Chesterfield Inlet (July 16/03) - Last month a milestone for the community of Chesterfield Inlet was achieved.

Six Chesterfield Inlet students became the hamlet's first graduates to earn their Community Support Worker certificates from Nunavut Arctic College.

Five of the graduates are employed at Pimakslirvik Home.

The facility provides care to 10 patients aged one to 35 with varying degrees of physical and mental disabilities.

This is the first time the program has been offered in Chesterfield Inlet and adult educator Marion Jackson said additional training will be available as numbers warrant.

"It's very important that the new facility have trained Inuit staff," she said.

That new facility is a brand new $4 million support home that will replace the aging Pimakslirvik Home that was constructed by the Roman Catholic diocese back in 1931.

Mark Ippiak, acting chief executive officer at the home, said he is looking forward to seeing how the new training improves patient care.

"The course went great. We had 14 casual and permanent workers take the training and we had five graduate," he added.

Jackson, however, said she already notices a difference.

From the beginning of the training to the end she said the students matured noticeably.

"They carried themselves with much more dignity. It was just incredible," she said.

Jackson said the course provided the graduates with the skills to enhance and improve their patient's quality of life.

"The program was also a healing experience for each of us. We had the opportunity to heal our past hurts and know a little better how to handle emotions and how to work as a team. It gave us a vision of what is possible in caring for others," the students said in a collective statement.

Offering the course also presented a logistical challenge.

Many of the students that went through the training were working at the Pimakslirvik.

That meant offering the modules twice so students could take classes between their working hours.

Jackson said it was a very unique way of doing things.