Safety conference targeted at Aboriginal audience

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A conference designed to help Aboriginal communities in Saskatchewan develop injury prevention programs will be held in Saskatoon May 17 to 19 at the Ramada Hotel & Golf Dome.

The "Taking on your own Injury Prevention" conference is being co-ordinated by the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Injury Prevention Program (SAIPP), a new organization still in its formative stages.

Barb Ahenakew is chairperson of SAIPP, and coordinator for the conference.

Ahenakew said the idea of forming SAIPP came about last year, after she attended an Aboriginal injury prevention conference in Edmonton at the end of May, and realized there was nothing happening in Saskatchewan in the area of injury prevention among Aboriginal communities.

"I made a few phone calls, and I found that a lot of the service providing agencies were duplicating each other's services. Different bands were hiring people from out of province or across the province, when they had the resources in their area, but they didn't know it. Another thing that I found was that very, very few of the bands had anything on injury prevention other than swimming classes. One band had absolutely everything on injury prevention, and the neighboring band - and they are neighboring, I mean they join - they had absolutely nothing. And so I decided to try and do something about it," Ahenakew said.

She got in contact with Kim McLean, who is the injury prevention and abuse prevention services co-ordinator for the Red Cross in the north-central Saskatchewan region.

"I phoned her up, and we talked back and forth for about two weeks, and we decided between the two of us that this is something that we should seriously look at. So from there, her and I got everything going. We invited some other service providers, and we invited tribal councils - health directors from tribal councils or health promotions coordinators - and the health directors from the unaffiliated bands. Our first meeting was at the end of June, and we had four people. Now we have a total of 34."

The goal of SAIPP, Ahenakew said, is to eventually instruct at least one person from every reserve in Saskatchewan, showing them how to set up their own injury prevention program, as well as ways of addressing issues specific to their community.

"I guess that's the ultimate goal, is for me to get to all of the 72 bands in Saskatchewan, and to insure that they have an injury prevention program in place."

The conference, Ahenakew explained, is being held as a way of reaching as many of the bands as possible at one time, introducing them to the injury prevention program curriculum being used by SAIPP.

Ahenakew said the SAIPP is receiving a lot of support from organizations concerned with injury prevention.

"I've got about 8 or 9 really strong support letters for the program," she said. "The safety council in Regina is 100 per cent behind us."

Monica Zasada is Farm, Home and Community Safety Co-ordinator with the Saskatchewan Safety Council. She said the reason the council is supportive of SAIPP is "that, in looking at the injury rates among Aboriginal populations, we feel that much improvement can be made." She added the hope is that SAIPP can help raise awareness of the importance of injury prevention.

"Everyone has taken it for granted, or everyone thinks that accidents happen because it's fate. I think the central message that we're promoting to everyone is injuries are predictable, and preventable," Zasada said.

Although SAIPP has been operating for almost a year, and is in the process of co-ordinating its first conference, the organization has no funding behind it.

"What we're going to be doing after the conference is really still up in the air because as of yet we have no funding," Ahenakew explained. "We've been going with no funding so far. And it's been almost a complete year, and we haven't got any okay or anything about funding.

Ahenakew said SAIPP has approached Health Canada's medical services branch for funding, but she hinks the reason no decision has been made is because the concept behind the organization is so new.

"The concept actually is very new, and what they've been doing all these years is basically going with what Red Cross has, with what SGI (Saskatchewan Government Insurance) has and so on, and seeing that as sufficient. "But we found it very insufficient, and very inadequate because . . . a lot of the bands have no injury prevention program at all."

"We have 34 participants on our board right now. We haven't formalized the board. I was appointed chairperson, and Kim McLean was appointed secretary-treasurer. And that's it . We haven't incorporated. We're still up in the air because of funding."

Despite concerns regarding the lack of funding for SAIPP, the conference will go on as planned, and arrangements will be made to assist bands in the province that require assistance in setting up injury prevention programs in their communities.

"We're going ahead with this conference . . . and we're instructing one or two people from each of the 72 bands on this injury prevention program that we've got . . . and if I don't get funding before then, then what I'm going to do is go on individual contract. We can't let the people who come to that workshop, just leave them high and dry. We've got to have follow-up . . . they're going to need assistance in setting up their programs . . . so that's what the two alternatives - either we get funding or I go on individual contract."

Ahenakew is anticipating good attendance for the conference, which she says is "directed at each and every band in Saskatchewan." "They'll go home with their own ways to eliminate the injuries in their own communities," she said.

"The registrations are coming in like crazy . . . I'm positive that we're going to get a very good turn-out."

For more info about SAIPP or the "Taking on your own Injury Prevention" conference, contact Barb Ahenakew at (306) 384-9824.