Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 2nd, 2016

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

That's great. Thank you very much.

I want to revisit the discussion around the fact that your funding hasn't been renewed yet. I'm pretty alarmed to hear about that. Again, there are four friendship centres in our constituency. It's the only place for young people in many cases. Very important programming is going on, and while I appreciate that you've submitted the papers as you've been asked to do, we are talking about two months in. This whole discussion around suicide and the great work you do, all of that stuff, if at the end of the day we're talking about the friendship centres not having the funding they require to do the programming that's necessary, we have a real problem on our hands.

Given there is so little time in this round, could you tell us what you're hearing from friendship centres? Is there a sense of urgency for this situation to be remedied immediately?

[Christopher Sheppard]

I work with all the friendship centres in the Atlantic region, so I hear it every day. We had a technical call yesterday and a lot of the regional people were saying they are hearing a lot of the friendship centres' concerns as well. It goes back to the shift in friendship centre funding. It used to be simple. This is friendship centre funding. It's there. It will continue to be there, and that was it. It was a permanent program with the government. There were modest delays back then but not as much when you're redoing funding and it has to be drawn down again, and it's sunsetting. That's the huge difference between previous programs, and the new programs that exist now. It's not just about this being renewed. It's all the other intricacies of a new program that was not just for friendship centres and not just for core funding and these are the things you're able to do.

Because of the fundamental shift, it is a lot more complex, and it is affecting friendship centres today and yesterday. How many organizations does anyone in this room know that could bankroll sometimes 30 staff or even five staff without any core funding? Not a lot of organizations have that capacity to keep that going, and the longer it goes, the more challenging it is, and then you have to make tough decisions. You are bound by labour laws and other legal pieces, that if you have to lay off someone, there are other implications than just shutting your doors.

It is a challenge, and we are hearing about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

I think we're out of time, Niki. Thanks.

We're going to go back to the seven-minute questions, and the first of the three is from Don Rusnak.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thanks for coming before the committee again. I know you guys were here previously, and the friendship centres in my communities do an amazing job. I have three in my communities but only two in my riding.

I've worked with workers in the court worker program in Thunder Bay, but I'm not aware.... We have a friendship centre in Thunder Bay. That's the one in my community but not in my riding. We have one in Atikokan and one in Fort Frances in northwestern Ontario. I'm sure you're familiar with it. I'm not aware of any work they're doing in suicide prevention now. Of course, I am familiar with people from the Thunder Bay friendship centre and the Atikokan friendship centre. I have yet to meet with people from the Fort Frances centre.

Can you give any examples from that area of the country about the work they're doing in suicide prevention?

[Christopher Sheppard]

I've been to Kenora. One of my best friends is from Fort Frances. She was the president of our aboriginal youth council when I was on the youth council. She was heavily involved when we did our strategic plan, and suicide prevention came up as a huge issue.

We couldn't get anyone to fund it. We had a plan and what was developed over time was we could have young people in each of the friendship centres trained, so that if young people in their communities were going through this, there would be someone trained. When we asked the young people who were involved in friendship centres across the country what their priorities were, suicide was one of them.

We did as much as we could at the time. That was in 2010-11. We wrote a proposal, launched a suicide prevention tool kit and some other pieces, but we weren't able to get any traction on it. This is the thing: depending on what community you're in, if you can access support...it's really challenging but a huge piece of that effort was led by the president at the time who was from the Fort Frances centre.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Are you aware of any programs that are operating successfully anywhere else in Ontario?

[Christopher Sheppard]

I'm not aware of any specifically. I could always ask, reach out to the Ontario federation and see. This is the thing: every region and every friendship centre is different. Every friendship centre has an independent board, voluntarily elected by their communities. Unless it's a provincial-wide program, you would have to reach out to each centre and ask them what they're doing.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

To switch gears a little bit, I'm a big fan of collaboration. I'm familiar with the Thunder Bay centre. I know that the court workers collaborate with other workers at the courthouse to provide the amazing services they do in Thunder Bay. In terms of suicide prevention across friendship centres, do you know of any examples of co-operation toward suicide prevention that the centres are engaging in and that can be shared with the committee in terms of any best practices?

[Christopher Sheppard]

I think our biggest example is the youth piece. They came together as young people from every region to build this piece, to reach out across the country, to try to find that common piece with all of them. It was all led by young people. They reached out to other young people, found out that this was a huge concern, and worked really hard to build proposals and tool kits and everything else. That's the biggest collaboration I know of within friendship centres, because it was made up of so many young people from every region.

One of the best parts about having a network of friendship centres is that a lot of times, if you're dealing with a serious issue or something really intense, you can reach out to another centre that does this kind of work. I know that some centres have reached out to us, in the centre where I work, about what you do around this issue, how you get people trained, and what it looks like. I trained with some people from Saskatchewan when I was trained. At any given time, any number of friendship centres may be reaching out to other centres.

That said, it is challenging to find a program or something where you can do something at this level in every centre or across the country. It is fractured.

[Yancy Craig]

Certainly at the national office, part of that job of coordination is sharing information and sharing best practices through our communications across the network of friendship centres. That's something we do quite often. We profile various interventions that are successful. Chris alluded to the fact that our provincial and territorial folks have a relationship with the provincial ministries and provincial governments, and again, that support varies as well.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

In your view, how can friendship centres support the movement towards community-driven approaches and strategies in the design and delivery of mental health and suicide services?

[Christopher Sheppard]

I think if there were a strategic approach by the government to look at mental health and suicide, and then it were multi-jurisdictional, say, or interdepartmental, and you invited people to the table, whether it's NAFC or whether it's friendship centres, we could reach out to all of those centres. We have the ability to reach out to all of them.

If there's a strategy or an organized effort towards a certain area, even for feedback, we are able to reach out to those 118 friendship centres pretty quickly and ask them what they're doing, ask them what works. We've looked at other programs we've done to try to look at expanding them and taking them out across the country because they've been so successful. I think one of the best things would be to engage with people who can reach those community members and just ask them if there is an amazing suicide prevention program that really works in their community.

For us, a big thing is having everyone trained so they know what to do. When someone walks through your door and there's a risk of suicide, what do you do? Who do you call? Reaching out and using the NAFC, for instance, to reach out to those centres would be very beneficial.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

We're out of time there, Don. Thanks.

The next questioner is David Yurdiga.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be sharing some of my time, a small portion of it, with Cathy McLeod.

I noticed the youth participation in a lot of programs in various communities. I have the feeling that the youth want to get in touch with their past, as far as cultural programming goes. Are you aware of any programs that deal with traditional therapies and medicines?

[Christopher Sheppard]

If you go to most friendship centres' youth programs.... The reason they are so successful—and we have tried to say this in any way possible—is that having a young indigenous person be confident in who they are as an indigenous person and know their culture makes them significantly more successful. If you have a young indigenous person who isn't comfortable with who they are as a person, and they go to school and are singled out as the indigenous person in school, or conversations come up, there is a huge struggle there. For a lot of friendship centres, when you are working with young people, that is a huge piece of everything that is developed: what are the traditional practices; what are your traditional histories?

We have young people in friendship centres who are the ones presenting to high schools, businesses, or community groups about who they are as indigenous people, what that looks like, some of the history, and some of the current pieces. I think all of us sometimes get caught up in as though indigenous people were something of the past. We don't talk about the modern indigenous person and what that looks like. Focusing on and making sure culture is integrated into everything that young people do at friendship centres is really important.

The reason I got involved with the National Association of Friendship Centres was that, at their annual assembly, one-third of the vote is young people. One-third of the voting power at our national AGM is young people. You can't proxy a youth vote. It has to be a young person. We take that piece very seriously. We know that there is a huge correlation, that when young aboriginal people, indigenous people, are really confident in who they are and in their culture, it makes a huge difference.

There are plenty of examples. When young people are involved in social enterprises, they tend to want to take a cultural piece to it. One example in British Columbia is of a chocolate business. Part of having the chocolate is reading traditional folklore on the box, some of the legends that are really important to them. Young people create candle businesses that have traditional medicines used with them. All these things have that lens because a lot of these young people have worked very hard to reconnect with who they are.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I have one more question, and then I will let Cathy take the next question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

You have four minutes left.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Oh, good.

Are there any solutions or best practices to integrate a culture-based approach to mental health and suicide prevention?

[Christopher Sheppard]

I think it is about realizing that there is a place for a clinical side and there is a place for a traditional and cultural side, and that those things don't have to be separate.

We have examples where friendship centres' programs or their mental health programs are preferred to a clinical option. It is hard enough for an aboriginal person to walk into a hospital. Can you imagine the barrier to walking into, say, a mental health emergency room? Because they don't feel confident, or comfortable, or understood, they will more likely walk into a friendship centre to talk about those things.

There is a clinical side and there is a cultural side, and those things should work together. A lot of friendship centres do this with a bunch of different programs. There need to be respect and understanding of both, and that you can do both. They are not mutually exclusive.

We have seen programs where there are aboriginal patients in hospitals and friendship centre staff working in those hospitals, or friendship centres that have clinics. The cultural piece is respected and understood, whether you want to smudge or you want to do a cultural ceremony, but realizing that there is an opportunity for the clinical piece, too, and that there can be spaces for those things to happen and they could be amazing.

To sit across from someone who understands you as an indigenous person and still understands some of the mental health or suicide prevention pieces is huge, instead of walking into a hospital and hoping that someone is not going to ask you a horrible question. I think some of the best practices are that they can coexist. The clinical work and cultural work can coexist, and that is great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

You have two minutes at that point right there, if you would like to switch. Sorry to cut you off.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Chair. We can share very equally.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada was given the task of adapting, I guess, the mental health first aid program to be much more culturally sensitive. I appreciate that every community is different, and you need to hit that balance between the community needs versus maybe some good, standardized program support that works.

Have you had any involvement with that particular initiative?

[Christopher Sheppard]

I have some experience with mental health first aid, but not in its adaptation. I think there should be space, because we all know certain things have to be standardized and we need to be able to do certain things. I think an important thing is looking at what Yancy said, that it's not so restricted that on the ground you can't adapt it within a margin to make sure it meets the needs. We have seen this with other programs and even with cultures. There are so many unique, indigenous cultures in this country. I try to explain to people that when we develop programs sometimes, it's a matter of asking what it means for an Inuit person, for a Mi'kmaq, for a Métis person. It's to have the ability to adapt and be flexible enough to change it should you need to, but at the end of the day, the development is there.

One thing I always try to remind people about when we're culturally adapting things is the importance of going back to the basics. What makes mental health first aid important? What makes that successful? Are there any core pieces of it that may need to be adjusted?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I guess to date none of the friendship centres have been involved with that process.

[Yancy Craig]

We've been involved at national policy discussions in the development of the strategy with the commission, but perhaps not at the individual friendship centres.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

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