US EditionHeavy Metal as Medicine: Blackfeet Educators Use Music to Prevent Suicide, Process Grief
BLACKFEET RESERVATION, MONTANA, JUN 20 – A new class and music festival use heavy metal to teach coping skills and suicide prevention, addressing a nearly 20% rise in suicide rates among American Indian youth, experts say.
- Two public schools located on the Blackfeet Reservation have introduced an 18-week heavy music course designed to address suicide prevention.
- The class arose amid a suicide crisis more severe on Montana tribal lands, where American Indian youth suicide rates have risen nearly 20% since 2015.
- The course, created by Firekeeper Alliance, encourages students to face emotional pain using music and healthy coping methods, integrating community perspectives on grief.
- A 2017 survey conducted among residents of the Blackfeet Reservation revealed that approximately one-third of eighth-grade students at Browning Middle School had attempted suicide, and a 2021 CDC report indicated that suicide mortality among American Indian girls aged 15 to 19 was over five times higher than that of their White counterparts.
- The class’s effort connects with Fire in the Mountains, a heavy music festival on the reservation scheduled for July 25-27, whose proceeds will fund local suicide prevention programs.
13 Articles
13 Articles
The Billings Gazette
Heavy metal as medicine: Blackfeet educators use music to prevent suicide, process grief
Facing darkness head-on is the guiding principle of a new semester-long class at two schools on the Blackfeet Reservation.
How educators on the Blackfeet Reservation are using (very) heavy metal to prevent suicide and process grief
Editor’s note: This story contains discussions about suicide, depression and grief. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, the 988 hotline is available 24/7 by phone, text message, online chat or video phone. Inside a Browning High School classroom on an afternoon in May, about two dozen students watched a music video by Carcass, a deathgrind band formed in 1985. Deathgrind, as instructor Charlie Speicher had explained to …
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