Problem and Unmet Needs

Recognized long ago, the need for a reservation-based residential treatment center for Native Aboriginal Peoples that emphasizes cultural-based treatment planning and delivery demands a functional response.  The affect of this treatment objective is a “life-long learning center” that functions also as a cultural center, bringing wellness consciousness into the entire community.

American Aboriginals “have the highest rates of mortality related to alcohol in the United States and also have the highest rates of treatment for alcohol problems (Abbott, 1998; Beauvais, 1998, Grossman et al., 1997 James et al., 1993; Rhoades et al., 1987).”  While we do not have statistics regarding other substance abuse, anecdotal evidence in our communities regarding the abuse and morbidity is alarming and acute from children to adults.

St’al-sqilx^w shall strengthen the institutions of the Colville Confederated Tribes’ (CCT) government and other regional Tribes as a supplement to their current counseling services since they have not developed such a program.  Our regional Tribes are ripe for a healthy foundation for the development of such a program and services. 

St’al-sqil-x^w has a larger burden to provide effective, community-based culturally reclaiming services:  Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to generations under oppressive public policies by our Federal Trustee, translates organizationally as internal operations replicate the perpetuation of cycles of abuse.  During a discussion among Tribal operations staff on June 27, 2002, the Behavioral Health Manager stated, “the current tribal approaches and programs for substance abuse prevention and treatment are not effective” and noted the following deficiencies: “staff, money, regulatory constraint and current approach based on ‘crisis to crisis.”   Similarly, the Tribal Health Manager said, “the Colville tribal community was currently fragmented and services were not coordinated, especially services designed to assist youth.”

The dynamics resulting from the synergy of low expectations contributes to the very problem of piling trauma upon the trauma of a few centuries of cultural genocidal practices against our own Native Aboriginal Peoples.  The learned abuse now sustained in the culture of “Modern Tribal Government,” we turn upon ourselves.  Internalized Tribal torment continues cultural genocide and disproportional high alcohol and other substance-related morbidity rates compared to the other populations in the United States.  Our morbidity rate is comparable to that of other developing “third world” nations.

Gambling addictions are relatively new for Indian Country, which needs attention since the gaming industry is a popular economic development component for Tribes.  While Tribes Members’ and their families want help with this new tribal problem, there is little service provided on any reservation due to the conflict of interest between the need to generate revenues for tribal councils and their governments on the one hand, and how to keep tribal customers coming to the casinos or gambling sites.  It is estimated by Tribal gaming addiction researchers, that about 4.5% of Tribal populations are involved in the gaming addiction issues while some estimates are near 25%.

An American justice system is skewed towards death penalties and long prison sentences for Aboriginals, Black Americans, Hispanics, and other ethnic peoples of color for substances-related crimes.  In the conventional tribal court system, substance abuse offenders often find themselves serving jail time for their acts of substance abuse-related wrongdoing; however, specialists point out that time behind bars rarely addresses root problems especially when jail time is “dead time,” absent rehabilitative treatment.  Substance abusers often return, therefore, to their negative anti-social addictive behaviors once they are free.  In 1999, a new report by the National Substance Abuse and Health Services confirms that treatment programs using tribal healers, elders and holy men serving as counselors and support staff significantly impact American Indian patients in successful and constructive ways.

For Native Aboriginal Peoples, the spiritual path is the wellness path.  As patients take the spiritual journey, they feel a sense of balance and wholeness.  Many find themselves in a healing position to help others who are still struggling to find their way.  Thus, a Wellness Center incorporates cultural components and spiritual value clarification that is necessary to the success of substance abuse treatment in Indian Country.

Professional caregivers are also beginning to recognize that generational trauma occurs among Aboriginal Peoples far more deeply than earlier thought.  Cultural genocide or ethnic cleansing, and resultant dysfunctions as cultural depression, family separation due to boarding school exploitative abuses such as sexual abuse and psychological tormenting, war, high premature morbidity rates including suicide, and comparative poverty all have long lasting effects when unresolved from one generation to the next.  In the discussion of how the oppressed internalize the abuse they receive, the oppressed become the oppressor, as Duran and Duran, Native American Postcolonial Psychology (1995, p. 35) state: “Since people were forced to assimilate white behaviors – many of which were inherently dysfunctional – the ability to differentiate healthy from dysfunctional became difficult (or impossible) for the children who were to become the grownups of the boarding school era.  Therefore, many of the problems facing Native American people today – such as alcoholism, child abuse, suicide, and domestic violence – have become part of the Native American heritage due to the long decades of forced assimilation and genocidal practices implemented by the federal government.”