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SABINA GALLIER:

Joining me in the studios is Allison Robbins, Executive Director of the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Education Agency. Thank you so much for joining me.

ALLISON ROBBINS:

Thank you for having me here today.

GALLIER:

And for those of us that are not familiar, please describe the work that the Tribal Education Agency does.

ROBBINS:

Well, the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Education Agency serves school districts in Humboldt and Delmore County primarily, and we provide supplemental educational services for all students, not just Native students, assisting them in finding their career pathways and their goals. We call it the Modern Youth Internship Academies program for older students, 6th grade through 12th grade, and we call it the Pathmakers program for students kindergarten through 8th grade, so there's an overlap where they transition, and our services focus mainly around education, but also about life skills development.

GALLIER:

And part of life is dealing with stress. Most of life these days is dealing with stress. And stress can take us to some very, very upsetting places. And school is an exciting environment for all ages, but can be extremely stressful. And mental health services are extremely important and should be accessible for students.

But when I was a kid, I was going through very stressful thoughts, very concerning thoughts. I reached out to a teacher I trusted, and they couldn't direct me to anybody. But they said that I could go and have lunch with them whenever I felt like I was alone. So I did. But as an adult, I wish that they had been able to direct me to somebody who could have professionally helped me at the time. It's extremely important for educators to understand. So what is in place as far as the Tribal Education Agency to ensure that students' mental health needs are met in a safe, professional environment?

ROBBINS:

Well, as we don't have any mental health professionals on staff, we work with established agencies that provide mental health services, such as United Indian Health Services or Two Feathers Family. Do you know about Two Feathers? Two Feathers is wonderful. But we also work with other agencies around the county.

I sit on the interagency leadership team with Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services, and if there is an issue, we utilize our connections with them to tap into county services that are available. So depending on the student's needs and their preferred organization, be that United Indian Health Services, Two Feathers, or through the county, we connect students to those resources that way, because we don't have the capacity to provide mental health services at this time.

GALLIER:

So are you, do you wish that there were more services within the county that could help? Or are you, are you, do you feel like you have the support necessary when you need to reach out to people?

ROBBINS:

Well, I would say I have the support necessary when I need to reach out to people. There's two sides to that. There are people here available to do counseling and things like that, but for students who need long-term mental health services, perhaps they need some rehabilitation services that would require additional help. There are not many places to go here in Humboldt County. Sempervirens is not a place for children. For even young adults, that's not a good place. So what do we do? And some kids are sent out of county and sent to Southern California or out of state to receive drug treatment or other mental health services.

GALLIER:

So that's quite traumatizing to have to go so far from home for help, which a lot, like, I mean, being in Humboldt County, that's just something that comes with Humboldt County for a lot of different things, but for a child or for a young adult, that is, that is a horrifying situation to be in.

ROBBINS:

This topic is a very sensitive topic and that's why I'm trying to approach it carefully because it's hard to talk about, particularly the topic of self-harm. That is a taboo and it makes it even more difficult to address.

GALLIER:

Especially with children who feel like they don't ... I mean like definitely as a child I felt like I had less autonomy when it came to reaching out, and I felt like I couldn't I felt like people were going to be angry with me when they discovered what was happening, what I was doing, and it just felt so so lonely, and so to to have to for a kid to have to pick up their life and continue to be lonely in a completely different environment is so traumatizing.

Yeah, and it's it and you know, we try very very hard to to especially these days I feel like from from when I was a kid, there's a lot more effort in validating kids feelings, but there's still this like line of thought like oh, they're a kid. They're young. What do they have to worry about? What bills do they have to pay? Like, well, what are they so sad about? And I wish that type of thought would just evaporate, because no matter how young you are you are still a human being. You still hurt.

ROBBINS:

Well, and there's a lot of people that don't realize that we've asked today's youth to step up in so many different ways that 40 years ago we weren't. I can think of numerous cases where I've met with children and they seem down, I go, what's wrong? Just, you can talk to me. I've got two ears, one mouth, I'm engaged to listen, go for it. And they just spill, you know, I'm tired of mom and dad partying all the time, I'm tired of having to take care of my little baby sister all the time, I'm, and they're eight years old, right? And they're, mom and dad are, you know, partying and they have to help with their baby sister changing diapers, feeding them, bathing them, and they're exhausted. I mean, they're eight.

GALLIER:

Eight-year-olds should not be doing all of that, should not have the weight of the world on their shoulders.

ROBBINS:

And that just continues on as they get into middle school and high school and we ask more of them and we ask them to do more and be more and be present. And they've got a whole other world at home that they're dealing with and they come to school and we wonder why are they falling asleep in class? Why aren't they engaged? Why are they quiet? And just asking kids, what's wrong? What's happening? Not so much what's wrong, what's happening? And then just listening and letting them tell you. You'll hear that there is a decided lack of hope. They don't see a future.

They feel unheard. And if they do feel like, oh, they heard me, they don't feel anybody's taking them seriously because of their age, because they're children. No one's listening really. Oh, you heard me but you didn't hear and understand me. You said, oh yeah, you're tired. You're a kid, you don't know what tired is. No, they know what tired is. They've identified that. I'm tired, they need to sleep. That's why the kid's falling asleep in class or they didn't have breakfast. You know, their family's not feeding them. They have concerns and so when you take that and you say, I'm not getting food, I'm not getting sleep, no one's listening to me, I have no hope for the future, what does that do to a child's mental health, right?

So in our program, what we try to do is listen to kids, meet them where they're at, and then give them opportunities for them to develop relationships with people so they can have conversations and be heard and listened to and understood. That's number one. And then giving them the opportunities to build what we call self-efficacy, right? They have a belief in themselves that they have these skills and they have hope that they can do these things in the future and so we take them and we do projects with them and we do mentoring things with them.

A lot of that comes through self-expression, through art. One of our art teachers, she works with them on all different kinds of art, everything from beadwork to murals, anything that can reach that child and say, express yourself, right? And they go, well, I don't know. I've never learned how to do pottery. I've never learned how to do beadwork. I can't, and we eliminate that I can't and let's try, let's just try. And, oh, I failed. Failure is a great teacher and you learn a lot from failure, so it's okay to fail. Just be resilient and pick yourself up and try again. And no one's gonna judge you. That's the great thing. Art is completely subjective. No one's gonna judge you for expressing your art. So express yourself, which a lot of these kids don't get to express themselves. They get to express themselves. They get to explore. They learn some new skills. And in the end, they go, hey, I did that. I did that thing. And we go, look at you, look what you've done. That's great. All the possibilities. All the possibilities.

And we encourage them to see themselves as more than what they are currently seeing themselves as, that there is a future, there is hope, someone is listening, and we just engage with the kids. Do you know what I mean? Engagement. And we make sure that they see themselves in the outside world more. You asked me what are some of the things our program does, and I gave you a very quick elevator pitch answer. But to see what we do, you'd have to go to the classrooms and see what we're trying to do there. And one of those things is making a culturally and linguistically responsive classroom that acknowledges the children as who they are, because representation matters, okay?

They're not gonna, they may not see that in their classroom teacher, because not all teachers can be every race, right? But we can provide materials, we can provide role models, we can provide people to come to the classroom so they can say, oh, I've met someone who looks like me, who sounds like me, who came from a background like me, who's now a doctor, who now runs his own business, who mentors and teaches other people. They can be inspired by that. They can meet that person and develop a relationship with that mentor or that role model, because they need to see that there's hope. And having that opportunity, that just needs to happen, and it's not happening in schools as often as it should. And so that's where our program, I said we come in and we do supplemental educational program services. That's what I'm talking about. We bring culture to the classroom. We bring opportunity for kids to explore themselves and for lack of a better term, vent. You know, they get to go, ah, this is what I need, who I am, help me, and we do what we can too.

GALLIER:

And it's so important to create an encouraging and welcoming and loving environment because children, we become such a product of the environments that we experience. And, you know, that's where like ACEs comes from, like Adverse Child Experiences. You know, the environments that they were raised in, that they grew up around, that they went to, all of them impacting how they're going to be as adults. And so to have a place to go, especially where, you know, school was very daunting, like, good to me, school's daunting to a lot of people, to go to a place where you know you're going to be safe is so important.

Now, the environments outside of the environment that you're creating, people out in the world who have kids, who know kids, who deal with kids, people who are not involved in education, but still have this kind of this mindset of, well, kids are kids are kids. What they, well, you know, are they paying a PG&E bill? No, they're not. But what tools do you wish people like that had when it came to dealing with the mental health of youth?

ROBBINS:

Well, at first I would like to dissuade people from thinking that kids don't worry about bills. Okay, that I want to dissuade that, because we have several students that we employ through our Modern Youth Internship Academies program, and we pay them a wage, it's a paid internship. And I have several of those students that tell me that that helps support their family, that pays some of the bills. So and they sought out the internship because they knew that we would be flexible enough to work around their school schedule so they could earn a little money to help their family.

So here I have 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds worried about no electric bill and no food and things of that nature. So yeah, people that don't acknowledge that children worry about the bills, I want to dissuade people from that right now, because kids watch and they worry and they're concerned. What I would tell people also is that they have to first remove that blinder, because if by having that blinder they're not aware of what the needs are, so that's number one. But I would also tell them that there are services out there. In the tribal communities I would go to their rancherias, their tribal councils, their programs within their tribe. There are many different services for families in need, particularly like we're talking about the food insecurity. There's various programs to help with food insecurity.

But they need to address the root cause of the child's concern, because you can put a child into counseling, but if you don't address the root cause of that child's need for counseling, the fact that there's no food on the table is causing these mental health issues, their concerns about money, insecurity, lack of hope. We've got to address those. So a lot of people are like, stick kids in counseling, put them on medication, and I'm like, well that's addressing the symptoms, but let's talk about the cause. And so I try to focus on what can we do to address what's causing these issues, and also at the same time, providing the mental health connections for them to discuss and work through and develop tools for dealing with their issues. So does that help with you? Well, I mean, people always go, well how do you get, it's like, well first let's back up.

GALLIER:

Because there's so much of a idea that, well, if we see immediately what's on the surface, if we fix that, then maybe that'll give someone the tools to work through their problems. But if you don't go to the foundation of what is happening, it's just a Band-Aid, it's just a Band-Aid on the surface. If you don't go down, down, down, and try to help them with what has started all of this, it is just, it's gonna remain. It's gonna remain, it's gonna be stuck. Yep.

ROBBINS:

Exactly.

GALLIER:

The California Department of Health and Human Services Office of Suicide Prevention has started the Never a Bother campaign. It's a website specifically to reach out to teens and young adults and provide resources to that part of the population that may feel like they don't have options or they can't reach out. What do you think about the state's efforts to focus on these demographics? Do you think it's a long time coming? Do you think that there's been a past effort?

ROBBINS:

Well, I'm appreciative that this is happening because it's so very needed. I think that more people are becoming aware of mental health needs and that it's about time that the state's doing this. I'm not gonna say too little too late because no, I don't ever believe that. I say welcome to the party. Welcome to what we've been working on for a while now and I'm glad that you've joined us. So hop on in and get working. So that's good.

So I'm not gonna belittle what the state is attempting to do. I think it's a great thing. I think we all know that Humboldt County has had a higher incident of self-harm, the rate of self-harm, for years. We know that years ago, I wanna say around 2016, 17, 18, right in that range, it was so bad on the Yurok Reservation that the Yurok Tribal Council issued an emergency, they said we're in a state of emergency because of the numbers of self-harm suicides that were happening on the Yurok Reservation at that time. So it's a known issue. It has been an issue for many, many, many years and I'm glad the state is stepping up to address it because our young people need help and they need to have multiple different resources they can turn to.

This is a small community and sometimes you feel uneasy about going to X, Y, Z place because so-and-so's auntie works there and you don't want her to see you walking into that place or getting those services because you're embarrassed by it. Having alternatives where people can feel safe to reach out to, by all means, the more the better.

GALLIER:

Do you have any words for local youth when it comes to mental health resources and what would you like for them to feel coming away from this interview if they're listening? What would you hope for them in the future?

ROBBINS:

Oof! Well, first I want to ask the youth to hold on to some hope and while it can be difficult, not be afraid to ask for help. I think that's a very big challenge for some people as they are afraid they will be judged if they say I'm, I've reached my capacity, I can't deal anymore, I'm having these thoughts, they feel they might be judged. We will not judge you, not at all, and we want people to know, youth, their parents, their guardians, it's okay to say I need help. It's necessary, you need to say it because that's part of your acknowledging that you need assistance. Acknowledging that you need assistance is important and that's beginning your health recovery and journey towards recovery.

So I would say number one, we're here to help, we have no judgment at all and asking you to take that chance on us is a hard thing sometimes and it's okay to be afraid to do it but we'll be right there with you the whole way and it'll be okay. That's just let them know and sometimes you have to take those chances and it might be scary but we'll be right there with you.

GALLIER:

I'm happy and reassured to know that there is a place that that kids can go to. There's resources to reach out to. It is such a small county and there is that for everyone that there is that feeling of like shame. Yes. The shame is the worst part of it and there's no shame in wanting to help yourself.

ROBBINS:

If I can share something with you, we had a student a few years ago when we first started our program, and we were brand spanking new, so we didn't have a lot of resources back in that day. But the student, they were coming to work every day, they were, I would think, doing a good job. I got to see what they were doing, and it was like, good job, you're doing great. But we didn't see what was happening below the surface with that student until the day that they went to the bathroom and decided to swallow an entire bottle of aspirin. And they walked out to the work site, and they said, I just went to the bathroom and I took a whole bottle of aspirin. And we all went, what? And they were a bit like, I want it to hurt, they wanted to hurt themselves, it's hard to talk about.

Our crew snapped into action right then, and we took the student to the hospital and had their stomach pumped and made sure that they were okay, and got them services. And what we could do was assist with them transitioning in and out of school because that was hard. They had some medical needs after the incident. And we kept them on, we were there for them, we're not punishing you for this call for help, which is what it was. And we said, What's going on? And they were very reluctant to tell us what was going on in their life at home. And it came out that a lot of things were happening at home.

And through this incident that happened, we re-evaluated what it means to be engaged with a student. And that's why when you asked me, What do I want to tell students? That student was afraid to tell us what was happening at home. And after they did, and we were able to provide services for them, they were like, I don't know why I didn't tell you in the first place, I was just afraid. So I want to go back to saying, you know, sometimes it's hard to conquer that fear, to come out and tell somebody you need help. And please don't take that action. And don't don't swallow that bottle of pills. You don't have to go there. So before you go there, come talk to us. I'm sorry. It's like— That's why I agreed to come on this interview, because I've seen our children go through this quite literally, and people need to recognize the need that exists. These are children, and they shouldn't have to do this, so I'm sorry.

GALLIER:

Oh, no, no, no. I truly hope that people come away from this with not only a lot more information, but a lot more hope. This is a very hard topic. No, it's, I knew that it was gonna be difficult when I took it on.

ROBBINS:

When you talk to Corby and she tells you about one of the other students we have in our program still currently, the other person, they have matriculated, they've gone on, they're adults now because it was right before COVID, so it's been five years. They're an adult now, and they're living their life, and I'm very happy for them. But we still have students currently in the program that have graduated, and some people are like, well, don't you, you know, you're a K-12 program once they graduate, don't you just let them go?

And no, we don't. I just had one that graduated and she's moving down to the Bay Area, and she reached out to me and she said, can I still be an intern? Can I work? And I said, well, let's talk about what you can do and how we can stay on this pathway we have with you. And she's like, well, I want to open a Native American club at my college because they don't have one, and I want to help other kids, and you helped me so much, and I want to help others. And I was like, that is the goal of our program, right? Unity, community, and kinship, and a network of support and caring. And if she wants to help other kids, well, yes, I'll keep you on as an intern, and we'll mentor you in advocacy, and outreach, and networking, and then you can help others.

So I know, and she was a wonderful student, I know that there are kids out there that want to help others, and when you empower them to help themselves, and then they can help others, then that's part of the solution.

GALLIER:

The impact is forever.

ROBBINS:

Yes, yes. And it's not about here's a Band-Aid, like you were talking about, like here's medication, here's counseling, here's a Band-Aid. Giving them the ability to develop tools for themselves through our program, through connections, through our program, allowing them to explore what it means to who they are and what hopes they have for the future, and then determining what success means for them.

Because a lot of people, here's part of that they have no hope, right? Whereas they they're like, well successful means this. Well why does success mean that? Why does success have to mean this thing that somebody else defined, that you have to reach this target, otherwise you're a failure? No, no, that's what success means to them. What does success mean to you? What do you value as something that means success in your life, for you? It's not all about money. So are you happy? Is that what you define as successful? Do you feel empowered? Is that what you define as successful? Do you have control over your food on your table, and the money in your pocket, and the car that you drive, and where you sleep? If that kind of control is what you deem as successful, then that's what you're going to deem as successful, and what you're going to work towards. And if that is what gives you hope, well then let's work with you on that. Do you see what I mean?

So a lot of it is removing labels, you know, this is successful, and this is a failure, and this means this, and this, and defining what you mean by who you are, and what's important to you.

GALLIER:

If there are educators or families that want to reach out to the agency, find out more information, find out how they can connect with the services there, how would they do so?

ROBBINS:

Well, there are multiple ways to do that. We do have our website where we have all of our staff's email information as well as their phone number contacts. You can reach out to our staff directly. We do have a general mailbox that you can email us, tribaled at bluelakegrancheriansn.gov, and that is looked at by numerous members of staff. So if you don't know who to talk to, you can email us there and say, I would like to be contacted by someone who could help me with, and then you list what you want to help with and provide us with some contact information on how we can get in contact with you.

Phone, email, whatever works, you know, we'll do that. And you can always call the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribal Office, area code 707-668-5101, and ask for the Tribal Education Agency, and you'll be sent over to our voicemail. Most of us are mobile because we work in the school, so we're not always at the tribal office. So you call and we're not there, it's because, oh, I'm at Eureka High, or I'm at Fortuna High, or I'm at, you know, Sunnybrae Middle School, I could be anywhere, and same with my staff. So, yeah, that's the best way to get us is either through email or with calling the tribal office and having them direct to our voicemail, and we'll pick it up when we're on the road.

GALLIER:

Thank you so much for talking with me today. I know this is a very difficult subject and it's something that I'm sure you see all the time. So I hope that this reaches the right, the people it needs to. I hope this reaches the educators it needs to who could benefit from learning how to help their students. I hope it reaches the families that it needs to for understanding that they may have so much going on and understanding how that can impact the children in their lives. So thank you so much.

ROBBINS:

I really appreciate being here today. Thank you so much.