Nunavut social services neglects best practices

I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Baffin Island this summer, for the first two weeks of August.

A part of my trip afforded me the chance to visit with the Inuit families that I know in Cape Dorset. A week prior to my arrival, I learned of the suicide of a 14-year-old Inuit girl. I visited with her mother when I was there and listened to her confusion and sorrow about what had happened to her girl.

One teenage suicide is enough, but, perhaps not to the surprise of those who know about these things, a few days into my trip, another promising young Inuit girl from Cape Dorset took her own life. On the evening of her suicide we watched her perform for us tourists, throat-singing all on her own, with an astonishingly strong voice.

We were all shocked to hear of her death the following morning.

A month later, in mid-September, some of our Inuit friends came to visit us in Chicago. We had organized an exhibit and demonstration of Inuit art at Northwestern University, which was a very successful event. During their visit we learned that two more young teenage Inuit girls from Cape Dorset had taken their lives since my departure in mid-August.

We were horrified, and no less so when we learned that the government had not yet dispatched any crisis counselors or social workers to help the community deal with these losses, and stave off the possibility of copy-cat actions. We learned that one mental health professional was scheduled to arrive the following month, some time in October!

We are social workers ourselves and this lack of professional response goes against not only “Best Practice” protocol, but also against common sense. Where are the mental health professionals necessary in this type of crisis? Clearly the Inuit are not being served and indeed are being harmed by this neglect.

The Inuit are at a loss as well. They are torn between the old culture and modern ways of life. The best they can do takes the form of the “Birthday Song,” composed by the renowned printmaker and elder Kananginak Pootoogook, which instructs the children to rejoice in the celebration of another birthday milestone. He wrote this song to encourage the youth not to take their own lives. While the song is lovely, this should not be the first line of defense to protect the Inuit youth.

When one child commits suicide in Toronto, Montreal or Chicago, crisis counselors are immediately sent to the community, to the child’s school and to the families involved to provide mental health assistance not only to help the mourners, but also to prevent further damage at the hands of other teens.

This is what is known as “Best Practices,” and is the standard of care. Why would the native communities in Canada’s North receive any less care?

A society is judged not by its successes, but on how it deals with those most in need.

Alisa Lewin-Waldman, LCSW, ACSW
Eliot I. Waldman, LCSW, ACSW
Wilmette, Illinois