Increased mental health support for people affected by Indian residential schools is ‘a drop in the bucket’

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Indigenous leaders and academics say a provincial government announcement Monday that it will allocate $ 1.5 million to three projects that offer mental health support to those affected by residential schools is welcome, but is only a small fraction of what is needed. .

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“The announcement, which is part of what was already announced last June, is a drop in the bucket,” said Terry Teegee, the regional head-elect of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations.

He wants the provincial and federal governments to increase funding for mental health and addictions while lowering the barriers to accessing those funds.

“What we see too often is that the conditions that are imposed remove organizations from the ranking, or that organizations do not try to access them because there is too much bureaucracy.”

British Columbia’s Indian Relations and Reconciliation Minister Murray Rankin said his government is committed to ensuring such programs are designed and implemented by indigenous people.

“We must ensure as a government, as a society and as individuals of British Columbia, that we support indigenous peoples and recognize the truth of our colonial system. We will continue to put communities and survivors at the center of this response, ”Rankin said.

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The director of the Indian Residential Schools Dialogue and History Center, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, said funding for trauma counseling is just one way to address the results of colonialism.

“British Columbia still needs to take action to clarify what it will do to address missing children and unmarked burials. It has not yet created an investigative unit or a special prosecutor or taken those more formal steps to protect records and help communities build the infrastructure to protect those records. On the side of accountability and investigations, we still need to hear from the Minister of Public Security and the Attorney General. “

Monday’s announcement focused on three indigenous organizations in BC that will receive a total of $ 1.5 million from the province to improve counseling services for victims of residential schools and their families.

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Indian Residential School Survivors Society Executive Director Angela White said the organization will use the $ 750,000 it will receive to maintain its 24/7 cultural support line.

“People who have called the cultural support line have told us that they are happy to have a place where they feel safe, where they know that the person on the other end of the phone is indigenous and they understand where they come from,” he said. White.

He said the cultural support line was flooded with calls after the bodies of 215 children were discovered in unidentified graves near Kamloops last May.

“We received between 500 and 600 calls a day during business hours, and our night call operators received 30 to 45 calls each per shift.”

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White said the funds will allow the society to increase the number of cultural support counselors and add clinical therapists as part of its hotline service.

A Metis Nation BC spokeswoman, Colette Trudeau, said her organization also found that the need for advice far outweighed its resources. It will receive $ 250,000 to expand its Metis Counseling Connection program, which was created in February, with a $ 300,000 grant from the federal government.

“Within days of announcing our program, in which we offer 10 counseling sessions per person, we were oversubscribed,” he said. “300 of our citizens were served and now we have a waiting list. This funding will help with that. “

The third group to receive funding, Nanaimo-based Tsow-Tun Le Lum Society, will spend $ 500,000 to provide more in-person health, wellness and cultural supports, including addiction services.

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Monday’s funding announcement is not new money, it is part of a British Columbia Residential Schools Response Fund of $ 12 million that was announced by the provincial government in June.

Rankin said the remainder of the $ 12 million has been allocated to the 21 “caregiver communities” near residential schools and former Indian hospitals throughout the province.

Each community can access up to $ 475,000 to fund programs as they see fit. Rankin said $ 2.85 million has been used so far.

This year, hundreds of unmarked graves were found in residential schools by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Nation near Kamloops, along with the Penelakut Nation off the coast of central Vancouver Island and by the Ktunaxa Nation near Cranbrook.

The federal government has set aside more than $ 30 million for the same purpose, and both governments have pledged more assistance, after First Nations identify what resources are needed. In 2015, the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission report identified 3,200 children who died in residential schools and predicted that there are thousands more who have yet to be found and identified.