Tribes and Entities Meet for Mental Health Summit

Beginning Tuesday, November 14 through Wednesday, November 15, the Oklahoma 988 Tribal Mental Health Summit was held at the Apache Casino and Resort in Lawton, Oklahoma.

Tribes, including the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations, Cherokee Nation, Muscogee Nation and Comanche Nation, were in attendance.

The summit began with 988 on a legislative level, what happens when someone calls 988 and what tribal nations are doing to get the word out to tribal members.

Blake Mosley, project director of the 988 Tribal Response at Comanche Nation Prevention and Recovery, was the speaker on behalf of the Comanche Nation.

Prevention and Recovery has received a 988 grant, funded by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, to help create a live line for handoffs.

“You dial 988, and you get the call center, which is located in Oklahoma City,” Mosley said. “They will ask you if you are a member of a federally recognized tribe or a tribe in Oklahoma, and then if you say yes and you tell them that you're Comanche and they have our call sheet, then they'll ask you if you want them to provide you services or if you'd like to be transferred to your tribal resources. And if you say you want to be transferred to tribal resources, they'll put you on a brief, brief hold, get a hold of us on that number that we have and say, ‘Hey we have a tribal member on the phone, they're needing resources and help, are you available to take the call?’ And we tell them ‘Yes,’ and then they'll transfer you over and then we'll kind of go through what's going on if you're like in major crisis where you need to be picked up and taken to a center or if you just need to talk to somebody, whatever the situation is for you, whatever your crisis is, we'll go from there and we'll evaluate and see what needs to be done in order to get you the help that you need.”

They check in once a month with SAMHSA to make sure everything is going smoothly.

But outside of creating a direct line, there are other aspects of the grant as well, including transportation to and from mental health facilities and 988 awareness, according to Mosley.

“That is in our plans when we get the onboarding and stuff done for the staff that we need to see if we can have a mobile crisis unit, which would be those people that when we receive that call and if that tribal member is in crisis to go and pick them up and get them transferred somewhere,” she said. “Because if not, worst case scenario, is a police officer goes and picks you up, and that just adds to the trauma that you're already experiencing or the crisis that you're experiencing. And so, they are trained professionals, but then you call us, and we have either a peer recovery support specialist on staff or we have a licensed behavioral health professional on staff, and they can come pick you up and get you where you need to go and talk about that instead of a police officer coming and pick me up and maybe adding to trauma.”

The first grant focused on cultural competency training for the Solari call center, which works with 988, in Oklahoma City as well as workforce development.

“And they have a second one that they just awarded that came out that Prevention and Recovery was also awarded, and it's directed specifically toward the youth, and so this one that we have now is for everybody,” Mosley said. “We do whatever we need. If you call, we're going to help you, but they're going to do more youth-related things and prevention and intervention and things with them with the youth grant.”

She said 988 can be called at any time.

“If you just need someone to talk to or if you're just having a bad day or any of that sort of thing, there are there the professionals at the call center are there to answer any type of questions to help you with any sort of thing,” Mosley said. “So then if you're having a bad day and you don't even know where to start, but you think you need help or you want to start seeking therapy services or counseling services, they're going to be able to ask you where you're at and then provide resources for that area to get you the help that you need.”

Project Director of the 988 Tribal Response Grant Donald Ramos said the summit was to bring together tribal grantees.

“There was originally nine. There are 11 tribal grantees in the state of Oklahoma, and bringing the summit here to southwest Oklahoma, where it's the Comanche Nation, and the Wichita affiliate tribes are the closest tribes in the southwest area, and bringing the summit here brings our tribal community within southwest Oklahoma the opportunity to share that messaging to our native people here at home,” he said.

Nine hundred eighty-eight replaced the old suicide hotline.

“The new call number 988 replaced the old suicide hotline. At one time the suicide hotline number was 1-800-273-8255. It's kind of a mouthful there. It's a hard number for some to remember,” Ramos said. “So, there was a proposed change to change it to a three-digit number years ago, and it finally came to be that it came live in July of 2022 to 988. So, we're a little over a year now with 988 being live and using 988 in place of the old suicide hotline number and in Oklahoma we use 988 as a mental health lifeline number.”

The 988 number is answered in Oklahoma for Oklahomans to call.

“It's us helping our people in our state with people that are in our state, so I think it's invaluable and I think it builds trust within our native community our tribal people that help is available for our people,” he said.

Ramos said it felt it makes it easier for people to reach out and ask for help.

“I know that the stigma is there, and I know it's a scary deal to do sometimes to reach out and ask for help because they're unsure,” he said. “You know I can assure them that help is available so that once they make that call our goal is that there's a warm handoff from the moment they make the call until they are connected to a mental health professional.”

There have been 50,000 calls and, since July 2023, 5,000 texts from people in need.

Summit attendees discussed personal experiences, broke into groups to talk about mental health issues and discussed with a panel about 988 needs.

Dinner was served with a comedy show and gourd dancing to close out the day.