The Skokomish Behavioral Health Prevention Program will prevent and reduce suicidal behavior and substance use/misuse, reduce the impact of trauma, and promote mental health for a minimum of 50 Skokomish youth annually, up to and including age 24, by building a healthy network of systems, services and partnerships that impact youth. The Skokomish reservation is located in Washington state in rural Mason County. The Tribe has 775 members who range from newborn to 87 years old. Our April 2023 Enrollment Report shows that 155 members are 10-24 years of age.
The Tribe is committed to making this trauma-informed approach program successful and sustainable. In order to do this, we will spend the first year building infrastructure and preparing staff to implement the program. Program objectives include conducting assessments; developing and implementing a strategic action plan; developing policies, protocols and procedures; attending several conferences to see if attending in subsequent years with program participants would be of value; completing a wide variety of program and topic training; identifying resources; initiating new and enhancing current partnerships; developing or improving consent forms and program information; planning and implementing outreach and awareness efforts; and planning year-two prevention activities and events.
Program participants will be limited to the Skokomish tribal community serving tribal members and their families.
While we do not have suicide data available for the tribe per counntyhealthrankings.org the number of deaths per 100,000 by suicide in Mason County was 21 with 16 in Washington state and 14 for the US. These numbers were consistent in 2021 and 2020. CDC WISQARS data shows that suicide was the second leading cause of death for AI/AN individuals ages 15-19 (all races 624) in Washington state at 38 as well as individuals 20-24 at 44 (all races 980). While these numbers appear to be low they are quite significant as while the AI/AN populating is less than 2% in the state the suicide rate is overrepresented at over 5%.
Per the University of Washington's ADA Institute deaths involving oopioids in the State have increased significantly with 1.45 per 100,000 people in 2004 to 15.95 in 2021. The AI/AN population has been consistently overrepresented at 4.5% of the deaths in 2004 to 6.3% in 2021 as compared to being less than 2% of the State's population. Of utmost concern is that Mason County has the highest number of opioid-related deaths with 3.84 per 100,000 in 2002-2004 soaring to 34.91 in 2020-2021 representing an 808.6% increase. While there are three other counties with deaths per 100,000 in the 26.23% to 31.13% range there are several with no deaths.