A major fetal alcohol spectrum disorder conference kicked off in Saskatoon Tuesday morning.
The conference is called FASDlive: Mapping Our Road to Success and it is being put on by the FASD Support Network of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute.
FASD Support Network Executive Director Leslie Allen says the disorder is a serious issue both in Canada and Saskatchewan.
“CAN FASD, which is our national research body for FASD, has come out with a study that indicates it’s more closer to five per cent,” she says. “So, if we’re looking in Saskatchewan we’re talking about 55,000 people afflicted with FASD. So, yes, it certainly is a problem in our province.”
She also says the public is generally more aware of FASD now than in the past but there is still lots of work to do in terms of education.
“We still have a lot of work to do. Such as many primary physicians and obstetricians don’t even talk about alcohol consumption when a women comes in who’s pregnant.”
In the afternoon, two University of Saskatchewan researchers presented their study on using Indigenous culture as an intervention method in addictions healing.
Colleen Dell and Barbara Fornssler have studied 12 First Nations residential treatment programs across Canada.
Fornssler says culture is often overlooked as a treatment method for addictions in Western medicine.
“I think people take culture for granted in their day to day interactions in the world,” she says. “It seems to be something that operates as part of our worldview but is not generally acknowledged as such until we use a word like worldview. So, the way that culture we’ve seen is contributing to healing is in supporting people and building relationships in a positive sense of their identity.”
Dell adds after going underground for many years, culture as an addictions healing therapy is starting to resurface.
“If we look at the history of colonization in Canada and the 60’s scoop, residential schooling, so forth, we have quote unquote as they say, ‘killed the Indian in the child,’” she says. “So that means kill culture and even though culture has sustained itself and it has continued, it kind of went underground, as we know, and now it’s starting to surface more.”
The FASD conference continues on Wednesday.
It is expected to attract about 275 people.