Healing Fractured Families: Parents’ and Elders’ Perspectives on the Impact of Colonization and Youth Suicide Prevention in a Pacific Northwest American Indian Tribe

Data were collected from focus groups with 40 American Indian parents & from individual interviews with 9 American Indian elders. The major task participants addressed was holding the family together & healing intergenerational pains. Topics parents discussed were holding onto cultural values, holding the family together, getting through school, & getting a job. These findings substantiate previous research & provide useful information for the design of culturally appropriate family or community-based interventions to prevent American Indian youth suicide. (41 refs.)