SAMHSA won't renew suicide prevention grant
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Filed Under:
Health
The
Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration won't renew a $1.5 million suicide prevention grant for the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
despite 51 suicide attempts on the reservation this year alone.
Chairman Ron His Horse Is Thunder said the tribe applied for a competitive grant to continue the
Oniyapi Program. He said grant readers didn't consider the tribe to be a high priority for funding.
"We were simply not refunded," His Horse Is Thunder told The Bismarck Tribune. "It's a competitive grant application. It was not 'lost' by something we did wrong. The application was scored by independent readers hired by the federal government."
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North
Dakota), the chairman of the
Senate Indian Affairs
Committee, is seeking emergency funds to continue the program, which is administered through the
North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services.
The tribe will appeal the grant denial through SAMHSA.
Get the Story:
Standing Rock loses suicide grant
(The Bismarck Tribune 9/30)
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