Sure, Mr. Chair.
My recommendation would be to look at it in a manner that is well removed from western science, if you want to call it that. We are finding that the traditional approach to mental health counselling has been to provide a counsellor from outside of a community into the community. We are firm believers that our counsellors exist and that they interact on a less formal basis, on a day-to-day basis. What we are finding most effective is providing people who will listen to our people and not judge them for their particular situations.
In terms of improving the recognition of mental health workers at the community level, it's removing all of the credentials, if you will, all of the very high levels of post-secondary education. It's recognizing and placing value on the social awareness and the knowledge of our culture, our language and our protocols, and understanding how people are provided with that counselling in the Gwich'in way, as we would say, which is a lot of listening and not much talking.