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In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, has been selected as the Partner of the Month for January.

The Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council mission is to preserve the homelands, defend rights of the Indian Treaties with the United States, speak in a unified voice, offer support to the Indian people, offer a forum in which to consult each other and enlighten each other about peoples, and to otherwise promote the common welfare of all of the Tribal people of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

The programs and services that are currently offered:

• Tribal Epidemiology Centers (RMTEC) – Tribal Epidemiology Centers provide various types of support and services due to the variation of the TECs organization structure, divisions, Tribal populations, and their mission and goals. There are currently 12 Tribal Epidemiology Centers in the United States.
• Good Health & Wellness in Indian Country (GHWIC) – GHWIC’s goal is to support a coordinated, holistic approach to healthy living and chronic disease prevention, reinforce the work already underway in Indian Country to make healthy choices and lifeways easier for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
• Public Health Workforce Expansion in Indian Country (PHWEIC) – The purpose of the Public Health Workforce Expansion in Indian Country program to help Tribal Public Health workers play a critical role in closing the gap among the Indian population and move toward health equality.
• Tribal Opioid Response (TOR) – The goal is to increase access to culturally appropriate and evidence-based treatment services to reduce the unmet treatment need and opioid overdose-related deaths through prevention, treatment, and recovery support services.
• All Nation Youth Partner for Success (ANYPS) – ANYPS’s primary goal is to reduce underage drinking and marijuana use among Native American youth (ages 9 – 20) by increasing access to cultural activities and ceremonies.

Learn more about the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council, and their vision to build healthy, prosperous and strong Tribal communities for the Tribal people living in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho; and their goal to create an environment conducive to change within the communities by cultivating positive collaborative efforts with a sense of purpose by building strong, healthy societies where respect and honor is a way of life.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

In a culture where machismo dominates, my existence as both a woman and the eldest daughter has been clouded by the notion that I should prepare for a future in which my sole purpose is to cater to anyone and everyone. This mindset coupled with being the only daughter in the family has led to what feels like the weight of the world on my shoulders. Eldest daughters and daughters, in general, have shown to be fundamental to the way Latino families run. We can think of the role of eldest daughters within Latino households as pillars holding up the structure of the family unit.

More and more recently, I’ve come across TikToks, posts, and other forms of media that have made me feel seen in my role as the eldest daughter. Often, being the oldest and first-generation coincides with being the first in everything. The first to navigate higher education, the first to obtain a degree, and the first to address taboo subjects like mental health.

My own experience and that of others who relate begs the question: How do these pressures affect existing mental health issues within the Latinx community? For the community, there are plenty of mental health stigmas that exacerbate the pressures. This can ostracize folks and prevent them from discussing their struggles with their family as well as keep them from seeking help. At the same time, the perception of mental health issues being associated with being “loca/o” — a highly problematic depiction of people facing mental health issues — heightens the fear and shame that prevents people from speaking out. Because often, personal mental health issues are pushed aside so as not to embarrass the rest of the family, not taking into account what that does to the person. These existing stigmas are further impacted by gender and being the oldest.

Read more at HipLatina.com.

Mikayla Kim, a senior at Helix Charter High School in La Mesa, presented her first film, Overcast, on October 31, 2021, at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. The short film explores the connection between growing up Asian American with immigrant parents, and how that upbringing influences young Asian Americans’ relationships with mental health.

Her nine-minute short features the voices of other Asian American young people discussing the ways that their upbringing influenced their relationships with mental health.

“I chose to focus on mental health, mostly because of how triggering this topic is for me. That made it clear to me how stigmatized mental health is within immigrant households since I’m still very uncomfortable speaking up about my past, with my family,” she says. “I wanted to explore whether others in the Asian community felt the same way, and went on to create an emotional outlet and a safe space for individuals to share their struggles after years of possibly suffering in silence.”

Read more at SanDiegoUnionTribune.com.

The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma has reached a $75 million opioid settlement with three of the nation’s largest drug distributors, the first deal of its kind with a tribal government in the country.

AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson shipped vast quantities of highly addictive pain pills over the past 20 years, triggering an avalanche of lawsuits.

In a statement, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said the opioid crisis had disproportionately affected people in his community.

“This settlement will enable us to increase our investments in mental health treatment facilities and other programs to help our people recover,” Hoskin said.

The Cherokee Nation is a sovereign government with more than 390,000 citizens. Officials described this as the largest settlement in their history.

“This settlement was negotiated in connection with ongoing negotiations toward a broad resolution of opioid-related claims brought by Native American tribes,” the firms said in a release sent to NPR.

Read more at NPR.org.

Speaking out about mental illness or seeking help was seen as a taboo within Black culture for years, but the topic has seen a turning point recently, according to a sociologist in Fayetteville.

According to Fayetteville State University sociology professor Stacye Blount, the Black community has not embraced taking care of mental health as they have taken care of their physical health.

“Some scholars have said that because we have to live with the stigma of our skin tone, self-identification as Black or African-American … that it’s possible, historically, that Black people have tried to minimize stigma,” she said. “Therefore, mental health is perceived as a stigma for some sectors of society. It’s just one thing that we have not embraced as much.”

Blount said she can’t pinpoint when the shift in Black culture began to place more emphasis on mental health care, but there have been a variety of influences.

“As resources have become more available and people have become more knowledgeable about mental health and services associated with mental health, individuals in the African-American community have embraced a more accepting posture towards that,” she said.

She said another factor for the shift can be attributed to the increase of Black mental health professionals.

“People seem to be more comfortable with people that look like them or self-identify in the same manner that they may self-identify,” she said.

Read more FayObserver.com.

Young adults who experience discrimination about their bodies, race, age, or sex have a greater risk of dealing with mental health problems than those who do not, a new study has found.

Encountering discrimination — especially racism — has long been associated with negative effects on overall well-being, such as higher levels of stress, poor cognitive function, anxiety, depression, and substance use, previous studies have found.

Those who faced discrimination frequently — at least a few times per month —were around 25% more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder and twice as likely to develop severe psychological distress than people who didn’t experience discrimination or did less often, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Having dealt with any degree of discrimination was linked with a 26% higher risk for having poor overall health, according to the participants’ responses. Often experiencing discrimination wasn’t strongly associated with binge drinking but was linked with more use of drugs such as amphetamines, marijuana, tranquilizers, barbiturates, or cocaine in the last year without a doctor’s prescription.

Read more at CNN.com.