8 | Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
sion of workshops aimed at reintroducing wise practices for healthy families, and to compensate for the loss of parenting knowledge experienced by generations of children raised in institutional settings.
Recommendation
- The Commission recommends that all levels of government develop culturally appropriate early childhood and parenting programs to assist young parents and families affected by the impact of residential schools and historic policies of cultural oppression in the development of parental understanding and skills.
Extension and Enhancement of Health Support Services
Survivors have told the Commission repeatedly of their urgent need for specialized health supports available near where they live. This need is especially acute in the northern and more isolated regions of Canada. In those regions, the per-capita number of residential school survivors and the critical need for health support are higher than in the rest of the country. In many cases, a single mental-health nurse in the North is expected to service a region that is the geographic size of an entire province. They do this without the benefit of road transportation or colleagues. In some communities, there may be no such nurse at all. The suicide rates in Aboriginal communities are epidemic in some regions of the country. Many survivors increasingly are angry and outspoken about the need for more long-term help for themselves and their children, including the creation of a specialized treatment centre in the North.
Through its work supporting the Commission's community hearings, Health Canada has been able to assess and refine its approach to providing mental-health support in keeping with its obligations under the Settlement Agreement. Ideally, Aboriginal health professionals who can combine their Western medical training with knowledge of their own healing traditions and culture should be found to do this work. However, given the lack of sufficient numbers of such professionals, the current ideal formula appears to be a balanced team approach: specially trained cultural supports and traditional knowledge keepers from within the respective Aboriginal communities, working together with academically trained health specialists from the non-Aboriginal community.
The loss of knowledge about, and access to, traditional spiritual practices, language, and culture are among the most frequently named abuses experienced by students at the residential schools. For this reason, many former students take greater comfort and strength from those health support workers who come from within their own culture and community, and who can help them through the use of traditional cultural methods or languages that value that part of their lost identity.
Long-term efforts will be needed to address the deep and prolonged community impacts of government policies that sent generations of Aboriginal people to residential schools. The Commission believes in the value of investing in the long-term capacity of Aboriginal communities. This will support their efforts to provide more of their own internal healing resources and to continue their healing work, following the completion of the Commission's work and other activities associated with the implementation of the Settlement Agreement.
Recommendations
- The Commission recommends that the Government of Canada, and the federal Minister of Health, in consultation with northern leadership in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, take urgent action to develop plans and allocate priority resources for a sustainable, northern, mental health and wellness healing centre, with specialization in childhood trauma and long-term grief, as critically needed by residential school survivors and their families and communities.
- The Commission recommends that the Government of Canada, through Health Canada, immediately begin work with provincial and territorial government health and/or education agencies to establish means to formally recognize and accredit the knowledge, skills, and on-the-job training of Health Canada's community cultural and traditional knowledge healing team members, as demonstrated through their intensive practical work in support of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and other Settlement Agreement provisions. #The Commission recommends that the Government of Canada develop a program to establish health and wellness centres specializing in trauma and grief counselling and treatment appropriate to the cultures and experiences of multi-generational residential school survivors.
Exclusions from Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
Compensation under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement is restricted to the former students or residents of schools listed in the Settlement Agreement or
