A Youth Crisis Has Been Brewing in The North

Northwest Territories News North Feb 4/19

First let me introduce myself. My education includes a Master of Social Work and a Bachelor of Social Work in Community development. I have served as a Probation Officer, School Social Worker, Disability Policy Analyst (GNWT) and Director of Youth Programs in Ontario. My work experience in part involved a parenting program that I created, that ran for 10 years in Ontario and a police diversion program that resulted in the hiring of full-time social workers (since 1998) at the Halton Regional Police Services in Ontario. Recently I just finished 29 years of service as a social worker.

I first arrived in Yellowknife from Ontario in 2004 when as Director of Youth Programs for Appleby College I negotiated an opportunity for youth from Ontario to go on the land in Fort McPherson and participate in a cross-cultural peer leadership program. That program ran for three summers. I need to acknowledge Yellowknife social worker Sandra Little M.S.W. who first taught me to me the words and truths behind residential schools and helped negotiate an agreement with the Gwich’in (Hazel Nerysoo) to host the on-land program at Tl’oondih Healing Lodge.

Forgive me for I am not self aggrandizing but instead trying to demonstrate that I have some experience to back up what I am about to share.

My current job is Mental Health Service Provider to First Nations & Inuit Health Branch, Northern Region. For the past 8 years I have provided counselling to Indian Residential School Survivors and their families. Clients often include second and third generations that follow survivors. I am one of several counsellors available to these clients throughout the Northwest Territories through Health Canada. Each month I travel to see clients in the following regions: Yellowknife, the Deh Cho, the Sahtu region and the Beauford Delta.

Having said all this, I was not mentally or emotionally prepared for the level of violence and trauma found in the Northwest Territories. There is a crisis amongst not only adult indigenous aboriginals but also their youth, especially in the smaller more remote communities. The sexual abuse of girls and women continues at an alarming rate. This should not come as any surprise. Unfortunately, our legal system statistics do not reflect the true picture.

The other issue I see repeatedly is the failure of ‘treatment’ to help indigenous aboriginal adults and youth who seek help to become clean and sober. Now we can list all the contributing factors and reasons but what we really need is a paradigm shift in thinking and action. No more working papers.

What motivated me to write this column is MLA Daniel McNeely. I don’t really like any kind of politics, but I do like what he is asking for. He is concerned for the youth of the Sahtu region and believes the crisis is at hand. Therefore, he is proposing a Sahtu Youth Conference in the summer of 2019. I applaud this man for first admitting that there is in fact a crisis and secondly that solutions must come from the youth. I agree because for the most part I believe all of us adults i.e. politicians, counsellors, band councils and parents have failed to change in a meaningful way the tide of violence and drug/alcohol abuse that affects children and youth directly and indirectly.

So…this means I will not pontificate solutions. Instead I will put my efforts behind MLA McNeely’s efforts to set up a youth conference this summer. My only suggestion to him is this needs to be a territorial conference and one that ensures the decision makers attend. 

Raymond Pidzamecky M.S.W.