Wac’inyeya: Hope Among American Indian Youth

Abstract

This article examines what gives American Indian youth hope. The project included 56 rural tribal youth in focus groups across a Northern Plains reservation. The participants completed a Youth Personal Balance Tool to provide perspective on the balance according to a medicine wheel model of their lives. The focus groups asked questions from a strengthsbased perspective about what gives them hope and how they could show others they were hopeful. The project culminated with the youth developing creative representations of hope and presenting these projects to family and community.

Indigenous Youth and Resilience in Canada and the USA: a Scoping Review

“…The studies selected for inclusion from the literature had a variety of different methods used to collect data. There were 26 that followed a primarily qualitative research design (Bruner et al, 2019 ; Fraser et al, 2015 ; Freeman, 2017 ; Goodkind et al, 2012 ; Hatala et al, 2017 , 2019 , 2020 ; Isaacson, 2018 ; Kral et al, 2014 ; Krieg, 2016 ; McMahon et al, 2013 ; Morton et al, 2020 ; Njeze et al, 2020 ; Ranahan & Yuen, 2017 ; Rasmus et al, 2014 ; Sasakamoose et al, 2016 ; Strickland & Cooper, 2011 ; Trout et al, 2018 ; Ulturgasheva et al, 2014 ; Ungar et al, 2008 ; Victor et al, 2016 ; Wexler, 2014 ; Wexler et al, 2013 , 2014 , 2016 ; Wood et al, 2018 ); 8 followed a quantitative design (Ames et al, 2015 ; Baldwin et al, 2011 ; Barnett et al, 2020 ; Fitzgerald et al 2017 ; Gray et al, 2016 ; Kenyon & Carter, 2011 ; Mohatt et al 2011 ; Snowshoe et al, 2017 ); and 10 were mixed methods studies (Clark et al, 2013 ; Gray et al, 2019 ; Harder et al, 2015 ; Ruttan et al, 2008 ; Pertucka et al, 2016 ; Ritchie et al, 2015 ; Sam et al, 2015 ; Stumblingbear-Riddle, 2012 ; Tiessen et al, 2009 ; Yeh et al, 2015 ). Community-consulted focus groups that used open-ended, semi-structured interviews were the most commonly used in qualitative and mixed-methods studies.…”

“…Quantitative studies focused primarily on the outcomes of mental health (particularly depressive symptoms, suicidal ideations), and protective factors measured at a single time point (Ames et al, 2015 ; Barnett et al, 2020 ; Gray et al, 2016 , 2019 ; Kenyon & Carter, 2011 ). Mental health was measured using validated questionnaires, primarily Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Ames et al, 2015 ; Baldwin et al, 2011 ), WHO Survey of Health Behaviours in School-Aged Children (Ames et al, 2015 ), General-Self Scale of the March Self-Description Questionnaire (Ames et al, 2015 ), General Mattering Scale (Barnett et al, 2020 ), and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Barnett et al, 2020 ; Kenyon & Carter, 2011 ; Tiessen et al, 2009 ).…”

“…Of the 44 studies included, 14 did not provide an explicit definition of resilience, these studies used a general concept of resilience (Ames et al, 2015 ; Clark et al, 2013 ; Fraser et al, 2015 ; Gray et al, 2016 ; Harder et al, 2015 ; Kenyon & Carter, 2011 ; Krieg, 2016 ; Morton et al, 2020 ; Pertucka et al, 2016 ; Ranahan and Yuen, 2017 ; Snowshoe et al, 2017 ; Strickland and Cooper, 2011 ; Tiessen et al, 2009 ; Trout et al, 2018 ). In many studies, resilience was defined along Western conceptualizations, reflecting adaptive coping and persistence strategies (Gray et al, 2019 ; Hatala et al, 2020 ; Njeze et al, 2020 ; Ruttan et al, 2008 ; Ritchie et al, 2015 ; Sam et al, 2015 ; Sasakamoose et al, 2016 ; Stumblingbear-Riddle, 2012 ; Ungar et al, 2008 ; Wexler, 2014 ; Yeh et al, 2015 ). Other Western resilience concepts included the following: self-esteem, future orientation, positive mental health, mattering, and personal identity (Fitzgerald et al, 2017 ; Hatala et al, 2017 ; Ulturgasheva et al, 2014 ).…”

“…In Indigenous-specific approaches, resilience was identified as “beyond health,” and more closely aligned with an individual’s intrinsic spirit and hope (Bruner et al, 2019 ; Kral et al, 2014 ; Victor et al, 2016 ). Looking at intrinsic factors/strategies (Table 2 ), youth who reported high-self-esteem, optimism, positive cultural identity, sense of belonging, sense of accomplishment, taking personal responsibility, and self-reliance, all had higher resilience when faced with stressors (Ames et al, 2015 ; Baldwin et al, 2011 ; Barnett et al, 2020 ; Clark et al, 2013 ; Gray et al, 2019 ; Hatala et al, 2017 ; Harder et al, 2015 ; Kenyon & Carter, 2011 ; Mohatt et al, 2011 ; Fraser et al, 2015 ; Stumblingbear-Riddle, 2012 ; Tiessen et al, 2009 ; Ulturgasheva et al, 2014 ; Ungar et al, 2008 ; Wexler et al, 2014 ). Definitions from micro-system perspectives on resilience are found in Table 2 .…”

The Collaborative Research Center for American Indian Health’s Partnership River of Life: Special Issue Introduction

“…The final section of the issue holds contributions from several CRCAIH pilot grant program (Becker, Heinzmann, & Kenyon, 2018) awardees. These papers detail important findings exploring concepts of Wicozani (overall health and well-being; Peters, Peterson, & the Dakota Wicohan Community, 2019), Wac’inyeya (hope for the future; Gray, Schrader, Isaacs, Smith, & Bender, 2019), and describes two parts of the intervention project, We RISE: indicators of health behavior change (McCormack, O’Leary, Moran, & Hockett, 2019) and development of a resource guide and training (O’Leary et al, 2019).…”