First Peoples Child & Family Review
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“The Frontline of Revitationalization: Influences Impacting Aboriginal Helpers”
No full textOver the past two decades Aboriginal people have been transforming family, community and national life. With a fierce determination a movement that motivates change to heal destructive colonial and abusive patterns that has been simmering. On the front line of this movement are our elders, healers, counselors, social workers, police, teachers and faith keepers. The challenges facing the front line workers are very personal and at times political. This article seeks to shed light on the challenges of those on the front line of revitalization. It is based on the authors” experiences and observations of Aboriginals professionals and para-professionals (helpers) who are employed in their home communities, and highlights the specific influences they often face on a daily basis
“For So Long….”
No full textWanda Gabriel is a citizen of Kanehsatake Mohawk nation. She is a community organizer as well as a national trainer & facilitator who use’s traditional Mohawk teachings and interactive techniques to facilitate family and community healing, specializing in working with women, families and youth. She has 18 years of experience working in First Nations communities dealing with crisis intervention and issues of sexual abuse, lateral violence, drug and alcohol addiction, domestic violence and residential school issues. Wanda was also the regional coordinator of community support for Quebec and Ontario, at the National Aboriginal Healing Foundation. In recent years she has worked within the academic setting as an instructor and curriculum administrator. She is presently undertaking a whole new domain of work by providing social support to the Cree workers who are contracted by Hydro Quebec, for the James Bay project. Being a community organizer has given her the privilege of working in many different First Nations and Inuit communities across Turtle Island. Wanda is a licensed social worker with the Quebec Professional Order of Social Workers and a Graduate from McGill University, Master of social work program. Wanda lives in Kanehsatake, Quebec Mohawk territory
“Child Protective Services and University-Based Partnerships: A Participatory Action-Based Model for Creating and Sharing Knowledge”
No full textThis paper presents one model for building and sustaining a research partnership between researchers and professional staff in child protection (CPS) agencies. The Maltreatment and Adolescent Pathways (MAP) study was designed to assess the health and well-being of the population of adolescents involved in the child welfare system of a major urban area. The study involved the collaboration between university based researchers and a range of child welfare staff, from administration to front-line workers. A key factor supporting collaboration was reciprocity with expertise, with CPS practitioner knowledge yielding intervention-relevant study queries and constructs, and researcher knowledge on health content and best practices yielding tailored training opportunities and increased climate for knowledge uptake. The MAP study combined a Participatory Action Research (PAR) model with a traditional, scientific positivist model, including the scientific elements of standardized measures, explicit evaluation of the participatory process, and research impact on the community members. This study: 1) provides information on the process of creating effective researcher-CPC agency partnerships, 2) considers key ethics issues, such as the participant’s reactivity to research of child welfare- involved clients, and 3) examines the implications of implanting a PAR approach in research with Aboriginal CPS agencies, as per the required use of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Guidelines for Health Research Involving Aboriginal People for future community- university partnerships
“Towards Transformational Research for and with Indigenous Communities: The New British Columbia Indigenous Child Welfare Research Network”
No full textThis article documents the development of the newly launched Indigenous Child Welfare Research Network in British Columbia. This Network is a provincial association of researchers, service providers, community members and policy makers with an interest in using Indigenous research in the transformation of child and family services. Rooted in a vision for healing and the inclusion of diverse voices, Network Initiatives seek to reclaim Indigenous ways of knowing and doing and reposition them at the core of child and family wellness initiatives. The Network provides a space for critical dialogue about Indigenous research, as well as opportunities for researched-related training, knowledge transmission and resource sharing
Metaphorical Reflections on the Colonial Circus of the Drunken Indian and the Kidney Machine
No full textThis paper represents the need for First Nations community workers to share their narratives of experience and wisdom for academic review. A growing number of mature Indigenous social service workers are returning to Canada’s learning centers where they are articulating observations and insights to Indigenous experience in colonial Canada. It is imperative that post-colonial academic literature include these contributions. True reconciliation between Canada and First Peoples is only possible if those stories of resilience are reflected back from the experience of historic trauma and unresolved intergenerational suffering
Building a Collaborative Understanding of Pathways to Adolescent Alcohol Misuse in a Mi’kmaq Community: A Process Paper
No full textIn April of 2006, a team of researchers consisting of both university and community partners from a Mi’kmaq reserve in Nova Scotia began the data-collection phase of a high school-based research study that had been two years in planning. The study examines the possible relationships between youth-reported childhood maltreatment, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depressive symptoms, alcohol misuse, and resiliency factors. The aim of the research study is to provide information about adolescent alcohol misuse that is of practical benefit to community-based service providers, and capable of making a scholarly contribution to the scientific study of the relations of anxiety/mood symptoms and addictive behaviours. The primary aim of this paper is to present both the context from which the project grew, and the steps involved in conducting research with our school partners and the community service providers. Asecondary aim is to present some of the preliminary data from the study, with a specific focus on resiliency
Keeping First Nations children at home: A few Federal policy changes could make a big difference
No full textJordan’s case illustrates one of several areas where the formulation of better federal child and family service funding policy for First Nations children and young people, could go a long way toward improving the lives of First Nation children on reserve
Promising practice for maintaining identities in First Nation adoption
No full textThe purpose of this article is to explore the importance of identity in First Nation adoption. It is adapted from a PhD study completed by the author in 2005. The objectives of this study were: (1) describe how connectedness relates to health for First Nation adoptees, and (2) explore legislative, policy and program implications in the adoption of First Nation children. The findings suggest that, for First Nation adoptees, there is a causal relationship between connection to birth family, community and ancestral knowledge, adoption and health. The major finding is that loss of identity may contribute to impaired physical, spiritual, mental and emotional health for First Nation adoptees. This article provides suggestions on how identity can be preserved in First Nation adoption through programs, policies and practice
An Alcohol Abuse Early Intervention Approach with Mi’kmaq Adolescents
No full textThis paper describes the development of and pilot results for an alcohol abuse early intervention program targeting at-risk Mi’kmaq youth conducted in partnership with the communities in which these youth live and the schools which they attend. This intervention was based on a previously-established, successful psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioral approach for at-risk adolescent drinkers from the majority culture that focuses on differentpersonality pathways to alcohol abuse in youth (Conrod, Stewart, Comeau, & MacLean, 2006). Through partnership and collaboration with two Mi’kmaq communities, the original intervention was adapted to be culturally appropriate for Mi’kmaq youth. The culturally-adapted intervention included traditional Mi’kmaq knowledge and teachings in order to make the program as meaningful and relevant as possible in the partner communities (Comeau et al., 2005). The pilot results were encouraging. Compared to pre-intervention, students who participated in the intervention drank less, engaged in less binge-drinking episodes (i.e., 5 drinks or more/occasion), had fewer alcoholrelated problems, and were more likely to abstain from alcohol use. Moreover, students who participated in the intervention also reduced their marijuana use at four-month post-intervention, even though the intervention was specifically designed to target alcohol misuse. No such significant changes were observed in a non-random control group of eligible students who did not participate in the intervention. Future research should determine if this intervention is effective for at-risk youth in other First Nations communities across Canada, and whether the promising, but preliminary results with marijuana mean that the benefits of the intervention might extend to adolescents’ use of substances other than alcohol
