Partnership and community-based training can save lives so communities can grow stronger together.
Individuals build community. Yet suicide remains a public health crisis across the nation, with notably higher rates in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
To address these high rates of suicide, the Bloomberg American Health Initiative is collaborating with the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health to support and expand the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention Program.
Celebrating Life is grounded in evidence and community input that tracks suicide behaviors, substance use and self-harm, and provides individual case-management services.
Impact of the Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention Program
The Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention program first began over 20 years ago in the White Mountain Apache Tribe. Since then, the team behind the program has used community feedback and data trends to inform and revise a surveillance database and case management program.
After the first few years of implementation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe saw a 38% reduction in suicide deaths.
During the first years of the Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention Program, from 2001-2006, the White Mountain Apache Tribe observed suicide deaths at rates of 40 per 100,000 people, and in 2007 - 2012 they saw rates down to 24.7 per 100,000 people.
With the program success on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation and several recent implementation trials with other tribes like Navajo Nation and Cherokee Nation, Celebrating Life is opening the program to a national audience of Native American communities.
The Celebrating Life program welcomes interest from tribes that see benefit in the program implementation to participate in training programs informed by lessons learned over the program’s past twenty years.
In the first few years of implementation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe saw a significant 38% decrease in suicide deaths.
This program and the subsequent training is tailored to each community’s needs – it is not a one-size-fits all initiative. The process involves community members from teachers to students to family members and is meant to be a community-driven response.
Throughout adaptation and implementation of this program, identifying and training staff, and engaging tribal leadership and community will be two important areas of work. Through our technical assistance with tribes adapting the Celebrating Life program, we’ve noted key facilitators and barriers to the success of program implementation. Important to staffing is identifying dedicated and motivated staff, and hiring enough staff to provide detailed case management with ability to reach at-risk individuals as soon as possible after events. Important to tribal engagement is addressing community resistance and stigma related to suicide, tribal and political leadership endorsing suicide prevention, and establishment of a tribal resolution or mandate supporting the suicide prevention program.
As you prepare to adapt the Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention Program in your community, consider the following preliminary questions:
How much do you already know about the White Mountain Apache Tribe Celebrating Life model? Have you read about it, attended presentations, had prior contact with White Mountain Apache Tribe/Johns Hopkins team members?
Does your Tribal leadership believe this issue is a concern or a priority that needs to be addressed? When was the last conversation you had with Tribal leadership about this? What is the frequency of changeover within your Tribal leadership?
How much of a concern is suicide in your community? Is your community currently in a crisis related to suicide?
Is there anything currently happening in the community around suicide prevention?
What is your team currently looking for in regards to a suicide prevention program?
The responses to these questions are key in shaping what the suicide prevention program will look like in your community. If you feel ready to take the first step, reach out to the Celebrating Life team using the contact submission below.
If you feel like somebody is not okay, ask them, how is your day? Even the quiet ones. I mean, just asking that question goes a long way.
I always encourage the young people and tell them to love themselves, respect themselves. And I tell them that this world is a very cruel world, that we have to stand up and be strong to face whatever comes our way.
I've had a couple of my captains talk people off of the cliff, talk people off of the bridge and it's like, don't go roaring your sirens. Just talk to them and let them know, ‘I'm here. What do you need? Are you okay? How do I help you?
The Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention Program mandates everyone on the reservation to report suicide, self-injury, and binge substance use. The model allows community mental health specialists to complete follow up visits and case management, identify additional resources in the community, and track data trends in the community.
Initial meetings
Building community buy-in
Preparing the community's program
Ongoing program support
Ready to get started? These resources can help you understand how to bring the Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention program to your community.
For additional guidance and technical assistance, please reach out to our team.
Recognition for the Celebrating Life Prevention Program
Celebrating Life Suicide Prevention Program is a unique community-based prevention strategy for Native American communities and has received national recognition for its success in reducing suicide on the reservation. It received a Bronze Psychiatric Services Achievement Award in 2011 from the American Psychiatric Association, and a National Behavioral Health Achievement Award for Community Mobilization in Suicide Prevention from the Indian Health Services in 2012.
The Bloomberg American Health Initiative, based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, addresses pressing health issues in five critical areas including addiction and overdose, adolescent health, the environment, food systems and violence through education, research and practice.