Report says residential school damage is fading

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A study of more than 2,000 Aboriginal youth aged 12 to 18 shows that the inter-generational effects of the residential school system are finally beginning to subside, a researcher says.

Dr. Roger Tonkin believes the positive findings uncovered by his group's research are a sign that the younger generation is less traumatized than previous generations.

"The front cover of the report has been done by a young First Nations woman named Ginger Gosnell and it's a raven with its wings wrapped around the healing wheel. And that's what it's all about, that healing is going on.

"We're saying to people: shrug off the heavy mantle of the past and look to the healing that's going on in your communities and with your children," Tonkin said.

The study was done by The McCreary Centre Society, a Vancouver based, non-profit, charitable foundation established approximately 25 years ago that focuses on youth health, primarily in British Columbia. It was released Nov. 16 at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre in Vancouver. Raven's Children, as the report is entitled, concludes that Aboriginal children who remain in school are in much better health than negative stereotypes suggest.

Tonkin, chairman of the McCreary Centre Society board of directors, said the study of more than 2,000 Aboriginal children was part of a larger study commissioned by Health Canada that looked at health trends among more than 26,000 students in Grades 7 to 12. He said the data surprised the researchers.

"We said, 'OK, let's pull all the First Nations out and look at them," because we were expecting it to look the way the stereotype says," Tonkin told Raven?s Eye. "But that's just not the case."

The researchers discovered that most Aboriginal children are coping well, but all the attention goes to those who aren't.

"The stereotype of the Native kid in trouble is, in fact, just that," Tonkin said. "The majority of young Native people or Aboriginal people and that doesn't matter whether you're talking on reserve, Metis, off reserve, whatever? they're doing all right, especially if they're still in school. That's the big difference that we think needs to be emphasized.

"In our report, we actually have compared Aboriginal kids in school with Aboriginal kids on the street in B.C. These are very different groups of kids. Kids in school are substantially different from the ones that are on the street. It's the kids on the street in the big cities that are visible and that's where the stereotype comes from. Because people think all First Nations kids are like that. It's just not so. The kids on the street are much smaller in numbers but more visible. The kids that are quietly going about their business, getting their education, being part of their community, don?t get profiled."

Tonkin hopes the data in Raven's Children will encourage Aboriginal leaders and parents and give pause to those who view Aboriginal people in a negative way.

"We don't look past what we see. And what we see in Vancouver, the kids down on Main and Hastings shooting up and hooking and that sort of stuff, that negative stereotype is undeserved and that's what this report is all about.

"I'm not saying those problems don't exist and don't need to be addressed. The Innu kids in Labrador certainly have special kinds of problems that need to be addressed, but let's not assume all Native kids in the country are like that because otherwise people will just throw up their hands and say, 'what can we do?' Especially the Native leadership,' he said.

But there are obviously problems that still need attention, he added.

"No matter which community you look at - the street community or the other communities that we studied - you certainly see higher rates of alcohol and, particularly, marijuana use. There still are issues around physical and sexual abuse. Those things haven't gone away. But our point has been that our data shows that, even in the face of those kinds of prols, if kids feel connected to their families, connected to their schools, they will overcome those problems. We call that resiliency."

Retention of learning and grade point averages have gone up for Aboriginal students who stay in school, but drop out rates for Aboriginal kids are still a problem, Tonkin said.