI/AN peoples ages 5 and over in Fresno County, California. These services will be delivered to address the overall goal of reducing the prevalence of suicide among AI/AN populations.
Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest
The Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest (NARA NW), through the coordination of our Youth Prevention Program, Life is Sacred Program, and Child and Family Services, addresses suicide risk throughout the continuum of care for our clients, including prevention, treatment, and recovery. The program goal is to reduce the alarming prevalence of suicide within American Indians and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. NARA NW commits to goals focused on strengthening suicide trainings and awareness activities that are culturally sensitive (e.g. staff and community response trainings, Implementing Generation Indigenous Initiative youth activities etc.), enhanced access to culturally specific prevention and treatment, increased access to quality services through improvement initiative, evidence-based suicide care, and improved access to telehealth, follow-up and family/caregiver engagement. NARA’s services are culturally appropriate, collaborative and use a community-based approach to provide education, physical, mental health services and substance abuse treatment to AI/AN clients within the Portland Metropolitan Area.
Phoenix Indian Center, Inc.
The purpose of the Culture as Prevention: Building Resiliency in Urban American Indian Youth project is to reduce stigma related to suicide and increase the resiliency and positive development of urban American Indian youth ages 11-18 years old through evidence-based programs and practices. The Phoenix Indian Center (PIC) will bring together targeted community agencies along with community adults, healers, and peers to support youth in crisis to prevent suicide. PIC will also provide evidence-based programming to increase the use of R.E.A.L drug resistance strategies as well as suicide intervention trainings such as ASIST, QPR, and safeTALK for behavioral health staff, service providers and community members.
