Mr. Speaker... [Translation] I would like to make a statement on how the government can help us, and this is what I’d like to talk about today, and I will speak in English from this point on. [Translation ends.]
I rise today to speak about families. Families are the strength of our territory. The mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health is important to the health and prosperity of our territory. Many of our families are suffering. They are suffering because of the effects of trauma in their lives and this is tearing them apart.
Trauma is an event that involves a single experience or repeated experiences that completely overwhelm the individual’s ability to cope. Traumatizing experiences can be caused by crime, dysfunctional families, or even experiences such as the residential school system.
The symptoms of trauma show themselves in many ways: addictions, abusive behaviour, low self-esteem, dropping out of school. The effects are cyclical. For example, a child of 10 lives at a home where adults are addicted to alcohol, the parties go all night, the adults in life abuse each other, the child witnesses this, causing trauma. The child cannot get enough sleep. He tries to go to school but he’s too tired to do well. The child drops out because he’s not doing well and can’t get a job later on in life because of his lower literacy levels and education levels, so he copes by drinking and/or doing drugs, is soon addicted, and the cycle continues.
This government does well to deliver programs that treat the symptoms of alcohol and drug abuse, and family violence, with upgrading and literacy programs. However, this government continues to ignore the root cause of these symptoms: trauma.
Trauma treatment programs come in many different forms. They require professionals trained specifically to deal with trauma, but also require a number of other things to be successful. Firstly, they must be community driven, appropriately resourced, support the whole family as a unit, be ongoing, and provide after-care support.
No one department within this government can provide the continuum of supports. It requires a coordinated continuum of support right across the GNWT to enable communities to develop and deliver the programs and services they require to address this trauma.
I will be asking what has been done to support communities to develop trauma treatment programs for our people.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
