title: Creating a Community of Practice to Prevent Suicide Through Multiple Channels: Describing the Theoretical Foundations and Structured Learning of PC CARES.
abstract: It is critical to develop practical, effective, ecological, and decolonizing approaches to indigenous suicide prevention and health promotion for the North American communities. The youth suicide rates in predominantly indigenous small, rural, and remote Northern communities are unacceptably high. This health disparity, however, is fairly recent, occurring over the last 50 to 100 years as communities experienced forced social, economic, and political change and intergenerational trauma. These conditions increase suicide risk and can reduce people's access to shared protective factors and processes. In this context, it is imperative that suicide prevention includes--at its heart--decolonization, while also utilizing the "best practices" from research to effectively address the issue from multiple levels. This article describes such an approach: Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide (PC CARES). PC CARES uses popular education strategies to build a "community of practice" among local and regional service providers, friends, and families that fosters personal and collective learning about suicide prevention in order to spur practical action on multiple levels to prevent suicide and promote health. This article will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of the community intervention and describe the form that PC CARES takes to structure ongoing dialogue, learning, solidarity, and multilevel mobilization for suicide prevention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Promotion and Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wexler
authors.affiliation: The Department of Social and Human Development, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Kuskokwim Campus, USA.
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McEachern
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Promotion and Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
authors.forename: Gloria
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: DiFulvio
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
authors.forename: Cristine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Promotion and Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
authors.forename: Louis F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.affiliation: University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA.
authors.forename: Kirk
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dombrowski
mesh_terms: D000413:Alaska; D003142:Communication; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003469:Culture; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D004930:Inuit; D017145:Models, Educational; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013405:Suicide / Q000208:ethnology*; D000092864:Suicide Prevention
keywords: community education; ecological approach; indigenous; suicide prevention