Running Isuarsivik treatment centre no easy task

Roda Grey, a registered practical nurse and clinical supervisor at the Isuarsivik treatment centre in Kuujjuaq, recently qualified as Nunavik’s first advanced addictions counselor. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

KUUJJUAQ — You might expect to find Roda Grey showing some signs of fatigue at 5 p.m., after spending a long day at the Isuarsivik treatment centre in Kuujjuaq.

But as Grey, the centre’s clinical supervisor, drinks a cup of tea, her face reflects no stress.

Separating her job as an addictions counselor and clinician from her day-to-day life is a skill that Grey says she learned to fine-tune during her recent training as an advanced addictions counselor.

Grey donned a bright yellow gown and mortar-board hat on June 16 to receive her diploma in advanced addictions counseling from the Nechi Institute, a well-known aboriginal healing organization based near Edmonton.

Much of Nechi’s addictions training focuses on self-knowledge and the issues linked to addictions and substance abuse, such as trauma, cultural loss and suicide, Grey says.

Grey, 60, returned to Nunavik two years ago to work at the Isuarsivik treatment centre after more than 15 years of work at national Inuit organizations in Ottawa.

Grey, originally from Kangirsuk, says she wanted to return to the grassroots of health care to play a direct role in Inuit well-being.

When people leave Isuarsivik after completing the treatment program, their behavior changes, they don’t look the same, and most even speak differently, Grey says.

Isuarsivik is now in its third treatment cycle of 2009, with five female clients due to finish their program at the end of the month.

The six-week drug, alcohol and trauma treatment program can accommodate up to nine clients.

But Grey says she’d rather have a few, truly committed participants than people who don’t really want to be in treatment.

The program involves lots of group therapy sessions, one-on-one counseling, good food, as well as elders’ visits, exercise and on-the-land activities.

Inuktitut is the language of treatment and makes discussions easier and more direct, Grey says.

For people who live a chaotic life, their time at Isuarsivik may be their first chance to look inside themselves, she says.

But Isuarsivik is not for everyone and people should make their own decision to go there, rather than wait to be sent by the court, Grey says.

Nunavimmiut who want to attend the treatment centre can be referred by health or social workers or even submit their own application.

But their success in treatment depends on the strength of their desire to make a change, she says.

“We provide the tools. It’s up to them to use them,” Grey says.

That’s not easy, she acknowledges, especially for clients from smaller communities outside Kuujjuaq, which don’t have Alcoholics Anonymous support groups or very many residents who live sober lifestyles.

“You really have to be determined,” Grey says.

Isuarsivik has another treatment cycle for men, scheduled to start in mid-October.

Isuarsivik clients live at the centre during the program.

All Grey can say about the aging centre, a former Department of Transportation building whose toilets are prone to freezing in winter, is that “it’s still standing.”

Plans to build a $8.3 million, 22-bed, family-oriented treatment facility in Kuujjuaq are still unrealized.

But 2009 marks a year of progress for Isuarsivik and recovery from a series of difficult setbacks.

These include the suicide of executive director Annie Gordon in may 2008, the firing of the centre’s previous executive director in 2005, and its closure in 2000, due to a lack of funds and a need to overhaul staff and operations.

Isuarsivik now receives $600,000 a year from Nunavik’s regional health and social services board as well as support from the Ungaluk safer communities program, which supports crime-prevention activities in Nunavik.

Isuarsivik has not received its final national certification as a treatment centre yet, and, as it stands now, Isuarsivik is still short-staffed, with only three full-time staff members, Grey, Eva Lapage and Mae Saunders.

But Grey’s hope for the future is for more young Inuit decide to take up addictions counseling as a profession, even if she’s the first to say the job is not easy.