Warm fuzzies

Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer.  And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.

Maya Angelou

I've hit the two week mark!  Two weeks from today, at this very minute, my last flight from Ottawa to Toronto will be touching down at YYZ.  I'll gather my luggage, find my ride, and get back to my little house in Greektown, and start assimilating myself back into urban, big-city life.  

It really does feel like I just got here though.  I have been enjoying my time immensely in Nunavut and almost thought about deferring admission at UW until January... but it's probably best I go back and get it over with while I'm still motivated to finish school.  Nunavut will be around once I finish.  

When I first came here, I wondered how I'd be able to adjust to small town (or rather, hamlet) living.  My friends jokingly referred to Nunavut as "Planet Hoth".  My hiring manager referred to it as "the wild wild west".  I've lived in big cities all my life - Chicago, Berlin, Toronto, Auckland... but you know, the adjustment wasn't so bad.  

What did help, though, were the people of Igloolik.  Everyone is so nice here.  When I've gone on walks through the community, everyone I pass stops and says hi, and usually asks where I'm from.  In the store, if you make eye contact with someone, there's a smile and a wave and a hello.  When I'm driving around, and you pass another car, more often than not you get a wave hello.  People are just genuinely nice here, which is a far cry from Toronto, where I feel people avoid eye contact with you with purpose, like if they look into your eyes you'll get shot straight through with lasers, like that Sphinx-y Southern Oracle in The Neverending Story.  

I've been having some really great social work moments up here as well - great learning experiences, learning more about counseling, how I can better serve people and how I can be a better listener.  With a language barrier, pictures, drawings, smiles and laughter go a long way.  I've learned to take things more slowly.  There's also been some really wonderful moments where I have felt so honoured and humbled to have been able to be there for someone, respond to a cry for help, and have been able to support someone in getting their needs met.  I am truly grateful to those who've come to speak to me, who've opened up their hearts and put their trust in a total stranger, from a different part of Canada, and a different cultural background.  It takes a lot of balls to open up to someone and to talk about difficult things, especially when there is a limited amount of time, and a lot of work to be done, and I am happy to have been able to support some when they have needed it the most.  

A client called to check in about some things today and it was great to hear from them.  When we were getting ready to end the conversation, they stated they had one more thing to tell me.  Sure, I said.  "Karina, I can't thank you enough for all the help you gave me and my family." they said, and my lower lip started to quiver.  "Because of you, I learned how to laugh and smile again and it is the best feeling in the world!".  I think my heart almost stopped when I heard that - in the best way ever.  I explained that they were the ones who did all the work because they were the ones who found the courage inside them to reach out; I was merely there to facilitate the process once they had made that choice (gotta love existentialism).  "No no," they say.  "You showed me I had the courage."  

I might or might not have closed my office door and had a good cry for a few minutes after that.  Once in a great while, I am humbly reminded why I set out on this path to begin with.  These humble reminders are wonderful feelings I tuck away in notebooks, journals, sticky notes in my day planner - when the going gets tough at work or in life I can read these and remember why I do what I do and why I need to continue to do the work that I do.  My wish for them is to one day be able to pay this forward and in turn show compassion and kindness towards another human.  We all need to be good to each other.  I am blessed that I am able to serve.   

Gratitude is the greatest of all heart openers.  When it enters the heart, love pours out.  For every kindness we receive, gratitude inspires a hundred acts of giving.  

 

On youth.

Something that I noticed right away when I came here was the sheer amount of youth: babies, children, teenagers.  When driving around, you need to be really careful as they are always out on their bikes, walking along the roads, congregating in groups of people at all hours of the day and night.  I was even treated to a midnight chorus of airhorns a few weekends ago on my street.

There seems to be a harsh reality of life here though, for most of the youth of Igloolik.  On Friday, our community had the most unfortunate experience of another youth committing suicide (they were saying the third or 4th one since December).  Social services does not really intervene in terms of youth suicide, but the community had a heavy heart and you could tell by walking through the hallways of the health centre Friday morning that it was not a happy day, despite the sunshine and warmer temperatures.  It is incredibly sad to witness the death of any youth, but for someone so young to give up on life so quickly always calls into question: where are we going wrong?  Fingers are pointed.  It's the parents.  It's the loss of culture and trend towards a more colonized, southern-Canadian approach to ways of life.  It's limited access to mental health resources.  I feel that these are all contributing factors of near-epidemic levels of youth suicide in Nunavut.  But I feel that one of the larger problems here in northern communities, is that youth are not engaged.  In some of my meetings with young offenders and families, I ask the youth what they want.  I ask them their hopes and their dreams.  They take an awful long time to think about it.  Too many times I hear "I don't know".  When I was growing up, if someone asked me what I wanted to be, I would be able to rattle off a list of possibilities, everything from President of the United States to a nurse to a dolphin trainer.  I never felt like my options were limited.  How can we provide that same level of dreaming to our children in the North? 

Risk factors associated with youth suicide in Nunavut are many.  Relationship issues appear to be wide-spread here, and can often be quite dramatic.  Lack of developed coping skills in both children and adults are often a springboard into suicidal ideations.  As I stated before, there are large barriers to mental health treatment.  Our hamlet of 1500 provides only one mental health worker.  While we in social services are not there to provide counseling, we spend a good portion of our day taking and engaging people in on-the-spot counseling sessions.  Sometimes, people want to come in just to sit down and vent and have a good chat.  I am happy to provide this opportunity, and grateful to anyone who steps into my office and wants to speak with me.  But I can say this is so hard, when there is so much paper to push, and so many other things to do.  I realize the importance of this though, and I try to do this as often as I can.  As I've stated before, and am reading in various literature, our Northern communities also have high poverty rates, lack of adequate housing resouces, food insecurity, and high unemployment rates.  

Before settlement and colonization, Inuit had a horizontal family structure accompanied by a kinship-centred society.  Post-colonization, we have witnessed a move from that to a more individualistic ("Western", or "European"-based) approach and a more vertical, nuclear-based family structure.  The introduction of foreign foods, alcohol, drugs, electronics, and more individualistic ways of living has broken down the family structure and left youth caught between two worlds.  The exposure of "the rest of Canada" through media perhaps leads them to feelings of displacement, despair and longing for a life which they might never get to experience, a life which is vastly different from their own.  The introduction of Residential Schools and "The 60's Sweep" left the family structure broken and vulnerable in our Northern communities, an attempt of cultural genocide by the colonial Canadian government which will take many generations to fix.   

Schooling in the northern communities also leaves much to be desired.  School attendance is not enforced, and many youth drop out of high school at a young age to have children, or because they do not like going.  What can we do in order to get our youth more engaged in learning and wanting to better themselves?  Is this in and of itself a southern Canada value judgement?  I have been informed that many times, teachers will hand out passing grades to all students and that the system needs major restructuring.  

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) provides a voice for Inuit living across Canada.  In drawing upon traditional knowledge from Elders in Nunavut they feel that Inuit need to:

• Pay attention to each other’s needs
• Focus on helping others as a way of promoting connection and a sense of usefulness
• Do something productive, active and healthy
• Talk things out
• Solve conflicts with others, and
• Accept that life is not always easy but that tomorrow can be better

 Source: Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami Website

I've also noticed a severe lack of things to do for youth in Igloolik.  While I have seen various advertisements around the hamlet for day camps, I still see youth up and around every hour of the day and night.  There have been a series of break-ins and vandalizing around the health centre as well.  Even our own truck has experienced some vandalization, with children writing and drawing certain phallic items into the caked-on dust.  Yes, I know our truck is dirty.  Sorry, but I need to erase your Picasso.  While yes, we can say it stems from a parenting issue of not setting firm boundaries (not establishing curfews, not enforcing education or structured day and evening activities, etc) we can also turn towards ourselves and ask ourselves: how can we engage our youth to prevent further incidents from occurring?  It has less to do with locking up cans of spray paint and not making it accessible for youth and more to do with providing them a place to express themselves and paint murals (or whatever they wish) as a group.  Lord knows we have the room and space available.  It has less to do with blaming parents and more to do with coming together to accept the responsibility that we are to support and raise this child.  We live on an island, but we all don't have to be islands.      

My thoughts and prayers are with this family and everyone in this community. 

• Nunavut Kamatsiaqtut Help Line - Phone: (867) 979-3333, or toll-free 1-800-265-3333.
  Every night, 7 p.m. to midnight.
• Keewatin Crisis Line - Phone: (867) 645-3333
  Monday to Friday 7 p.m. -10 p.m.
• Kugluktuk Awareness Centre - Phone: (867) 982-4673

Eighty-Thirty to Five

Working in child and adult welfare services is vastly different from mental health. The stress is similar; trying to make do with the resources available (never enough) and to speak up and serve those who may not be able to speak up for themselves. Both fields require tireless advocacy, creative thinking, and and a heart of steel. I'm still working on the "heart of steel" part. 

Igloolik from the gas station.

In mental health, it is largely understood that change won't happen until the individual is ready to make these changes and take these steps towards recovery in their life. This might mean taking medication, withdrawing from medication, seeking counseling, going back to school, using substances in a way that is the least harmful to them: whatever steps they take in order to gain control and have meaning and purpose in their life. Whether it is the complete absence of symptoms of mental illness in their lives, or living a full life while learning to live with ongoing mental health issues, this is all up to the individual. They are in the driver's seat, so to speak. Any supports, myself as a social worker included, are secondary to the individual. You can lead a horse to water...

In child welfare, it's constant investigating. Referrals are endless, mainly due to mandated reporting. Domestic issues? Investigate. Youth arrested? Investigate. Does it involve a child? I'm there, following up, within 24 hours. Majority of our cases will be closed after an investigation, and thankfully, most cases after that will be involved in a voluntary service agreement, where the family is willing to work with us for a minimum of six months. While my first week was slow, this week has been full of investigations. It seems that no sooner I finish one, two more are referred my way. It keeps me busy, and the days go quickly. And I am eternally grateful that majority of cases prove to be nothing; no protection is needed.

What I am not used to, are the severe lack of resources in the North. Twice today, I ran into dead ends when wanting to refer individuals for more services - I simply could not, because those services just did not exist. And this is where it all sounds so trite. Because how do you work on a budget with someone who makes less than $400 a month and there are no subsidies to receive and food is so expensive? How do you work on supports with a young family when they are too young to qualify for income support? How do you sit there and tell someone there is no food bank, after they have told you they haven't eaten in days and they are starving, and then come home and eat lunch? This is where my heart bleeds. 

In my little community back home in suburban Toronto, I could probably talk for thirty minutes about various resources available for the population I serve. Here we have a clothing donation bin but no food bank. There is no access to subsidies for food, which is priced high due to shipping costs. Subsidized housing is non-existent. Generations of families live together, but what happens when you are on social assistance, aren't allowed to live with your family anymore, and can't afford to rent a place, which starts at around $800/month? Many people resort to building shacks on the land; called "love shacks" here. Newer initiatives have been put out by the government to offer more rent-geared-to-income housing, however there is still a greater need than resources available. There is currently no housing for individuals with mental health issues; though a pilot program is being worked on in Iqaluit and they are hoping to implement group homes in each of the hamlets in the long term. There are endless amounts of work to be done in housing and mental health up here.

I don't think it is wrong to want the best for the people I serve. I don't think it's wrong for anyone, in general, to get their needs met and receive the support and assistance they require, when they require it. In my profession, we often hear: "At least something is better than nothing!" and "We are doing the best we can under difficult circumstances". I am sick of both excuses, especially coming out the mouths of social workers. These phrases only seek to breed complacency and maintain the status quo. Social change was never achieved by sitting back and telling ourselves that something is better than nothing. Wanna know why it doesn't change? Because of people no longer challenging and more or less contributing to the status quo, as opposed to trying to break down barriers and decrease systemic oppression.  It is difficult to challenge, though, when you are so weighed down by work and at the end of the day just want to come home and not think about anything.  I myself do not have answers but I can indeed tell you the system in place (all over Canada, not just up here) isn't working.  But what do you do?  How do you change a system that has become so entrenched in our society?      

Elders felt that three Inukshuks we had in Igloolik were inviting violence into the hamlet, as with heads and arms, they are in warrior stance.  To try to quell violence which has been an issue in the hamlet, the heads and arms were removed. 

The Call

I was sitting at home, watching television, when I got a text message from my friend Val, who is a relief nurse that travels all over Canada and the world.  "Hey!" she exclaimed.  "Nunavut is desperate for social workers this summer!  They really need help, and you should go up there!  I'm out to dinner with a friend who just moved back from Nunavut, and will send you her contact info if you'd like."  Oh really, I think.  I texted her back, and got the contact information... and completely forgot all about it.

It was a horrific winter in Ontario.  It was long, cold, and snowy.  I'm starting graduate school in the fall, I want to enjoy summer and I don't know how we'll be able to work logistics with my summer and spring travels. 

That's the thing.  My travels.  I've always been the adventurous sort.  I will jump on a plane faster than... well... anyone who jumps on anything really, without a second thought and minimal planning.  I traveled throughout Europe in my childhood and teenage years.   I was a foreign exchange student in Germany.  I even did one of my social work practicums in New Zealand.  It's kind of an obsession of mine.  So the possibility of getting paid to go up to Nunavut, and work, and see a part of Canada most people will never get to see sounded pretty enticing.  But I figured that it wouldn't be able to happen around my schedule, what with going to Ecuador in the middle of the summer, leaving me two months to go and do my thing before school starts the first week of September.  Plus, there's my full time job, working in the mental health and justice sector, providing housing support for people with complex mental health issues involved in the justice system.  My work has always been really flexible and supportive of my traveling, my learning goals, and my career goals... but would they approve me to go off for two months and work somewhere else?  So, I did what I normally do when I have a decision to make: I packed my bags, booked a flight, and ended up in Vancouver for a long weekend to give it a good think. 

And I found I couldn't stop thinking about Nunavut.  Upon my return to Toronto, I contacted a social worker named Jessica, who referred me to her former manager, and two weeks later, I was essentially hired, based on my resume alone, to travel to Nunavut to be a child welfare, jack of all trades, service navigating social worker. 

I don't believe I have done anything this crazy since I uprooted myself from Chicago and bought a one way ticket to Toronto twelve years ago.  But here we are.  In one month, I'll have gone from the equator to the north pole, packing for two extremes, for pleasure and business, and I am presently alternating from being more excited than I have ever been for anything to OH MY GOODNESS WHAT AM I DOING?! 

And so it begins.  One last week to tie up things with my current clients, buy 2 months worth of frozen groceries, prep for vacation, and prep for my new (temporary) life.  Here we go.