Page 29 - Catholic Extension Magazine - Spring 2016

LEFT Poverty and addiction are major contrib- uting factors to the high suicide rate on the Rosebud Reservation.
Catholic Extension helped build St. Francis Church (shown in the background) in 1910.
ment rates in the country— about 83 percent— and Todd County, where Rosebud is located, is the third poorest county in the United States. Domestic violence, sexual assault and gang violence have also been identi ed as major factors contributing to despair and suicide on the reservation.
Provencial is part of the rst group of people whose salary Catholic Extension is helping to pay through a new Health Ministry Salary Subsidy Initiative. Started last fall, the initiative was made possible by an anonymous gift from a foundation.
Catholic Extension has had a long-standing relationship with St. Francis Mission, going back to helping build the mission in 1910. Today Catholic Extension helps fund the mission’s healing and recovery ministries.
According to its president, Jesuit Father John Hatcher, the mission’s strong focus on healing ministries has come from asking the ques- tion, “Where are people hurting, and how can the Church minister to them?” Addressing alcoholism and the suicide epidemic are top priorities.
“ rough the hotline, we’ve been able to intervene with people who are in extreme danger of kill- ing or hurting themselves or being hurt by someone else,” Father Hatcher said. “Once we’ve sent out emergency vehicles, we can follow up with them and continue the healing.”
St. Francis Mission is one out- standing example of how even in a place where pain and su ering run so deep, mercy must know no bounds.
hope, so that, in turn, she can help others and “be there for them when those kinds of thoughts cross their minds.” She has also found that “faith is a huge piece in people’s recovery and helps them to nd what they are seeking. The Catholic faith can give a person something they can lean on to nd direction in their lives and be er their lives.”
On the 24/7 hotline, she and her trained volunteers talk both with individuals who are contemplating suicide and with family members concerned that someone may be thinking about ending his or her life. “ e hotline is providing that last grasp of hope. Some of the individ- uals will ask for prayers for strength to help them get through their most di cult time, which is part of the reason why they reach out to us.”
In emergency situations, “the main priority is to keep the person on the line and talking. is could mean being on the phone for a
couple of hours.” e responders work to identify the caller’s loca- tion and to get the tribal police to get him or her to the local Indian Health Services emergency room for mental health and support services.
“When people in crisis call,” Provencial said, “we never know what type of call it is going to be. Some of the callers just need some- one to listen to them.”
Provencial also directs the Ici- mani Ya Waste’ (Lakota for “Good journey”) Recovery Center, where she facilitates a monthly, four- day program to tackle the family dynamics involved in addiction and holds recovery-related meet- ings and 12-step programs.
Drug and alcohol abuse, 10 times the national rate, is a major con- tributing factor to the reservation’s high suicide rate, and both are root- ed in a larger bleak socio-economic reality. e Rosebud Reservation has one of the highest unemploy-
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n To view a Catholic Extension video featuring St. Francis Mission, visit catholicextension.org/NativeAmerican.