Colville tribal leaders seek help with high suicide rate

NESPELEM, Wash. – Tribal leaders have asked for federal assistance to combat an alarmingly high suicide rate among young adults on the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

Tribal Business Council Chairman Michael Marchand said he contacted the Portland office of Indian Health Services in response to nine suicides on the reservation in the past year.

A front-page article in the most recent edition of the tribal newspaper, the Tribal Tribune, said a crisis response team is now available “to assist members in dealing with personal crisis issues.” It didn’t mention the suicides.

Marchand said Monday that he requested the team after tribal members had asked the council for help in dealing with a suicide rate on the reservation that is 20 times the national average.

Such a high rate has had a devastating effect on the small and isolated community, made up of 12 bands of American Indians.

There are about 8,700 enrolled members of the Colville Confederated Tribes. Only about half of them live on the 1.4 million-acre reservation, according to council member Andy Joseph.

Joseph, chairman of the council’s health and human services committee, said most of the deaths were among young adults, “some of them new parents.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicides occur nationally at a rate of about one in 10,000 people. The suicide rate among Native Americans is about four times the national average. But the rate on the Colville reservation this year would equate to about 20 per 10,000 people.

The Colville, like many Indian reservations, suffers from high unemployment, alcoholism and drug use, tribal leaders said.

“Poverty and unemployment go hand in hand with suicide rates,” tribal council member Ted Bessett said Monday.

While tribes with casinos near major populations have profited in the state, the Colvilles, with three casinos in rural areas, have not done so well in recent years, council members said.

Recent health care statistics show depression is epidemic among Native Americans.

“It’s how you view yourself culturally that determines how happy a person you are,” Bessett said.

“Without their culture, a lot of these kids are drifting aimlessly.”