The medicine wheel is a well known Indigenous Intervention. The areas in this sacred circle include emotional, mental, physical and spiritual. Often the spiritual connection is minimized or avoided because many may not feel comfortable or knowledgeable to address this area and or confuse it with religion. This is an essential component to address when looking at suicide prevention. To help the individual to identify and align their actions, beliefs and values is an essential component to achieve balance and healing.
For this presentation we will focus on
LaVonne Fox Peltier, PhD
LaVonne is the Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Turtle Mountain Tribal Community College in Belcourt, ND. She was born and raised on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa reservation. She has considerable experience working with children, youth, and young adults with mental health issues in mental health facilities. Her focus and passion areas are developing Indigenous culturally based interventions to address mental health issues. She also stresses the need to focus on strength-based approaches versus commonly used deficit-based practices.
