by Paula Moore
Denver Business Journal
The Denver Indian Family Resource Center will formulate a plan this fall to implement findings from the most comprehensive study ever of metro Denver’s Native American community.
Part of that task involves applying for a federal grant, which could amount to as much as $9 million. In May, the DIFRC received a $300,000 grant — $60,000 a year for five years — from The Colorado Trust.
The Lakewood-based nonprofit agency, started in 2000 to promote the welfare of metro-area Indian children and families, teamed with its adviser, JVA Consulting LLC of Denver, to research and write the study. Called “Keeping the Circle Whole,” the survey focuses on the mental health needs of the local Native American community and was released in May.
Survey results show the need not only for mental health services among local Native Americans, but services that are culturally sensitive, according to DIFRC Executive Director Phyllis Bigpond of the Yuchi tribe.
“We need to determine in the next few months what it will take to put this plan into action … figuring out how to help families,” said Eddie Sherman, the DIFRC’s development coordinator. Sherman belongs to the Navajo and Omaha tribes.
Recommendations based on the new research range from the DIFRC collaborating with mainstream mental health care providers to creating an education campaign — slogans, billboards, community meetings, etc. — to reach the Indian community. Study authors also suggest offering comprehensive, “wraparound” services involving whole families.
The DIFRC launched the study in 2005, surveying more than 700 Native Americans kids and adults in the seven-county metro area. Research focused particularly on the needs of Indian children suffering from severe emotional and behavioral problems.
Metro Denver’s Indian population includes roughly 27,000 people affiliated with 60 tribes, based on 2005 U.S. Census estimates. Most of that population is descended from native people the federal government relocated to metro Denver in the 1950s, after it closed many reservations and disbanded tribes. It also includes Indian veterans returning from World War II and looking for better jobs.
“Denver was one of the places the government sent people, but they had no help with assimilation, and had a hard time with it. … This study is the first hard data we’ve had on those people,” Sherman said.
Conducted during nine months in 2006 and this year, the study found a high rate of alcohol and drug abuse, family violence, depression, suicide, dropping out of school and stigma about getting help for such difficulties.
In Denver Public Schools alone, the Indian dropout rate was 49 percent. The two biggest reasons respondents gave for not seeking help was not being able to afford services and not knowing about them.
One thing the DIFRC already has done to help deal with such problems is increase its staff counselors to 11. The center also is working on a program to train non-Indian mental health groups and individual practitioners on how to deal with Indian problems.
“I created a model called Native Self-Actualization that teaches non-natives to be culturally relevant,” said Sidney Stone Brown (Black Feet), a DIFRC counselor. “It involves assessing the world views of native people and then giving them free choice in which they prefer, rather than having one forced on them.”
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