Family Wellness and Healing Project launching in Meadow Lake (file photo/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

By Elliott Knopp

Family Wellness/Healing

Family Wellness and Healing Project launching in Meadow Lake

Jan 6, 2021 | 3:20 PM

A new program designed for Indigenous people affected by interpersonal violence is launching in Meadow Lake.

The Family Wellness and Healing Project is a pilot project based out of the North West Friendship Centre. The program offers land-based learning, language retention and trauma-informed, culturally sensitive values to bring a healthy reunification of families involved in interpersonal violence. Another primary focus is reducing recidivism rates and partner violence.

The project was created when Meadow Lake RCMP Community Program Officer Maryah Walker was tasked with finding out what services are available to victims, survivors and offenders in the community and surrounding area.

Walker stated this program is important to the community because there currently aren’t any programs in the area that offer healing, wellness or a healthy reunification of families.

“We know that a lot of times, families tend to reunify after there has been violence in the relationships, and even when they don’t, there isn’t a lot out there that brings the entire family unit together and provide healing and wellness,” Walker said.

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The program will bring in Indigenous offenders through a court referral and submit them to a 26-week healing circle that will help them navigate through a rehabilitation process structured around cultural values.

“There is an opportunity for healing, wellness and accountability for their behaviour and understanding of where those triggers are coming from, and providing an opportunity for skill development in a way that meets the needs of the Indigenous community that is here.”

The second component of the project will center around family reunification. The offender and family will come together for group activities and work on healing and repairing relationships. Some of the activities include mushing, dog sledding, hunting, trapping, setting snares, collecting medicine and sweat ceremonials.

“We want to ensure that if there is going to be reunification, that we can try to support them in a healthy way rather than just taking one individual away from that family unit and providing them with support,” Walker said.

“We want to look at providing support not only for that individual, but also for their children and the extended kinship family that is in there. That is where those wellness pieces are going to come in.”

All of the programming is developed by Benita Moccasin, a family violence coordinator at the North West Friendship Centre. She said tailoring the program to heritage will create a deeper understanding of trauma while promoting awareness and education around violence against women and girls. She added the focus is more concerning than ever before with the national awareness surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

“It’s very important. It creates awareness and education for people in the community and surrounding areas. It creates inclusion of people,” Moccasin said. “They’re able to build relationships and acknowledge unnecessary behaviour. They have an opportunity to develop different areas in their life that maybe they are unable to otherwise have access to prior to these services. Ultimately, trying to create a healthy community.”

The pilot program will run through 2021-22 and is funded through the Government of Saskatchewan and SGI.

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Elliott.Knopp@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @ElliottKnopp