Native Youth Health and Healing

Carrying the Work Forward: Reflections on American Indian Life Skills Development and Native Well-being

Today, an escalating trend in suicidal behavior among American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents and young adults exists. Public health and AI/AN mental health professionals and scholars are urgently trying to move the field toward more comprehensive efforts to reduce this trend. One such prevention intervention, the American Indian Life Skills (AILS) development curriculum, targets learning environments (e.g., schools, culture camps, Boys and Girls Clubs) as active sites where Native American youth encounter experiences that can reduce or increase suicidal risk. AILS is a universal, community-driven prevention intervention developed in collaboration with Zuni Pueblo community members in New Mexico. It emphasizes social cognitive skills training, including emotional regulation, to reduce risk factors associated with AI/AN adolescent suicidal behavior and to increase protective factors that support psychological well-being. In addition, AILS underscores AI/AN heritage by emphasizing the resilience indicators of well-functioning community members throughout the curriculum. AILS encourages respect, connectedness, and community-appropriate ways of expressing grief and anger, and advocates for community members to be integral partners in the intervention team. In evaluation studies conducted since 1994, AILS has shown suicide prevention benefits to high school students, including increases in help-seeking behavior and supportive attitudes.

Presenter Teresa D. LaFromboise, PhD, director of Native American Studies at Stanford University, will review this body of work along with a discussion of the growth in integrating AI/AN healing approaches into evidence-based suicide prevention interventions targeting this population. 

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