Soul Shop featured in Episcopal News Service (ENS)

Indigenous Episcopal leaders who helped develop the Soul Shop Movement’s suicide prevention training curriculum for Indigenous communities. Soul Shop will pilot the new curriculum on Feb. 28 at The Episcopal Church’s 2026 Winter Talk gathering, which is an annual forum where Indigenous Episcopalians can highlight their Native traditions and contributions to the church. Photo: Courtesy of Shaneequa Brokenleg.

Indigenous Episcopalians to participate in suicide prevention training at Winter Talk conference

Suicide prevention training will be a focal point for the Indigenous Episcopalians attending this weekend’s Winter Talk Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the church works to help reduce one of the leading causes of death in Indigenous communities.

“Suicide is so common in Indian country that we don’t have the same stigma that’s attached to it as other places. So, as a priest doing funerals, families will allow me to say, ‘This person died by suicide.’ Elsewhere, usually, families don’t want you to mention it,” the Rev. Shaneequa Brokenleg, The Episcopal Church’s staff officer for racial reconciliation, interim missioner for Indigenous Ministries and a Lakota, told Episcopal News Service.

In the United States, Indigenous people die by suicide at higher rates than any other racial or ethnic group, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Indigenous youth ages 8 to 24.

Systemic injustices, attempts by the U.S. government and big businesses to seize sacred Indigenous lands for natural resource extraction, the intergenerational trauma caused by the legacy of Indigenous boarding schools and colonialism, and the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous people, especially women and girls, are major drivers in the Indigenous communities’ high suicide rates. These issues are increasingly being recognized as acts of literal and cultural genocide.

At its 73rd General Convention in 2000, The Episcopal Church passed Resolution D008, pledging prayer, support and advocacy for suicide prevention awareness. In 2021, General Convention passed Resolution C014, which recognized that “clergy and adults who work with youth are often on the frontlines of suicide prevention.” Under C014, institutions and diocesan programs are encouraged to offer four hours of evidence-based suicide prevention training education for priests, deacons and any adults who work with younger people…

Article by Shireen Korkzan, a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service.

Feb 27, 2026 9:00 a.m.

To read the full article please click HERE