skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, April 26, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Louisiana teachers' union concerned about educators' future; Supreme Court hears arguments in Trump immunity case; court issues restraining order against fracking waste-storage facility; landmark NE agreement takes a proactive approach to CO2 pipeline risks.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Speaker Johnson accuses demonstrating students of getting support from Hamas. TikTok says it'll challenge the ban. And the Supreme Court dives into the gray area between abortion and pregnancy healthcare, and into former President Trump's broad immunity claims.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The urban-rural death divide is widening for working-age Americans, many home internet connections established for rural students during COVID have been broken, and a new federal rule aims to put the "public" back in public lands.

Report Highlights State of Native Youth

play audio
Play

Tuesday, November 28, 2017   

HELENA, Mont. – A new report assesses the state of native youth in Montana and across the country. The second annual report from the Aspen Institute's Center for Native American Youth, this year titled "Our Identities as Civic Power" combines surveys and research to identify pressing issues for young people in native communities. At the top of the list is mental health.

Erik Stegman, executive director of the Center for Native American Youth, says the rate of suicide and suicide attempts for native youth is about two-and-a-half times that of the national rate for youth. The report highlights the importance of culture in prevention.

"No matter whether you're in Montana or anywhere else, the key to any of these interventions has to be culture and language," he explains. "Native youth know that culture and language is a protective factor and they do as many different things as they can to figure out how to really strengthen culture and language to help to do things like preventing suicide."

The report also looks at systems involving youth - such as foster care and criminal justice - education and jobs, and the environment and protecting indigenous lands.

Closely involved with the report were young people known as Generation Indigenous ambassadors who live and work in native communities.

One of those ambassadors is TaNeel Filesteel, the 22-year-old deputy prosecutor for the Fort Belknap reservation in north-central Montana. She focuses on the relationship between bullying and the criminal justice system and says some of the kids who bullied her in school are now being prosecuted by her office.

Filesteel says it's part of a behavioral pattern her office is addressing through its Recidivism Reduction Initiative, which also is providing culturally relevant programming to help both the youths in court and their families.

"It's really, I feel like, a healing process, if we're going to label it anything because the objective is to really heal and to interrupt the pattern so that they don't commit other offenses later on," she says.

Civic engagement is the major theme of the report. Stegman says the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline last year have empowered native youth movements. He highlights a quote from a young person in the report on those protests.

"'This is really a renaissance for native youth,'" Stegman quotes. "You know, one of the things that we definitely saw - and we detail in the report this year - is a lot of momentum happening at Standing Rock. It has certainly continued on, and it's gotten stronger now."


get more stories like this via email

more stories
The United Nations experts also expressed concern over a Chemours application to expand PFAS production in North Carolina. (Adobe Stock)

play sound

United Nations experts are raising concerns about chemical giants DuPont and Chemours, saying they've violated human rights in North Carolina…


Social Issues

play sound

The long-delayed Farm Bill could benefit Virginia farmers by renewing funding for climate-smart investments, but it's been held up for months in …

Environment

play sound

Conservation groups say the Hawaiian Islands are on the leading edge of the fight to preserve endangered birds, since climate change and habitat loss …


Jane Kleeb is director and founder of Bold Alliance, an umbrella organization of Bold Nebraska, which was instrumental in stopping the Keystone Pipeline. Kleeb is also one of two 2023 Climate Breakthrough Awardees. (Bold Alliance)

Environment

play sound

CO2 pipelines are on the increase in the United States, and like all pipelines, they come with risks. Preparing for those risks is a major focus of …

Environment

play sound

April has been "Invasive Plant Pest and Disease Awareness Month," but the pests don't know that. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it's the …

Legislation to curtail the union membership rights of about 50,000 public school educators in Lousiana has the backing of some business and national conservative groups. (wavebreak3/Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Leaders of a teachers' union in Louisiana are voicing concerns about a package of bills they say would have the effect of dissolving labor unions in t…

Health and Wellness

play sound

The 2024 Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium Public Conference kicks off Saturday, where industry experts and researchers will share the latest scientific …

Environment

play sound

Environmental groups say more should be done to protect people's health from what they call toxic, radioactive sludge. A court granted a temporary …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021