Robby Boston Keynote Speech at NICWA Annual Conference PART ONE

At the 26th annual Protecting our Children conference in Reno, Nevada, youth leader Robby Boston was a keynote speaker. And it was Robbys personal struggles with depression, suicide, and obtaining services that provided a window for conference participants to see inside the life of youth today.

Robby Boston (Oklahoma Chickasaw/Missouri Choctaw) is a 19-year-old Native from the Tishomingo/Ada areas of southeast Oklahoma, where he currently works for the Chickasaw Nations Cultural Resources Department.

Robby has been trained in research ethics, including confidentiality and human subjects protection, institutional review board training, history of research on American Indians, participatory action research, and how to conduct key-informant and group interview and community needs assessment. He also has attended various leadership trainings.

In 2006, he was named Tulsa Youth of the Year for his work with Native youth. He served on the Chickasaw Nation youth council for several years and was an active member of the Chickasaw Nation S.T.A.Y. (Students Teaching AIDS to youth) and is certified by the Red Cross.

Robby was an active board member of the Tulsa Indian Health Care Circles of Care (CoC) project since planning. He recently conducted a workshop at the Georgetown University Childrens Mental Health Conference, held in Nashville, Tennessee.

He shared his troubled history during his keynote: The alcohol abuse, beginning at that time, and he shared his personal struggle to find a means to cope. His suicide attempts at age 11 and 13, suffering from grief since the age of 9 after the death of his father from cancer. During both hanging attempts, he survived because the rope broke.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• NICWA
• SAMHSA
• Systems
• of
• Care
• American
• Indian
• child
• welfare