Program provides tools to deal with justice issues

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White Bear, Ocean Man and Ochapowace First Nations are now better equipped to deal with justice issues that arise within their communities, thanks to a community justice committee training program designed by the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations' (FSIN) Indian Justice Council.

Thirty people from the three bands spent three days a month over the course of a year taking part in the training program. The students completed their training in April and had their efforts recognized with an honouring ceremony.

This offering of the training program was co-ordinated by the South East Treaty Four Tribal Council, which represents White Bear and Ochapowace First Nations. The training was part of the tribal council's five-year strategic plan, Justice is Healing, which has received $50,000 in funding under the federal government's National Crime Prevention Strategy.

Susan Jolly-Maxie is a justice co-ordinator with the South East Treaty 4 Tribal Council and sits on the Indian Justice Council, a technical committee of the Indian Justice Commission.

"It was such a significant training," Jolly-Maxie said. "Through the FSIN we're trying to encourage, at this stage, for people to be trained at the community level to build and administer justice services."

The curriculum is a comprehensive one, designed to give justice committee members the information they need to deal with justice issues that arise. Among the topics covered are First Nations governance and traditional law, the Canadian legal system, restorative justice, how to establish and operate community justice committees, conflict resolution and maintaining balance and wellness.

The curriculum used in the training program was developed a few years ago, Jolly-Maxie said, but the year-long training session held at White Bear was the first time the entire curriculum was taught.

"It's been used here and there, hit and miss, but never the whole curriculum over the course of a year," she said.

The group completing the course was a diverse one, made up of men and women from all age groups, from youth to Elders.

"It was a really good group and they learned a lot, and it built the capacity at the community level to really start looking at administering some of these services that we can do better at the community level, like probation and parole and some corrections work, those kinds of things."

By taking part in the training program, community members not only develop the skills they need to be justice committee members, but the training also helps the community to recognize them, and the committee, as having a role to play, Jolly-Maxie explained.

"There were justice committees in the communities prior to training, but they didn't really have a recognized role. They were there. They weren't even supported financially, and they didn't have a clear role in terms of band government. But once they were trained we had a huge honouring ceremony made up of the three communities and they were brought forward in front of the community and the leadership and acknowledged and honoured for what they had achieved. And once that happened, all of a sudden now they've got a recognized role. Policy's been developed, they're starting to be more active. The band government's starting to put in financial assistance for committees to meet. So it very much promoted that recognized role within government, within local government on reserve. And that's what's needed," she said.

"A lot more people are coming to the justice committee ... because they recognized, once these people were recognized as trained, then justice isn't something that you kind of don't want to deal with because it's a negative system, right? The cops are abusive, the courts are unfair, I mean, nobody likes justice. So now it's more positive. It was positive because people were so proud of them ... Seeing the youth and the Elders and the people graduate, it kind of gave the community a moe positive look at justice. And now we're getting a lot more people requesting help and coming forward with more of their needs. Coming to us rather than calling the police."

Often there's a high turn-over rate with committee members on First Nations, but the training program has helped to address that problem as well, Jolly-Maxie said.

"We haven't had any members leave the committee since the training. They feel good about themselves. I guess they feel prepared ... the training gave them the confidence and the tools they need to make good decisions. And that's really important."

It's even more important for the Elders who took part in the training, who are always being asked to help resolve disputes or make other important decisions.

"And you know, they're always saying, 'We never get to go to training. I mean, we're not born with this knowledge. We need to know the system. We need to know how it operates so we can try to work within it,'" Jolly-Maxie said. "And there were eight, eight Elders that graduated the year. And I'm most honoured by that, having the opportunity to engage and certify Elders and get them through a one-year training. To me, that was the biggest accomplishment."