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Healing begins at home
Addictions forum listens to communities

Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 24, 2013

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Paying elders for their work and establishing more on-the-land programs are vital to combating addictions in the Northwest Territories, say residents.

The 13-member Minister's Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness visited every region in the territory this spring as part of the health department's newest mental health and addictions strategy, A Shared Path Towards Wellness: The Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan 2012-2015.

Paul Andrew, the forum's chair, said visiting the communities allowed the forum to gather information from residents and groups about ways to fight addictions. Forum members then presented a report with their recommendations to Tom Beaulieu, minister of Health and Social Services.

"What we tried to do was make recommendations that were doable and achievable," Andrew said. "We wanted to do everything we possibly can to make sure the government does not put this on the shelf."

Andrew said on-the-land programming was at the top of the list in every community.

Residents said being out on the land can have a profound impact on an individual's mental health, said Andrew.

"Even if you take some of the street people we have in Yellowknife, we take them out on the land and they become entirely different people," he said.

Hazel Nerysoo, mayor of Fort McPherson and a member of the forum, said the land has a lot to offer, and that people feel a treatment program on the land would be beneficial.

"People feel good when they're out there. When people are in the community, they abuse alcohol, but you get them on the land, they're a totally different person," she said.

The forum's meetings were held publicly or individually, depending on the needs of the community, Andrew said. One-on-one meetings were arranged for those who didn't want to speak in front of a crowd and all information was kept confidential, he added.

"We held public meetings, we held individual meetings, we targeted groups. We tried to get as many people in as possible," he said. "We went to teachers, we went to professionals like RCMP or the nurses."

People spoke about how treatment centres, such as the Nats'ejee K'eh Treatment Centre in Hay River, need to be established throughout the territory, Andrew said.

The centre addiction awareness programs based on aboriginal values. It was stressed that centres should also be made culturally relevant depending on the people they serve, he added.

"The Inuvialuit feel they should have something more culturally appropriate for them," Andrew said.

Nerysoo said residents emphasized that location and distance shouldn't be a barrier to accessing treatment.

"They talked about the treatment programs and how we need a treatment program closer to home," she said.

Community members also identified the need for after-care programming to support people who return to the community after treatment.

"A lot of the people who come back into the communities are left on their own and they're really concerned about those kinds of things," said Andrew.

In its report, the forum recommended a mandatory six-month after-care program that would ideally involve spending time on the land.

It also recommended that the government commit to guaranteed core funding for programming, which would allow mental health workers to plan for the future without worrying about where money for programs will come from.

"A lot of the people we talked to in the communities talk about programs on a year-to-year basis, therefore it's really difficult to make plans for a long-term basis," Andrew said. "They would like to see some kind of multi-year core funding."

Youth need better support systems in their communities, residents also told the forum.

Existing programs, such as the Take a Kid Trapping initiative through the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, are excellent ways to engage young people, but programs need to be expanded, Andrew said.

Andrew said community members also told the forum elders should be compensated for their work. Many elders volunteer to help with on-the-land programming and other initiatives, but few are paid for their time. In its report, the forum recommended a pay equity scale for those working in the health and wellness field, including elders.

"The treatment centres want to see diplomas or certificates or master's degrees, that's what they recognize," Andrew said. "The elders don't have that, they cannot produce that, but a lot of the aboriginal people told us they see their elders as having a PhD in living on the land and in life."

The forum also recommended that addictions diploma and degree programs be established at Aurora College.

Andrew said residents also expressed a desire to honour individuals who have or are trying to achieve sobriety.

"We seem to talk about all the issues surrounding the negatives, and granted there are a lot to talk about, but there are people who are doing well in the NWT, people who have turned their lives around in the NWT. We should celebrate them," he said.

Andrew said people also identified programs in their community that are making a difference. He said one of the youth who attended a forum meeting in Ndilo said the Believe in Yourself program at the community's Wellness Centre has made a huge change in his

life.

"One of the students in this program said, 'this program saved my life'," Andrew said. "They were really raving about it. They were saying this is one of the programs that should be in all NWT communities."

In another community, the school has set aside a room where students having problems at home can get some much-needed rest before attending class, Andrew said.

"Their parents might be drinking and they have a hard time going to school," he said.

"The students can go into the school and sleep in that area so the students can go to school."

Andrew said while designating a sleeping room for students is a way to help, it draws attention to the bigger problem.

"These are initiatives that schools take on their own, they do these things on their own," he said.

Andrew said he and other forum members hope creating the report will help bring to light that being addicted to drugs, alcohol or gambling in the NWT does not have to be a way of life.

"It seems like addictions, everything from drugs and alcohol to Bingo to playing cards, it seems to be accepted. It seems to be becoming too normalized," he said.

"What we hoped that this report will do is it that it will denormalize, that this is not acceptable, this is not good enough. That we are far better people than that, that our elders and the people that have gone before us expect more from us."

Nerysoo said while it might take some time, she believes change is on the way.

"We might not see it in the blink of an eye, but I don't think the (health and social services) minister did this for nothing," she said. "There are going to be changes."

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