Mashantucket – The collective experience of generations of Indigenous people is carried in blood memory – a visceral connection among the living that binds the past to the future.

Blood memory can hurt, and it can heal.

Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation member Scott Barton, a suicide awareness educator for the tribe, likened blood memory to an intergenerational form of post-traumatic stress disorder. Pumping through the veins of Indigenous people is the innate awareness of losing lives, land and language over hundreds of years.

The suicide rate among Indigenous people in the United States was 23.9 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s compared to an overall U.S. rate of 13.5 suicides per 100,000 people. The rate has increased since 2011 among all races and ethnicities.

CDC data shows rates among Indigenous people are highest for teenagers and young adults. This month, the tribe is holding an event to coincide with National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Barton oversees the Good Medicine Project, a suicide and substance misuse prevention program for tribal youth between the ages of 7 and 24. In its seventh year, the federally funded initiative, known in the Pequot language as Skeehch Wuyeekan, uses Indigenous healing practices and cultural traditions to support overall health and wellness.

Barton said the tribe has not seen any suicides among children or adults in the past few years, even as numbers have increased in other Indigenous communities across the country in the wake of the pandemic.

“A lot of it is because of the close knit family dynamics that we have here at Mashantucket,” he said. “And I’d like to think the programming and the things we’ve done with Good Medicine over the past seven years have also contributed to that.”

The biggest barrier when it comes to suicide prevention is the sense of shame and stigma that surrounds it, according to Barton. The resistance crosses racial and ethnic lines throughout the United States – and native communities are no different.

“As a matter of fact, most native communities don’t have a word for suicide,” he said. “Because for us, once you label something or name something, you give it life. And so tribal communities don’t want that in their communities. We don’t want to give suicide a life.”

The Good Medicine Project involves educating the tribal community about the importance of suicide prevention and what they can do to help. It also teaches the wider community about Indigenous traditions and beliefs so groups like the Southeastern Regional Action Council, United Community Family Services and local human services agencies can better serve the population.

SERAC in a 2020 report covering 41 eastern Connecticut towns found that 10.7% of students surveyed said they had seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year. About 22% during the same time period reported feeling so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more that it stopped them from doing their usual activities.

The first grant cycle of Good Medicine funding was approved by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in 2016, for a total of about $980,000 over five years. The agency signed off on the next five-year cycle in 2021, authorizing $250,000 for the first year.

Barton is a certified Question, Persuade and Refer trainer who can teach tribal departments and elders how to recognize the warning signs of suicide and direct kids to appropriate services. There’s also a focus on adapting programs like QPR and the Zero Suicide model to reflect the differences between mainstream the Indigenous experiences, and training others to administer them.

Mark Irons, SERAC’s suicide prevention program lead, spearheads a regional suicide advisory board using state funds. He also provides prevention education and is looking to develop “postvention” resources for family, friends and the wider community after suicides occur.

He described QPR training as one of the organization’s biggest focus areas for prevention.

“It’s useful for everybody,” he said. “Lay people can do it. There's no clinical requirement. We don’t train you to be a therapist; we just train you to look out for each other and provide people with hope.”

The Good Medicine Project also hosts events like the annual Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day in May. Barton said one tribal councilor distributes medicine bags, which contain natural items to protect its owner.

“We have built into our traditional culture and practices these natural protections that protect us against harm, things like suicide and substance misuse,” Barton said. “The more we teach and the more we show our community how to follow these practices, the more protected we are.”

There’s the act of burning sage in an abalone shell and brushing the smoke over their bodies as a way to cleanse themselves of negativity or harm. There are pow wows where tribal members dance for those who can’t dance: for the people that are sick and for those that are struggling. It’s where they dance for their ancestors.

“Culture is prevention,” Barton said.

The tribe is holding a suicide prevention event from 2:30-5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21 in the Pequot Pharmaceutical Network parking lot, 1 Annie George Drive, Mashantucket.

The phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988. Help can also be accessed via text at 741741. Barton said those who are looking for a crisis coordinator who understands Indigenous communities can include the word “native” or “Indigenous” in their text message. For more information, visit www.preventsuicidect.org.

e.regan@theday.com