S04E06 - REMIX - Exploring Alaska Native Youth Supports for Suicide Prevention with Dr. Diane McEachern and Lauren White

First published in Season 03 Episode 36: In this episode, Cynthia Begay is in conversation with Dr. Diane McEachern and Lauren White about their research in rural northwest Alaska Native villages on the quantities, types, sources, and frequency of support that Alaska Native youth and young adults had. They discuss the impact of colonization on education, and they reaffirm the existing support that occurs in Native communities. Furthermore, they offer ways that research can be more nuanced for Native communities to perhaps better measure support for males, use traditional milestone markers instead of age, pivot away from Western terms like informal and formal supports, and focus on involving the whole community. This episode references the article titled “⁠What Kinds of Support are Alaska Native Youth and Young Adults Reporting? An Examination of Types, Quantities, Sources, and Frequencies of Support⁠” by Kelly L. Markowski, PhD, Lauren White, MPH, Sela R. Harcey, MS, Tara Schmidt, MPH, Diane McEachern, PhD, LCSW, MSW, Patrick Habecker, PhD, and Lisa Wexler, PhD, MSW. If you'd like to contact them about the paper or their research interests, Dr. Diane McEachern teaches rural human services and social work and their doctoral research studied the teaching of social work to Indigenous adults. She can be reached at ⁠[email protected]⁠. Lauren White is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan studying Social Work and Psychology. She can be reached at [email protected] or on twitter @laurenalaine.