Iqaluit (Sep 15/03) - Sybil Hunter has been a front line community health care worker in Labrador for 18 years.

Until she attended a week-long workshop last week in Iqaluit, along with 19 other workers like her from around the North, she did not feel confident she could talk to her community about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).

She does now.

"We're getting a lot of information," she said on Friday, clearly enjoying the chance to meet colleagues from as far away as Gjoa Haven and Inuvik.

"I hope I can bring a lot of this back home with me."

Hunter lives and works in Hopedale where she is a member of the Labrador Inuit Health Commission.

After completing this week long session, organized and supported by the Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association, and held in the Anglican Parish Hall in Iqaluit, she will be qualified to give presentations in her community about FASD -- how it happens, how a person with FASD suffers, and how it can be prevented.

The participants received posters and information kits to take back with them.

But most importantly they got solid information.

"I've seen their confidence level improve tremendously since they first arrived here," said Jean Voysey, who helped lead the workshops and works in Kugluktuk.

Participants were put through a week of round-table discussions, and group work.

Drumming up ideas

By Friday the walls in the parish hall were covered in big lists of brainstorming ideas all the women had come up with.

Most of the participants were Inuit health workers.

But others like Michelle Jacquard, a program support teacher at Inukshuk high school in Iqaluit, spoke out on several occasions with ideas for presentations.

"I know for sure I will use this in our school," she said of the materials supplied to the participants during the week, including the "Children Come First" kit.

"We need to have this information in our school for the students who do get pregnant."

Alcohol consumed during pregnancy can harm an unborn child for life. The alcohol can have disastrous affects, including impairing a child's ability to learn and grow properly.

The workshops were meant to teach front line workers in the North how FASD sufferers feel, the kinds of challenges FASD sufferers face every day, and why it is important that everyone in the community, from teachers to grandparents to the RCMP understands what FASD is.

Ester Leck, a community wellness co-ordinator in Pond Inlet, attended an FASD workshop in March.

"I thought this would be a good follow up. And I would get another perspective."

The first day of the workshop was so intense it felt like three days, she said.

But she was "pretty pumped" to meet community workers like herself.

"These people aren't here just because it's their job. These people want to be here. Our hearts are into it."

Leck said she came into this workshop thinking of FASD as a "hard and heavy" topic to deal with.

"We have high levels of alcohol abuse,"she said. "Most of the prenatal patients that I talk to, it is a question of, they can't stop (drinking). We have information about FASD, but that information isn't getting out."

Pain and shame surrounding alcohol abuse prevents women from getting the help they need she added.

"Once you have FASD," she said, "you have it for the rest of your life. And there is alcohol abuse involved. A pregnant woman drinking can affect her baby for the rest of their life."

The workshop has injected new life into the "hard and heavy" topic, Leck said.

"You know I was challenged when I came here, they said, 'FASD can be fun.'

"And I thought how the hell can it be fun? But it's the engaging part, engaging the community.

"We do presentations, and you know, laughter is the best medicine. You have to engage people."

"I have learned a lot, especially when we were in small groups," said Jean Kigutikakjuk, women's co-ordinator for Qikiqtani Inuit Association in Iqaluit.

She was most moved by a demonstration they had using two sponges in water: one full of holes (representing what FASD does), and another regular sponge. The brain, being like a sponge, does not absorb much if it is full of holes, she said, and she will probably use this dramatic demonstration in a future presentation to outline the challenges of FASD.

Rebecca Okpik, a community health worker from Gjoa Haven, didn't know much about FASD.

"I learned a lot about the effects of alcohol on children," she said. "I wanted to help my community."

She doesn't like negative attitudes, and hopes her community will be open to her if she gives a presentation about FASD when she goes home. "When people are negative about issues, it's really hard to reach those people," she said.

While she doesn't think FASD is a huge problem in Gjoa Haven, she feels the younger generation could use the information before they start having babies. Later, on Friday afternoon, the group visited Inukshuk High School where they talked to Grade 10 students.