By Angela Brown

Helping the vulnerable

Kanaweyimik’s new site to open soon

Feb 6, 2019 | 2:00 PM

A new centre that will house a program for people struggling with trauma issues is expected to open March 1 in Battleford.

Kanaweyimik Child and Family Services Inc. is currently renovating the site – its second building – at 112-23rd St. W., where it will run its Intergenerational Trauma Recovery Program full-time. The new site is located kitty-corner to Kanaweyimik’s main building at 91-23rd St. W. in Battleford.

Crews have been renovating the new building since January, after Kanaweyimik purchased the property.

Kanaweyimik serves people in the Battlefords area as well as five surrounding First Nation communities.

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Kanaweyimik Child and Family Services Inc.’s executive director Marlene Bugler said she is pleased to see the project progressing.

The new centre will provide more space for staff as well as room to accommodate the trauma recovery program and other prevention programs.

Bugler confirmed there is a great need for the trauma recovery program in particular. Currently, 14 people are taking the program.

“We have had a lot of people that are recovering from addictions,” she said, adding some people have said they found this program was “way better than what they had experienced in treatment centres.”

Bugler said the full-time program will also help participants be able to spend more one-on-one time with trained facilitators.

People who take the program reflect on their experiences from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.

Indigenous people will look at the impact on their lives from residential school abuse, and the Sixties Scoop practice of taking Indigenous children from their families.

“They begin to understand why their lives have evolved the way they have,” Bugler said. “Then, they are given the tools to overcome the issues they have had.”

People often take the trauma recovery program after completing detox for drug or substance abuse.

Bugler said it would help a lot of people if there was a detox centre in the Battlefords for people dealing with addictions here, so they wouldn’t need to go to Lloydminster, Meadow Lake or Saskatoon for the service.

She added she is aware of a local committee that is currently looking into options to make detox services available locally in North Battleford, and hopes they will be successful.

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow