We stayed in a hunting lodge, and it took time to develop a rapport with community members. We weren't certain if we would be welcomed. Initially it was a 30-day deployment and those 30 days were exclusively hospital-based. We were providing respite relief to the clinical staff in that community who were simply burned out from responding to this crisis in the week prior to our arrival, and many of them left the community to go and attend to their self-care elsewhere.
We were brought in for respite services originally. The second phase of our deployment was much more community-based, and we participated in some of the practices that I mentioned around arts-based healing and drum making that we had done with some local elders. We had brought in music sound recording artists to work with the youth, as well, and then we worked with many of the clinical care providers within the community around community crisis response models and some things that we know have worked elsewhere. It was really a delivery of resources and ideas, and saying, “These are some things that we know have worked, some of them perhaps will work for you”, and then we would learn as well from that group.
Did it work? Was that your question? Was it effective over time? I would say there have been many good outcomes from that deployment. One in particular that Ed and I had the privilege of being a part of was the Sounding Echo Youth council in Attawapiskat that had been overwhelmed with a response that was media-led. Many organizations reached out to this youth council, and one in particular was the Jays Care Foundation from the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Jays Care Foundation is still involved in that community, so many of the outreach efforts are long term. They have now created—Ed and I have been involved a bit in the creation of it—a three-year program in co-operation with the Ontario Ministry of Child and Youth, called Girls at Bat. It's for the eight first nations around the James Bay coast, and it specifically targets young females in that community. It is a life promotion program, and I do think that it will have a longer-term and positive impact.