Grant funding to Indigenous communities by the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, particularly those that emphasize culture, are effective at addressing generational impacts of colonization. This finding was confirmed in a recent study by a team of social science researchers, Dr. Heather Sauyaq Jean Gordon of Child Trends and Amy Zukowski , ANA Director of Program Evaluation and Planning, and published in the International Indigenous Policy Journal (Aug. 30, 2023).
Gordon and Zukowski describe their research methods and findings in article entitled Indigenous Community Projects: Addressing Colonization through Using Culture as a Protective Factor . The premise of their inquiry focused on the impacts the historical trauma and adverse current community conditions (CCCs) wrought by painful histories of colonization. Analyzing data from recently completed ANA grants, Gordon and Zukowski determined that all grants included in the research addressed negative effects of colonization and about half of those grants utilized culture as a protective factor to address adverse community conditions. The data show that projects using culture as a protective factor have significantly higher effectiveness ratings, which means they are achieving their objectives more than those not using a cultural approach. The researchers encourage funders to look at how adverse CCCs are addressed through culture as a protective factor to meet the Native community’s social, economic, and governance needs.