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Carol Hopkins Chief Executive Officer, Thunderbird Partnership Foundation
A SPECIAL INTEREST SECTION BY MEDIAPLANET
A SPECIAL INTEREST SECTION BY MEDIAPLANET
Read more at healthinsight.ca
Overqualified and Underfunded: The Paradox of Indigenous Addiction Services In Canada’s Indigenous communities, born out of necessity when other support was unavailable, a powerful framework of evidence-based addiction treatment and culturally relevant intervention has been developed. It’s arguably the best and most successful such system in the country. And yet these efforts remain so chronically underfunded and under supported by the provincial, territorial, and federal governments that their essential mandate becomes nearly impossible to fulfill. D.F. McCourt
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cross Canada, the growing impacts of addiction are being felt in all communities, rural and urban. As the opioid epidemic compounds upon the pre-existing burden of other addictions and mental health conditions, the support infrastructure that keeps Canadians healthy and safe is every day becoming more overwhelmed. In Indigenous communities, particularly, the weight of addiction and mental illness is felt keenly as an additional pressure exacerbating long unresolved issues of colonialism, racism, exclusion, and intergenerational trauma. In this context, properly funded and supported addiction and wellness services in these communities is an absolute necessity.
First Nations Communities Sidelined in the Midst of Nationwide Addiction Crisis The Thunderbird Partnership Foundation is a national organization providing support to youth and adult addiction treatment programs in First Nations communities across Canada. With an Indigenous worldview, Thunderbird promotes the use of culture-based practices in concert with the most modern mainstream treatment frameworks to support wellness. In addition to supporting treatment on the ground in these communities, Thunderbird conducts research, engages in knowledge translation, provides training and education, and works with policy-makers to create an environment that encourages real progress. It's a battle they’ve been waging for a long time, and their victories have come hard fought and well earned.
“The intergenerational trauma in Indigenous communities, from residential schools, from unmarked graves, from a host of other issues, remains unresolved,” says Carol Hopkins, Chief Executive Officer of Thunderbird Partnership Foundation. “For First Nations people in Canada, trauma is not an individual burden, it's endemic. Loss of land, fragmented connection to culture, and diminishing the connection
to our original languages. When people live with this kind of trauma that has not been resolved, when they have not found a way to be able to talk about it or to address it, the data tells us that they are, for example, three times more likely to experience the harms of opioids. Meanwhile, people who need support in our communities are left without equity. The same addiction and mental health services that are available to every other Canadian are not available to a First Nations person.
accreditation and the most innovative cultural intervention paradigms. This culturally-relevant programming is rooted in the re-establishment of Hope, Belonging, Meaning and Purpose in those who have had these things taken from them. And it works.
Culture as Intervention
“We have developed core competencies for the addictions workforce,” says Hopkins. “We have trained people, we've monitored certification, and we've updated those core competenThe Perennial Blind Spot cies to reflect the current drugs people in Canada’s Progressive Policies present with and our understanding At the United Nations Commission around trauma-informed care. The on Narcotic Drugs, Canada is seen as measure of quality and the standards a world leader, but when you look of excellence in our treatment cenbelow the surface, that reputation tres exceed what exists in publicly funded addictions treatment is not being realized in an equitprograms in mainstream able way. The lack of equity in health services for IndigenCanada.” ous Canadians is tied up in But with salaries in a tangle of funding and Indigenous communities still so much lower than jurisdictional division for similar positions that seems at times People who need support in our communities are left elsewhere in the almost designed without equity. The same country, workers t o le ave t he s e addiction and mental health are coming to these communities in a services that are available to centres for training dangerous no-man’severy other Canadian and experience, and then land. Time and again, are not available to a First Nations when trying to find a solubeing lost to the provincial person. tion to the health funding system. Staff turnover rates gap in Indigenous communat Indigenous treatment cenities, advocates get directed tres are as high as 50 per cent, to the provincial and territorial even as the need for these services, governments by the federal governand especially stability of services, ment, and then back to the federal continues to grow. “How can we keep government by the provinces and terour skilled workers when they could make the same salary serving hamritories. Meanwhile, the basic funding formula underlying mental health and burgers as what they earn delivering addiction programs has not been evalutrauma-informed, culturally-based ated or updated in decades, completely services to First Nations people?” failing to keep pace with the changing Hopkins asks. It's their commitment to purposeful and meaningful work, the realities across the country. “The cost of doing nothing in the wellness of First Nations, that keeps the face of this will be the continuing rise of workforce engaged, but they too have overdoses and drug poisoning deaths,” families to feed and want to enjoy life says Hopkins. “It will be the continuawith their children. tion of drug-related gangs coming into In this national moment of reconour communities from urban areas. It ciliation, there is a glimmer of hope will be our communities seeing more that this will be the day when this fight violent deaths, gun-related deaths and finally begins to get a little bit easier. stabbings. That is what will happen if we The Thunderbird Partnership Foundo nothing. Without equitable funding, dation and its allies have delivered a First Nations do not have capacity to put clear 5-point plan of action to the fedin place long-term solutions to wellness” eral government outlining a path to And so, of course, these communities meaningful change. But even if this are doing everything. Even as advocates country fails these communities once like Thunderbird fight for a reevaluation again, the fighters will fight on. of outdated funding frameworks that “Even as we continue to live in poverty, we will also continue to surleave First Nations addiction workers vive,” says Hopkins. “First Nations earning nearly 45 per cent less than their provincial counterparts, Indigenpeople are the most innovative, resilious communities have been building ent, and creative people because they the infrastructure for world-class treatcontinue to be driven by their passion ment programs with the most prestigious for the wellness of their people.”
Find the Plan and Join the Fight at thunderbirdpf.org. This article was sponsored by the Thunderbird Partnership Foundation.