Nunavik community opens region’s second “family house”

Regional and community leaders were on hand March 8 to inaugurate Kangiqsualujjuaq’s new family house, designed to offer support and counselling to local families in need. (PHOTO COURTESY OF NRBHSS)

A group of organizations in Nunavik have launched the region’s second “family house,” a community-based resource designed to offer a “safe place” to keep Nunavik families together.

The Qarmaapik Family House opened March 8 in Kangiqsualujjuaq, with a mission to provide a resource for children at risk of being put in youth protection as well as counselling for their parents and caregivers.

The new facility is a jointly funded by the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, the Kativik Regional Government and the Kativik Municipal Housing Bureau, although it’s operated independently by the community.

“This project was made possible by the community members because of their commitment and dedication to development of a family resource centre, said Minnie Grey, director of the NRBHSS, in a March 8 release.

“It enables the community to solve social problems according to an Inuit traditional approach to help reduce recourse to youth-protection services.”

After Kuujjuaraapik’s Tasiurvik Family House, which opened in early 2015, Qarmaapik will become the second facility to open under the Regional Partnership Committee.

The committee’s broad mandate is restore social peace, keep adults out of jail and give Nunavimmiut children safer, healthier lives.

In the case of Kangiqsualujjuaq’s new facility, the family house is focused on accommodating families in crisis, offering last-minute support to parents to help prevent their children from being taken into youth protection.

The home brings in social services professionals, relatives and other community members to intervene and help families work through their issues.

The new facility in Kangiqsualujjuaq includes provide room and board for children and parents and a range of counselling services, including mandatory parental improvement courses.

Qarmaarpik features a community kitchen, which is open to families to use and learning to prepare health meals.

The community kitchen will also operate as a community service, selling meals to bring in money to help operate the family house.