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Helping families and children
Self-help video on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome a first for North by Janet Smellie
NNSL (July 2/97) - Hearing first-hand a birth mother talk openly about how alcohol has affected her pregnancy and her child will help hundreds of women across the North deal with fetal alcohol syndrome, says Marlene Grooms, a family support worker who helped produce a new video. Helping Families, Helping Children is a half-hour video put together by the Yellowknife Association for Community Living thanks to support from Health Canada. Produced by Yellowknife Films, the video is a first in the NWT and offers viewers interviews with health care professionals, parents, and children affected by FAS or FAE (fetal alcohol effects). "It's a way to get the information out to community people. It's a guide for parents and communities who are dealing with FAS," Grooms said. About 500 copies of the video will be circulated throughout the North during the summer. FAS usually takes the form of brain damage inflicted while children are still in the womb. It is caused by the mother's consumption of alcohol while pregnant. Experts in the North estimate that as many as 50 per cent of the children born in the North are affected by FAS or FAE. "It's a film focused on hope. There's no question that families who have a child affected with FAS have a tough time, but with the knowledge and support from their friends and family, there's lots of hope," said Lanny Cooke, executive director for the association. Cooke said it's the video committee's hope that a parent in any Northern community who's having trouble with their FAS child, can "plug into the video and say, I'm going to try that." The video is divided into different sections. Each section shows parents different ways to deal with FAS and FAE. Recognizing that affected children can be quite a handful, one section of the video demonstrates how to prepare their children for activities birthday parties, going to bed or out in public. While the video will be publicly launched this October at the legislature, Grooms said it was well received at a recent screening in Dettah during the Treaty 8 Council meeting. "Up until now, our outreach program, which gives workshops on FAS, has had to rely on southern resource material. I think when people see their own people in the video it will really help," she said. Minister of Health Kelvin Ng has already agreed to have the video translated into some of the aboriginal languages. |