The U.S. Senate Committee On Indian Affairs held an oversight hearing on the costs of Alcohol and Drug abuse in Indian Country Wednesday. One of the main themes that emerged from the panel discussion was a push to engage Native youth and the need to tap them for potential solutions.
Sunny Goggles, the director of the White Buffalo Recovery Program in Wyoming, was one of the panelists. She addressed the impact funding shortages have on establishing effective treatment programs in response to a question from Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.
"You fund things for a year or things are funded for three years," Goggles said. "You’re not going to get long term results."
"We don’t have a strategy," Hietkamp said. "We just have a series of events."
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, about 8 percent of Native youth are impacted by an alcohol-use disorder, compared to around 6 percent of youth in the general population.
