Poundmaker's to treat Innu children

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Children from the remote community of Davis Inlet are heading for Alberta to

be treated for solvent addiction.

Fourteen youths, accompanied by their parents, Elders and translators, are scheduled to begin arriving at Poundmaker's Lodge in mid-February to begin 90 days

of addiction counselling, the lodge's executive director said.

"The community is very interested in healing," said Pat Shirt.

"Our goal is to get Davis Inlet their own treatment program - get their own

people helping their own people."

Davis Inlet made headlines across the nation last month when two groups of children were found intoxicated and nearly comatose on gasoline fumes.

Six were found on the evening of Jan. 26, sniffing gas in an unheated shack on a government wharf. The five girls and one boy, all between the ages of 12 and 14, were talking about suicide when a Native police officer found them. He had followed their tracks in the snow. The children were flown out to a Social Services' group home in Goose Bay the following morning.

On the evening of Sunday, Jan. 31, the same police officers found five more children - four boys and a girl between the ages of eight and 12 - sniffing gasoline, this time under a house.

Solvent abuse is rampant among youth in the community. Native leaders say of the 340 kids, 42 are chronic abusers, in various stages of addiction, and another 17 are addicted. The youngest abuser is four years old.

A total of 14 children were at a group home in Sheshatshui on the mainland where they received detoxification treatment.

Treating the children and the families in Alberta is only a short-term solution, Nechi Centre executive director Maggie Hodgson said. The real solution lies in treating the entire community and removing them from their current location.

"The community knows it must go back to their traditional hunting grounds," she said. "They've asked the federal and provincial governments. The federal and provincial governments have promised $100,000 to start planning.

"The place is a rock," she said of Davis Inlet. "Christ built his house on a rock,

but he didn't have to live there. They have a spiritual relationship with the animals in their hunting grounds. You can't have a relationship with a rock. We must move them back."

In the meantime, counsellors in Davis Inlet plan to erect a stove-heated tent where residents can go for help. The community has asked the provincial government for help several times in the last year but nothing ever happened for lack of funding, Hodgson said.

Moving the 60 community members out West will be a gradual process, she said. Many of the Innu must find ways to look after their homes before they can leave.

"An Elder said he would have to take the time to find someone to take care of their dogs," she said.

Poundmaker's hopes to make the visiting Innu more comfortable by taking them out into the bush during their stay. The centre will also offer them the opportunity to sleep in tipis if they choose.

The treatment at Poundmaker's involves several facets, although the children will have already gone through detox, said Shirt. An educational element teaches clients about the disease of addiction, counselling helps them learn to deal with their feelings and the Native components helps them feel good about being Native.

The success of the program will depend heavily on the extent of their addition, Hodgson said.

Although Poundmaker's focuses on the spiritual traditions of the Plain's Indians, there are many cultural similarities between the Innu clients and their counsellors, Shirt said. He had little difficulty in communicating with the Innu while in Davis Inlet, despite the fact that he was speaking Cree.

"This is Indian people helping Indian people," he said. "People are more likely

to trust people with a similar background instead of a dissimilar one. That is where the healing takes place."

The Newfoundland government offered to send the children to a treatment centre in Minnesota, bt community leaders said no.

"Leaving Davis Inlet will be a frightening event for many, she said, but they realize they have no choice.

"Parents and grandparents are afraid. Some of them have never been out of the community. But if the choice is life and death, you'd say 'of course I'd go'."

The cost of the trip is unknown right now, said Hodgson. The federal government will negotiate for compensation with the province of Newfoundland at a later date.