Tribal committee questions suicide prevention money

The State-Tribal Relations Interim Committee has criticized how the state plans to use money set aside to address the growing issue of American Indian youth suicide.

The 2015 Legislature allocated $250,000 toward American Indian youth suicide prevention grants. The committee — which is the Legislature’s liaison with tribal governments — learned during a March 23 meeting that the state intended to use $100,000 of that funding to hire a contractor.

The contractor would form a coalition to develop a suicide prevention plan.

Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, chairman of the State-Tribal Relations Committee, said while he wasn’t sure how to solve the problem of suicide, he thought the money should support grassroots prevention efforts.

“The existing program to stop suicide is failing — we’re personally watching those rates increase,” Windy Boy said. “We don’t need a bureaucratic approach, we need to put this money with the people already on these reservations and a part of the culture, where it counts.”

Out of the total 243 suicides reported in Montana in 2014, 21 were American Indians, according to the state’s suicide review team.

Region 5 of Montana, in which Flathead County is located, had the largest number of suicides recorded within the state, with 85 deaths in 2014, the review team indicated.

The committee voted unanimously during its March meeting in Box Elder to send a letter of opposition to Richard Opper, the director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Windy Boy said the letter was distributed on March 29 and the committee is waiting for the department’s response.

The department has declined to comment on how it intends to spend the money since receiving the committee’s letter.

“We appreciate the feedback from the State-Tribal Relations Committee on this very important issue,” the department responded in an email. “We have received the correspondence and we will be responding to it in the near future.”

Windy Boy said while he’s grateful the state is reaching out to tribes for their input, the process is moving too slowly.

How the money is spent needs to be determined by June 30, 2017, or it would go back into the state’s general fund.

“If the state doesn’t use this money soon, it will be hard to get support out of the next legislative session,” he said.

For more than 50 years, Montana has ranked in the top five states with the highest rates of suicide. On average, 15 Montanans try to end their lives every day, according to a 2012 state study.

But it’s only been since the early 2000s that teen suicides have exceeded Montana’s already high rates.

In 2013 there were 39 suicides in Montana among people from 15 to 24 years old — 16 more than the year before and more than double the national average. In 2014, that number held steady at 37 teen and young adult deaths by suicide.

Windy Boy said while the state gathers statistics from across the state, it’s important to look at Indian reservations individually, to address their unique issues.

The committee also asked the state to collect data to measure the success of the American Indian suicide prevention programs that receive grants in order to report its progress to the 2017 Legislature.

“Conditions are a little different than mainstream Montana, with higher rates of poverty, unemployment and the problems that comes with that. It all plugs right back into the issue,” Windy Boy said. “We need to treat suicide in a different way than you would off a reservation, or else we’re going to continue seeing it grow on reservations.”

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.