Page 20 - EUREKA Winter 2017

in the Sioux Lookout area will present
challenges for the researchers
“Really, the ultimate goal is to help
Left and middle: Luther Caverly; Daniel Abriel for how to move forward.”
them build on their strengths,” says
Bombay, “and support their best ideas
Those strengths could include
community initiatives as varied as a
successful suicide prevention program
in one community and a solar power

The demographics argument, that
Indigenous youth are the fastest
Kim Matheson Ariel Root Amy Bombay project in another.
growing population in Canada, is one
intergenerational consequences of and evaluation expert Rob Shepherd, reason Youth Futures is important,
colonization and continued practices Aboriginal Enriched Support Program says Bombay. But so are social,
associated with federal funding, coordinator Rodney Nelson, Sprott cultural and economic arguments,
legislative and treaty rights, resource School of Business entrepreneurship not to mention funding disparities
extraction and land development, specialist Tony Bailetti and university and shortfalls. “Improving well-being
out-migration due to lack of economic archivist Patti Harper — is working with among Indigenous youth,” she says,
or educational prospects, and, academic partners from Dalhousie “will benefit everybody.”
increasingly, changing climates and University, Lakehead University and
environments, put many Indigenous Cape Breton University. It took two years of relationship
youth at risk. Researchers from nine other building after Bombay’s report was
“Numerous programs have universities in Canada, the United released in Sioux Lookout to get Youth
been introduced in First Nations States and Australia are also Futures to the starting line. The short-
communities over the years to foster participating. This is in addition to the term goal of the project is to establish
youth resilience and prosperity. Some seven partner organizations already active relationships with three to five

Improving well-being among Indigenous youth

will benefit everybody.

successes have been evident. At the playing a lead role in Indigenous communities within the first couple
same time, problems continue to be youth education, health and well- years, and grow from there.
present in the lives of First Nations being in the region. “We want to learn what works in one
youth, as evidenced by the low high place, and then see how communities
school completion rates (and still Amy Bombay, Matheson and can work together to apply the
lower rates of pursuing post-secondary Anisman’s former graduate student, approach elsewhere,” says Matheson.
education), gang involvement, now a professor in the Department “We want to do something that actually
substance and alcohol abuse, and of Psychiatry and School of Nursing makes a difference — and to understand
rates of suicide. Clearly there is no at Dalhousie, is one of the project’s what factors led to that difference.”
single solution or pathway forward. leaders. Her research interest in the From a research perspective,
By bringing together the partnership long-term impacts of residential explaining and disseminating
team represented in this proposal, it schools, in particular on mental health, information about these factors could
is possible to take a multi-pronged has personal roots — Bombay is from have important outcomes far beyond
approach that is shaped by, and Rainy River First Nations, an Ojibway northwestern Ontario. If the right
with, First Nations communities … to community west of Lake Superior on kind of evidence is assembled, Youth
implement and evaluate pathways the Ontario-Minnesota border. Futures could have national policy
forward to foster youth resilience Youth Futures, in a sense, is a implications.
and create the conditions for continuation of the work that led One local success story, which is
youth to prosper as leaders in their to her report on lateral or peer-to- being evaluated by Carleton’s Social
communities.” peer violence. The partnership’s Diversity Lab, is the Sioux Mountain
Carleton — whose participants “participatory methodology,” she says, Public School’s Mitacs-funded Hockey
include Aboriginal and northern holds great promise. However, just as Skills Academy, where students
development emeritus professor there are differences between Rainy participate in on- and off-ice skills
Katherine Graham, Anisman, public River and Sioux Lookout, differences development and training. As part
policy expert Frances Abele, policy between the individual First Nations of the program, students also learn

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