Studying Historical Trauma Effects on Native American Children

The University of Minnesota completed several studies focusing on children’s mental health in relation to trauma. The studies were created to improve the understanding of students studying social work or welfare. The studies are most helpful to these students because the increasing number of white students studying social work need to understand the past and present of the diverse population of people they will be working with.

A 2010 study of the United States population shows about thirty percent of Native Americans in the U.S. are children. This is a higher population percent of children than any other ethnic group. Native American children are also over represented in the child welfare system in many states. With Native American children being the bulk of the Native American population, the focus of trauma really needs to be centered on the kids. Minnesota is a perfect example of a state with an over representation of Native American kids with 13% of all children in foster care, many dealing with historical trauma. A study held in 2008 showed there were 1,798 Native American children from Minnesota in out of home care. As we have discussed in class, historical trauma is pain felt across generations of a group of people. It differs from other forms of trauma because historical trauma is a shared experience, transmitted from parents to kids consciously and subconsciously.

The above population of Native American children typically suffers from historical trauma as well as microaggression. What is very interesting about trauma in children is how they exhibit the historical pain or pressure. Many kids may exhibit trauma due to similar circumstances as past generations (for example, the forced boarding school Molly discusses) but these children are also at greater risk for higher trauma when exposed to new stresses. The historical trauma felt by these Native American kids could be caused by any number of historical events their families and communities were involved in. Often, “children who have experienced historical trauma often don’t meet the PTSD diagnosis” and are diagnosed with unresolved grief, elevated drug usage rates, depression, and anxiety; which are among the many subjects social workers come across when working with this population (page 4). The article states how important it is for social work students to have a greater understanding of this specific type of trauma in order to actually help this large population of children in the Minnesota area.

Microaggression is current events that involve daily hassles, racism or discrimination targeted at a population from a diverse ethnic group. These Native American children feel Microaggression when people continuously ask ‘are you a real Indian’, act rudely about their heritage, and through verbal and physical attacks. These microaggressive actions can be suppressed on an instance-by-instance basis but the build up and continuation of this type of action daily results in stronger negative trauma than dealing with the historical trauma alone.

Campbell and Walters, two scholars on the subject, outline how the welfare system could assist this population of Native American youth. Methods they give include learning about the pre-colonial history of the youth’s community, the need for supporting community grief ceremonies, highlighting resilience in the community, and teaching the kids about the “difference between their original culture and what was forced upon them due to historical traumatic events” (page 5).

With the current population of Native Americans being child heavy the focus of the inner community and surrounding community should be on these children. With a social work or welfare system that better understands what these children may be going through or suffering from will hopefully allow for a better personal connection with the kids and greater individual assistance with historical trauma. 

Emily Thomas

Source: http://www.cmh.umn.edu/ereview/cmhereviewOct10.pdf