The three sisters garden: A cultural approach to cultivating American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) psychological service providers.

Less than 300 practicing Native American (NA) psychologists are available to support over 5.2 million American Indian and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) who reside in the U.S., according to the 2010 census (2010; Society of Indian Psychologists [SIP], 2016). The Three Sisters Model represents a training approach for NA behavioral health students to help address the need for culturally competent behavioral health services for individuals living in Indian country. The model utilizes a socially relevant approach including culture, spirituality, and education as key components to successful recruitment, retention, and training of NA behavioral health professionals. By incorporating culturally informed approaches and a culturally inclusive environment, this model provides a supportive, nurturing and affirming approach to help AI/AN students overcome challenges and complete their degrees. Upon completion, students are culturally proficient in skills which can be applied to Native communities in utilizing the Indigenous lens which can be used with tribes in the Midwestern U.S., but with local cultural adaptation it could be used in other regions. The 15 programs of the Three Sisters Model provide the steps for students to manage the completion of the steps (e.g., from high school to college) toward licensure while managing and balancing Western and Indigenous approaches to proficiency of care. The model includes supports to address barriers which have inhibited past AI/AN from reaching education and professional goals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessment of Risk and Protection in Native American Youth: Steps Toward Conducting Culturally Relevant, Sustainable Prevention in Indian Country.

Background: This study constitutes a building block in the cultural adaptation of Communities That Care (CTC), a community-based prevention system that has been found to be effective in reducing youth problem behaviors. Methods: Using the data from the CTC normative survey dataset that consists of more than quarter million youth nationwide, this study examines the reliability and validity of scores derived from the Communities That Care Youth Survey (CTC-YS), one of the primary assessment tools for gathering community data on risk and protective factors related to problem behaviors including substance use. The reliability and criterion validity analyses are conducted overall for the nationwide sample of youth as well as for the student subsample of Native American youth. Results: The results of this study indicate that the existing CTC-YS assessments of risk and protective factors in the domains of community, family, school, and peer groups as well as within individuals yield scores that are reliable and valid within the Native American sample of youth. Conclusions: This study informs the third step in the CTC prevention planning process, which involves the assessment of risk and protective factors to be targeted in preventive interventions. The question of how the assessment of risk and protective factors among Native American youth might be further improved and a description of efforts related to the cultural adaptation of the CTC program currently underway are also addressed in the discussion.