Program involves families and community in learning

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For three days at the end of April, Saskatchewan's poet laureate, Louise Halfe, spent time with parents from Little Pine, Poundmaker, Sweetgrass, Moosomin, Mosquito and Red Pheasant First Nations. Halfe read some of her poems to the parents, shared some of her stories, and welcomed the parents to share some of their own.

The workshops were part of the Battleford Tribal Council's Home and Community Engagement Project, which works to support family and community members so they can in turn support the children in the community in their journey of learning.

Halfe spoke to the parents about the writing experience, and how it can help in the healing process.

"When you write, it's a talk between yourself and the Creator," Halfe told the parents.

After Halfe's presentation , participants in the workshops were each given a journal so they could begin their own writing, providing them with a tool for healing and for self-expression, but also helping them strengthen their writing skills so they can better help their children and lead by their example.

"We were so fortunate to have Louise for those three days," said Valerie Tootoosis-Bull, BTC Language Arts consultant and co-ordinator of the project.

The idea behind the Home and Community Engagement Project is that First Nations' school systems would blossom if parents and community members took real control of their children's education.

"You're involved in your child's education when you get them up in the morning," Tootoosis-Bull said. "When you feed them a nutritious breakfast, dress them for the weather, get them to bed early and encourage them through the ups and downs.

"Parents need to be given medals for achieving this level of involvement on $198 a month welfare," she said. "What some families don't always have are the resources and support necessary to help their children further."

One of the ways the program is helping is by providing reading materials for children to use in the home.

When planning the project, Tootoosis-Bull was struck by the fact that more than half of the First Nation schools within the tribal council didn't have functioning school libraries, and none of the member First Nations have community libraries.

"This reality in our territories is like a kick in the stomach when we know that research tells us access to reading materials and lots of enjoyable experiences with books at home prior to and during our school life greatly increases a child's likelihood of becoming a strong reader, a school graduate and a fully-employed band member," she said.

With that in mind, more than $100,000 worth of reading materials were purchased through the project to be circulated to students in their homes. Home literacy liaison workers were hired for each of the member First Nations, both to assist with circulation of the books and to work to build ongoing communications with families.

"This building new relationships with families around literacy and this home reading initiative is a huge challenge," Tootoosis-Bull said. "It wasn't that long ago that school authorities took the children by the force of law and forbade families to nurture their young. Now we're telling families to get involved. It's really a tremendous conceptual leap and a total about-face."

While the Home and Community Engagement Project is working to ensure that students have access to reading materials, Tootoosis-Bull is also working to ensure that access continues long after the project has come to an end. For that to happen, school and community libraries or resource centres need to be established in each First Nation within the tribal council, she said.

A library needs assessment has been completed for all of the tribal council's schools and has been submitted to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC).

"What INAC has told us is that the $3 million price tag to establish and upgrade our libraries will need to be phased in over four to five yeas," Tootoosis-Bull said. With that knowledge in hand, she went back to the drawing board to draft an action plan that would help make the upgrades a reality.