Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Apr 07/00) - A recent workshop at the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation offices generated a lot of emotion, purpose and determination to break the cycle of residential school abuse.

Bringing together participants from Inuvik, Aklavik and Sachs Harbour, and led by Yellowknife counsellor Norman Yakelaya, the two-day workshop targeted healing for residential school "survivors" and their families.

"The Grollier Hall healing circle is a group of those who were abused and who have gotten together to do healing," said participant Sarah Jerome from the Beaufort Delta Education Council. "This one is for those who came out of those schools and who, while not abused, suffered from the effects of that syndrome and who lost bonds with their families and parenting skills."

The corporation's Maria Storr said those effects can show up in parents failing to set ground-rules for their children, over-disciplining them or, at worst, abusing them. She said in January the Aboriginal Healing Foundation approved a corporation proposal to train some 25 facilitators in the settlement communities this spring to act as parenting facilitators, on a one-year trial basis.

"We have been working with childcare and wanted to include the parenting aspect in dealing with educating young children," she said. "We have no models for something like this, but people have different methods and we'll even be working in consultation with elders to get ideas about how aboriginal children were raised before the influx of the Europeans."

Jerome also said this initiative differs from others in that it's "genuinely grassroots" and also fills the void created through the closure of local healing centres.

"The government usually comes in and shapes these programs from the top-down and doesn't usually recognize these ideas from the communities," she said, adding, "I think this is all going to open a can of worms -- incest will come out, gambling, alcoholism -- but they've been closing down healing centres and there's a need."

Marilyn Harry from Family Counselling stressed the group's non-confrontational approach.

"We're not pointing any fingers at any groups or races," she said. "We just want to be there to empower the communities and hope to do some good intervention work at the schools and focus on taking things slowly and to go with the flow, just like the elders taught us."