Good morning. My name is Gail Nicholas. I'm Maliseet from Tobique First Nation, a proud elder from Tobique First Nation. I'm the vice-president of the New Brunswick Aboriginal Women's Council. I'm also the director of the Wabanaki Women's Council, and we have Wabanaki women's gatherings twice a year to help empower women in our Wabanaki population.
I've been a child protection service worker and adoption specialist for the State of Nebraska for approximately 15 years. I also specialized in the Indian Child Welfare Act. That's the piece of legislation that protects native children in the United States when they are in state custody. Also, as part of the New Brunswick Aboriginal Women's Council, last September we introduced a resolution on Indian child welfare to the Native Women's Association of Canada, to have them look at that type of legislation for our children here in Canada so they'll be placed in aboriginal homes first, and also to train native foster families to take in their own children or children from other first nations.
When I left Nebraska I moved to Bangor and I was the clinician with the Wabanaki Mental Health Association for three years. I worked with native adults with mental health issues, and that was very rewarding. Then I decided to move closer to home and had to stop in Holt. Then I was the language director there for about a year until the funding ran out. Then I went back home to Tobique to be with my family.
Then I taught for a couple of years. I was a native studies teacher and a Maliseet language teacher. Then after that I saw a position as a program coordinator for the Mi'kmaq-Maliseet Healing Network Centre, working with residential school survivors. Previously, when I worked as a clinician, I came up on weekends when the survivors were gathering. They asked me to help them out, so I did that on a voluntary basis.
Now I'm coordinating the Wabanaki teaching lodge and working on projects to reintroduce culture and language to our community and other first nations people. Also, I'm with the New Brunswick Aboriginal Women's Council, where we've been busy trying to work on new strategic planning to find where there are needs in our province. So that's what we've been busy with--with Sarah; I'll include Sarah.
Thank you.