Duane Hicks
The Couchiching First Nation Treatment and Support Services Project will be launching a survey in May to assess how area aboriginals feel about substance abuse treatment services in the district.
“The purpose of the assessment is to enhance treatment services for the aboriginal population in the district, on-reserve, off-reserve, status, non-status First Nations, Métis, and Inuit,“ project co-ordinator Ed Yerxa said in an interview Friday.
“When you look at substance abuse, I think the potential positive impact this project can have on the district is identify the gaps in the delivery system, as well as looking at ways of filling those gaps using as many of the existing human and financial resources that are out there, whether they are aboriginal or not,” he added.
“I know when we look at the mainstream service providers, they provide a lot of services to the aboriginal clientele,” Yerxa noted. “Substance abuse has no boundaries when it comes to race. If a person is struggling with substance abuse, the issues are common.
“And I think the ways to remedy those, as service providers, are common, as well.
“Part of what we’ll do with the assessment is make recommendations coming from the community on how services could be provided better,” Yerxa explained. “I think it gives the clientele, potential clientele, or concerned community members an opportunity to voice and feed it to the service delivery system.”
Needs assessment consultant Cathy Bruyere said the aim is to conduct 600 of the surveys, which currently is being developed in partnership with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and Thunder Bay Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), in participating communities and through several agencies.
The surveys will be conducted door-to-door in four First Nations (Couchiching, Stanjikoming, Big Island, and Big Grassy), as well as be made available through groups like the United Native Friendship Centre, Sunset Country Métis, and Atikokan Indian Friendship Centre, each of which has established client bases or memberships.
(The survey is being limited to participating communities. Some other communities, such as Rainy River First Nations, are conducting, or have done, their own community needs assessments).
The survey will be conducted by trained personnel and executed with utmost confidentiality. Local project members will not be privy to the completed surveys, which will be sent directly to the CAMH once completed.
The survey will include questions from the Couchiching team project, as well as research questions from both the CAMH and LHIN.
“It’s a win-win-win situation all the way around,” Yerxa enthused. “Everyone gets what they need.”
There will be an adult survey, as well as one for youths aged 15-17 (those under 18 must have their parents fill out a consent form first).
The CAMH will compile the comprehensive surveys, which will be about 20 pages in length.
Once the data is gathered, Yerxa said it will be compiled to identify common themes and service delivery issues. Those results then will be the basis of a district-wide strategy that contains recommendations to enhance treatment services for aboriginal people.
But he added each of the participating communities also will get information back specific to their populations. As well, the Couchiching First Nation Treatment and Support Services Project will help those individual communities develop specific strategies, if they so choose.
Yerxa said he hopes the survey can be completed and data compiled this summer, so the project team will have completed a report by the end of July and be able to make recommendations and implement changes.
He added the usefulness of the compiled data should extend beyond this area, and will be helpful to larger “mainstream” organizations.
Bruyere, meanwhile, said the project also includes gathering data through focus groups for men, women, elders, and youth, noting these already have seen an enthusiastic response from all the communities, on and off reserve.
“These [focus groups] are to understand better how the community sees substance abuse and then look at how they see treatment needs from their perspective,” she explained.
“We just did a youth one and the youth were very open and frank about what goes on in their communities in terms of substance abuse, what they saw, their views on how treatment services should be run for kids, and generally how it was viewed that there really wasn’t that much out there for them,” said Bruyere.
“But they had some good ideas as to what they thought ought to happen.”
The focus groups will continue to be held into the future as a means to gather data.
The project has developed formal partnerships with Health Canada, CAMH, Gizhewaadizin Health Access Centre, Substance Abuse Prevention Team, Thunder Bay LHIN, Northwestern Health Unit, and a community committee, all of which work together to share resources, contacts, and information whenever possible.
Hugh Dennis, co-ordinator of the Rainy River District Substance Abuse Prevention Team, is very supportive of the project.
“The community working together to discover what the problems of substance abuse are, how they develop, prevention strategies, treatment strategies, and so on is exactly what the Substance Abuse Prevention Team is about. It’s our mandate,” he noted.
“It’s encouraging to me to have these things,“ echoed Albert Calder of the Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program (NADAP). “There’s more things that could come out of this, and one of those is a detox. It’s needed.
“The way they work it in other places, you’ve got to be detoxed before you get into detox,” he noted.
“I like the project because it is a true partnership, a collaboration of all these different agencies coming together,” said Ida Linklater, who provides technical and administrative support for the project.
“I think it’s really neat we can come together and work on an issue that affects all of us,” she enthused. “It really is a chance to hear the people, identify their needs and issues, and what they need in treatment.
“We all want the good life, quality living, and addiction is a big problem they need help with,” Linklater added, noting the project goal is to assess, not evaluate.
“It’s not about pointing fingers,” agreed Yerxa. “Our approach is to keep things as positive as we can. It’s about improving the service delivery system.
“We have lots of valuable resources, lots of valuable community members that provide service, and this process is about talking with and visiting with and spending time with community members that access those services.
“Finding out how we can do the job more effectively, more efficiently, with the existing resources.
“It’s a big job,” he conceded. “But we have to go out there and really listen to what people have to say, give them a voice, because I know a lot of us in the service delivery system are there because of these people, and we have a responsibility to listen and really hear what they have to say so that we can provide the highest quality service to them.”
The project officially began in September, and is contracted to continue until March 31, 2010.
While certain aspects of the project are supported through in-kind services, the project is being funded Health Canada’s Aboriginal Health Transition Fund, explained Yerxa, adding he approached the band about applying for the funding last March.
“The leadership in our community has to be acknowledged for realizing substance abuse goes beyond the borders of our community, and for allowing us to work within these different First Nations and with the different aboriginal groups in Fort Frances and Atikokan, so we can collectively come up with something we can all benefit from in term of addressing substance abuse,” he added.
Couchiching Coun. Christine Jourdain said the chief and council “wholeheartedly supported” the project when Yerxa first presented it to them.
“We gave him total control because he is the one who knows what the problem is, what the possible solutions are, better than anyone sitting at the chief and council’s table,” she reasoned.
“When he brought it forth and said he’d like us to support him, we did,” Coun. Jourdain continued. “We provided him with a building to house the services out of [the old police office] and anytime he’s brought it back to the table, he once again gets the full support of the council because it is a problem that’s not just First Nation-related—it’s all over the district, all over the country, all over the world.
“But it really hits home here. It’s been a big problem, and with Albert’s help here and past NADAP workers, I think we’re getting closer to finding out the solutions to these problems,” she noted.
“Knowing this program is out there has brought more of our community members to Ed’s program, to approach Albert and help them with their addictions, now that they know it’s out there. Now that they know the support services are out there.”
Coun. Jourdain said she’s hopeful the program will grow and be helpful in getting other First Nations a hand in starting up similar programs.
