Earlier this month, Mamawetan Churchill River Health Authority got a detailed look at the band’s work to curb suicide rates.
Lac La Ronge Chief Tammy Cook-Searson shared the findings of a wellness centre feasibility study, and revealed the band’s mental health strategy. The strategy was ready this summer, but wildfires have kept them from publicly unveiling it.
The importance of mental health in northern Saskatchewan became abundantly clear when found that the region’s suicide rates are triple the rest of the province.
Cook-Searson’s family was forced to live with that reality after her oldest sister committed suicide.
“I know that she had wanted to make a change before she took her own life and I know she was looking for a place to heal,” she said.
She’s endured a series of hits to mental health in her life. In addition to her sister’s death, Cook-Searson has overcome alcoholism. When she was in 16 and 17, she stopped drinking after joining Alcoholics Anonymous. She used to work at the friendship centre where the meetings were held. The stories of those around her resonated personally, and Cook-Searson committed to take control of her addiction.
Several years later, she lost her young child in a drowning incident. That grief led her to counselling, which she still attends today.
“You get to a really uncomfortable place and there’s a lot of hurt that we have to deal with as an individual. And I think, even for myself personally, you go to uncomfortable places that you don’t want to go to. But, yet you can move past them with the help of a professional person,” she said.
Lac la Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB) has been working on the mental health strategy since 2006. The strategy’s research included gathering data on all of the reserve’s communities, visits to different treatment centres across the province, and public meetings to talk about mental health needs.
Up to 60 people attended the meetings, bringing up barriers to their mental health that include poverty, limited access to housing and transportation, lack of childcare, and lack of consistent mental health resources.
Cook-Searson can personally relate to the need for more supports because of her sister’s death, and that’s one reason behind her push for a healing and wellness centre.
“I believe that if she had a place to go to where she could get healing and wellness and to be able to look after herself and her family, then maybe she would still be here with us,” she said.
The conceptual design creates a safe place for people to address mental health issues – like depression, abuse and addictions – and it has family suites and a swimming pool.
“Sometimes when people are ready to change – when people have quite drinking or have quit drugs they just need that place to transition to, where they have all the support and help that they need to be able to move past that. Because once people remove alcohol or drugs, they’re raw, and they need something to help them transition,” Cook-Searson said.
Cook-Searson says a new centre would include traditional methods like hunting and trapping, to get people in touch with nature to heal.
“Even if we’re able to change one or two families, you know that’s one or two more families that are leading healthy lives. And it’s also for our future generation,” she said.
Cook-Searson says it would cost about $17 million, and they’ve identified possible spots – like behind the old hospital.
So far, the band has saved $2.3 million. The next step is to seek help from the federal government and the province.
Health Canada has already provided funding for the recent mental health strategy research, and soon the band will hire someone who can address the issues brought up in the strategy.
Cook-Searson says there’s nothing wrong with getting help because it brings hope, and cites that as part of the inspiration behind these decade-long efforts.
“Nobody’s perfect, you know. We’re all messed-up people,” she said. “Trying to get that stigma removed too that it’s okay to reach out for help and it’s actually good for your family to reach out for help.”