Nunavut community wellness workers in Iqaluit to share and learn

From left, territorial wellness coordinator Janelle Budgell looks over Nunavut’s food guide with Meeka Paniloo, an addictions counsellor from Clyde River and Ainia Pinguiarluk, a parenting counsellor from Cape Dorset. About 50 community wellness workers from the Baffin region are at a training conference in Iqaluit this week. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Community wellness workers from across the Baffin region are in Iqaluit this week, sharing ideas on how to improve the quality of living for the communities they serve.

They’re the men and women who deliver prenatal services, parenting support, addiction counselling, and other health care programs at the community level.

And this week, they’re sitting in on sessions with dieticians, mental health experts and other professionals to help design better services to meet the needs of Nunavummiut.

“It’s important that community workers feel supported and have the training they need,” said Janelle Budgell, the territorial wellness programs coordinator. “Historically, each of the various disciplines had their own separate training events.”

This new approach allows all of Nunavut’s different wellness workers to learn about the challenges and success their colleagues face, Budgell said, and what works best.

The job of a community worker can be difficult and daunting, but Budgell said the conference has highlighted some innovative new programs that have brought many benefits to the people they serve.

“A lot of those ‘ah-ha!’ moments come from hearing other communities’ stories and successes,” Budgell said. “It’s so exciting to hear about traditional programs in Arctic Bay….and Qikiqtarjuaq.”

In Arctic Bay, community workers have developed cultural programs for youth; a girls’ group gathers to learn sewing and jewellery-making skills, while a separate boys’ group spends time on the land and practices drum dancing.

The program was designed to help the community’s youth interact and connect with local elders, Budgell said.

In Qikiqtarjuaq, a snowboarding program called “Wake Up and Live” has run in previous years to encourage physical activity, with a strong focus on substance abuse prevention and better eating habits.

It’s ideas like those – coupled with training in subjects like nutrition, sexual health and parenting – that will give community workers the skills they need to better serve Nunavummiut, Budgell said.

Budgell said she hopes trainees will return home energized and ready to put their new knowledge into action.

The conference wraps up in Iqaluit Dec. 2. The second community wellness conference for Kivalliq community workers will be hosted in Rankin Inlet from Jan. 9-13, 2012.