Inuvik (Apr 25/03) - Life in boom times is not all about making money.

Responsible corporate citizens have learned from the impacts of past economic rushes that for all positive economic trends, there are negative social trends that follow along.

Francene Ross is the health promotion officer for the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. Her office recently conducted a three-day fetal alcohol syndrome workshop with caregivers from all over the Beaufort Delta and Sahtu. - NNSl photo

Francene Ross is the health promotion officer at the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. She's tasked with promoting healthy lifestyles and targeting problem areas within the social strata.

"IRC is very involved in economic prosperity and with prosperity also comes community disfunction," Ross said. "With that prosperity we need to have the capacity to live it through the boom and bust and the way it happens here."

"We're also looking at housing issues, income, poverty."

Recently, the IRC hosted a three-day workshop on fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) that brought together two delegates from each Beaufort Delta community and also people from the Sahtu to work out action plans to promote FAS awareness in their communities.

"The idea was to give people the information and follow that up with the assessment of the community," Ross said.

On the first day, they assessed their individual communities and noted the threats, strengths and weaknesses within each.

The second day, priorities were established and identified what steps to take and could the community support and sustain the plan.

On the last day, the delegates broke into three regional groups to form action plans, Ross said. The three groups came up with three diverse plans.

"The Inuvik group thought it would be important to get a co-ordinator and apply for funding to co-ordinate funding for services and awareness," Ross said.

Getting the word out

The Aklavik group felt that getting the word out was important and are working with community leadership to promote awareness.

The coastal group felt that they should do more gritty work at the street level to bring the message to young people.

Since the meeting, Ross has established a network between the three groups to e-mail and communicate updates between themselves.

"We're hoping to make some changes in small steps," Ross said.

The groups will implement their individual plans and report back to the network on successes and failures on their

She said there is a lot of ground to make up in the area of FAS, but there are a handful of people dedicated to the issue.

"Not a lot has been done in the past but there are isolated people working very hard to make healthier communities," Ross said.

There are some programs introduced territorially and she says federal money was also made available to target FAS/E.

Ross hopes to get people talking about the issue and cast aside old stereotypes that have hushed the issue like a dirty secret.

"What makes it difficult is the blame, shame and the guilt," Ross said.