Tribal youth awareness poll: "Insight into their World"

Observer Staff

7/5/2005 12:00:00 AM

(Editor's note: The following article is the third in a series of four installments concerning Ngodewaangiziwin's Red Road Project. The previous two articles appeared in the March 16 and April 1 issues of the Tribal Observer.) By Sarah Pigeon, Resource Specialist Ngodewaangiziwin "Helping Our Families"

As a prevention program, The Red Road Project strives to empower Tribal children with tools necessary to grow, develop and realize their full potential while avoiding traps into which they may fall.

In order to understand what adults need to do to encourage them, one must try to understand their world as they see it. The Tribal Youth Awareness Poll is designed to accomplish this.

Tribal children from third grade to twelfth grade took the poll in 2003. It is completely anonymous, ensuring truthfulness in the answers.

Tribal children from local schools in Mt. Pleasant, as well as Shepherd, the Saginaw Chippewa Academy and the alternative schools took the poll. There were 169 participants in all.

This provides an enormous data base of information that will be tracked and repeated on a regular basis, establishing a baseline for the OJJDP's Tribal Youth Program Grant called "The Red Road Project."

This first awareness poll parallels a previous research study conducted in 2001 during the development of the parenting program, "Bimaadiziwin Kinoomaagewinan." In future years, the study will be compared to previous polls.

Early indications received by comparing data from the two respective research projects is promising and shows positive change in many areas. Asking the people themselves is most important and helps ensure success.

Five and a half years ago, Tribal Social Services which was renamed, "Ngodewaangiziwin"-Helping Our Families, dealt primarily with protective services. The removal rate of children was extremely high.

Then the department began to change its focus and philosophy to "prevention before intervention," which was in keeping with the national movement throughout social work across the country-which was especially recommended by organizations like the National Indian Child Welfare Association.

The department began to conduct research and develop prevention programs that would work for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. The National Indian Child Welfare Association began its call for community specific, reality based research.

Detailed research about Native Americans was sparse and generalized. Indian is Indian; there was no recognition by mainstream practitioners that Native communities are each exceptionally unique. Most data was derived from the National Census, which is primarily responsible for the generalizations.

The National Indian Health service collects data that is more specific but primarily concentrates upon health issues. The department began in 2002 by working with Bemidji Area Trends in Indian Health by tracking the ten well being indicators for Native children recommended by NICWA.

The department added one more indicator-high birth weight. The Great Lakes EpiCenter is now assisting Tribes in the development of other data collection tools targeting specific needs by helping Tribes within their communities.

As the 21st century arrived, communities began to realize the necessity of collecting their own data regarding the unique characteristics of their particular population.

The Saginaw Chippewa Tribe began this effort through our department before it became the current popular buzz word of social practitioners in Indian Country. The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe helped make it the important element of social prevention programming it is today by being on the cutting edge of prevention development for the past five years. The Tribe has been asked to present its prevention programs at national conferences both Native and mainstream.

Even organizations within Michigan did not collect the data that was defined by the unique aspects of Native communities. Native peoples had no choice but to rely upon mainstream practitioners, but as in so many other instances, the non-Native did not fulfill the need.

Developing collection methods and determining what data needs to be collected is not an easy task. It is of utmost importance that in the interest of gaining numbers, one does not neglect to get the opinions of the people one serves.

Efforts at Ngodewaangiziwin involve the members of the community to the fullest extent possible. Much of the information gathered is the direct result of interviews with community members, which statisticians call subjective data because it is subject to the feelings and beliefs of those who respond.

Statisticians are usually more interested in objective data-free from opinion of the people the data is meant to serve-but even this is beginning to change.

It is obvious that for good research both are needed. In the interest of serving a community like the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe opinions, feelings and subjective points of view offer more insight into priorities for prevention programming better than any other type of data.

Too many times, individuals have come into Native communities and told the people what they need without asking the people what they think about their needs.

No one knows their community better than the people who live there. It is inappropriate to dictate what needs to be done to help people without asking them what they think. Mainstream social practitioners have done this for decades. This is what led to the Indian Removal Act, the boarding school era and disastrous programs that were destined to fail because no one asked the people themselves. In some cases, people responded to questions with surprise, stating that no one had ever asked them what they think.

It is important to continue this direction, which has become a national trend with many jumping upon the truth of the matter after years of working in bureaucracy that did not consider it important for program development.

This Tribe has helped make the point that those who would serve the people need to ask the people how they can serve them. The Tribe should be proud of its efforts in supporting this idea and making it a national mandate for Native communities across the country.

Prevention programs like "The Red Road Project" have the potential to empower Tribal children with tools that are necessary to grow, develop and realize their full potential.

Through community specific reality based research as the National Indian Welfare Association indicates, programs are designed around the specific needs and supported by the cultural foundation of the unique Native community it is designed to serve.

"The Red Road Program" is a delinquency prevention practice that offers many tools to help the children of the Saginaw Chippewa community avoid negative interactions with the judicial systems of the Tribe and county, becoming trapped and labeled in a justice system in which their Native people are already disproportionately represented.

The type of information gained from the Tribal Youth Poll is indicated below. This is a small sampling of the information gathered from one Tribal Youth Awareness Poll in 2003.