[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]
NARRATOR: Dr. Dan Fostor and his wife, Dr. Becky Foster, are members of the Sicangu Lakota American Indian tribe that lives on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.
DAN FOSTER: It's a very beautiful place, approximately 14,000 people that are residents here. The Sicangu culture are very generous and compassionate, and actually happy, happy people.
NARRATOR: Dan Foster is the lead clinical psychologist at the Rosebud Indian Health Service Hospital, where Becky Foster is also a psychologist. They oversee the mental health of a community that has been traditionally underserved.
DAN FOSTER: This was initially kind of like a prisoner of war camp, quite candidly. And so that's the roots of the reservation. The conditions here are difficult. The poverty has been over 80% unemployment for all of my lifetime.
NARRATOR: Dr. Foster works with people in severe distress who are often referred by friends and relatives. In addition to making a diagnosis and developing a treatment plan, Dr. Foster also provides patients with a sense of security, given his unique insight into their specific problems.
DAN FOSTER: We die at a younger age. We have more chronic diseases, particularly diabetes, obesity. We also have methamphetamines, cocaine, and we have heroin, and Oxycontin, percodans, then opiod-type medications.
The hopelessness though, I think, is the most difficult thing. Our children started taking their own lives about eight years ago. And so we've continued in an epidemic of suicides. The rate for our young men between the ages of 14 and 26 is 200 per 100,000. Our kids aren't as quick to hurt each other. They'll take the pain out on themselves.
NARRATOR: Dr. Foster and his staff provide both biomedical therapy, which are medications that target the biological basis of a disorder, as well as psychotherapy, which hones in on psychological factors.
DAN FOSTER: We like to use psychotherapy with medication and sometimes without medication, in whatever way best serves the patient.
NARRATOR: Despite the daily struggles, Dan and Becky remain hopeful. To help spread that hope, they've opened their home to less fortunate members of the Lakota tribe.
DAN FOSTER: We do have seven additional kids that we've adopted. Our youngest are twins. They're six years old now. They were born with severe health issues, and required an open-heart surgery before they were a year old.
Our oldest is 18, and I'm very proud of him, but I won't pretend that life has been easy for him. We consider gravity as a pretty important natural energy. The gravity of the spirit, we call the soul--the nagi, is love. That love connection is very, very powerful.
Our children that were born with special needs, their need for us is even greater. And so I think the attachment might be a little bit stronger. We've been very blessed to be able to work here on the Lakota reservation and work among family and friends, so it's been a marvelous career.