[Witness spoke in Ojibwa as follows:]
Weweni Boozhoo. Nozhem ndishnikaaz. Ma’yingan ndodem. Lenapii kwe ndi yaaw. Lenapii kiing ndo jibaa.
[Ojibwa text translated as follows:]
Hello, my name is Nozhem, or Mother wolf. I am from the Wolf clan. I am a Lenape woman. I am from Lenapi territory.
[English]
I'm Delaware, of the Delaware Nation at Moraviantown in southwestern Ontario, and the executive director of the Thunderbird Partnership Foundation. Our mandate is to serve first nations across Canada in addressing addictions and mental health. I'm going to be talking to you, much like Dr. Brenda Restoule shared with you, about mental wellness and substance use.
I want to start by saying that in the context of the pandemic, culture continues to make the difference in supporting first nations people with their wellness.
We know that because we have a national information management system that supports and is used by adult and youth treatment centres across the country, and we have a culture-based assessment tool called the Native Wellness Assessment. We've adapted the information management system specifically to collect information from treatment centres that have adapted their services over the pandemic to collect information about wellness.
What we have found is that treatment centres have adapted services to outpatient services. Those outpatient services have been on-the-land services with appropriate public health measures. Through that outpatient service, we've seen at least a 5.5% to 8% increase in wellness.
Through a CIHR-funded study, we were able to determine that indigenous wellness outcomes are described as hope, belonging, meaning and purpose. There are 13 different indicators to measure those outcomes.
The 8% increase in wellness in outpatient services is in the quadrant of purpose. First nations people who are accessing those outpatient services on the land are improving in a sense of purpose. Having access to culture in relevant ways to support their mental wellness is significant.
In terms of virtual services, treatment centres have adapted their programming to virtual services, whether it's individual counselling, group counselling, live streaming, psycho-educational sessions or follow-up by telephone. We've seen as much as a 7.5% increase in wellness services.
The one quadrant where we see the greatest achievement is in the quadrant of hope. First nations people who are accessing treatment services virtually have a greater sense of hope.
Hope is having access to services that represent their identity and that are contextualized to reflect their community dynamics and what they're facing. We know that prior to COVID first nations people had a lot of inequity across the determinants of health: inadequate housing, lack of access to clean and safe water, and institutional racism. Those things have been exacerbated in the pandemic. There is greater stigmatization and negative experiences that are reported by first nations.
I'm talking about treatment centres, but community-based services have also quickly adapted their services to understand how to reach clients in addressing substance use. The things that have been exacerbated in the context of the pandemic have been increased substance use, increased suicide rates in some regions and community violence.
That is because communities don't have capacity to respond to the needs of first nations people. We heard youth say that mental wellness was not prioritized as an essential service. Youth were left on their own to figure out how to reach out to get support for addressing depression and anxiety.
As community programs, as well as treatment centres—the national native alcohol and drug abuse program and the national youth solvent abuse program—adapted and started offering virtual counselling and on-the-land services, or reducing their services with a modified number of people who would be residents of the treatment program with a reduced workforce, they all had a preference for culture.
That is also the greatest concern of communities: ensuring that they have access to culture. One of the things that we as an organization did was to create this community wellness hub where people would have continued access to peer support, resources and culture. We also heard from communities in which they are making elders and cultural practitioners available to deliver teachings and counselling over the Internet.
As Brenda said, we need greater capacity to sustain these innovations, and I provided a couple of examples in the presentation I sent. Communities that are suffering from addressing methamphetamines and opioid addictions have partnered with the local health authorities to ensure rapid access to addictions medicine and also to provide community-based outreach to ensure that people who are using drugs have the right, maintain the right and are supported in their right to health and are getting access to what might be happening for them to address methamphetamine and opioid addictions.