A series of seven suicides within California’s Yurok Tribe in 2015 prompted the tribe to declare a state of emergency. In reporting on the aftermath, reporter Ryan Burns found himself facing some big challenges.
This story was produced as a project for the California Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the Center for Health Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
In rural California, the state says the solutions to domestic violence require a cultural shift, that entire communities must take responsibility for ending violence against women. Now, new programs on the ancestral lands of the Yurok Tribe are trying to do that.
Even though people in California's Del Norte County have been reporting domestic violence at a staggering rate, most abuse is suffered in secrecy. That can make it easy to overlook the fact that Native American communities are disproportionately affected.
As California's statewide figures drop, Del Norte County has seen its domestic violence rate skyrocket. That raises a question: How are domestic violence survivors in this rural community on the Northern California coast faring after reporting abuse?
