Great news – 18 of the 19 students who started the Northern Indigenous Counselling (NIC) program in September have now completed over two semesters of their six-semester program. Yippee, yahoo, hooray!
The students are all Indigenous and they come from 10 different NWT communities: Aklavik, Behchoko, Dettah, Fort Resolution, Hay River, Hay River Reserve, Inuvik, Ulukhaktok, Whati, and Yellowknife.
So, there are students from 10 of our 33 communities. That means students from 30 per cent of the NWT communities. That’s pretty darn good, if you ask me, especially if we end up with Indigenous counsellors in those 10 communities. Well, yaaaaa!
The program is cosponsored and run by Dene Wellness Warriors (DWW), a Yellowknife based professional counselling organization that focuses on helping Indigenous people and Rhodes Wellness College, which has over 25 years of experience.
Because of the pandemic, the students went to online classes five days a week. Students are now preparing to continue the last half of their studies face-to-face in Yellowknife beginning July 5, 2021. Very cool.
Having finished Life Coaching and Introduction to Counselling, the students will complete six-week courses in each of Mental Wellness, Spiritual Wellness, Physical Wellness, and Emotional Wellness during the spring and summer semesters.
Each wellness course is very experiential and is based on the Medicine Wheel. This helps students heal from personal traumas, as they experience all the techniques they learn in these four areas.
Students who complete the program will receive a Wellness Counsellor Diploma as well as a Professional Counsellor Diploma and will also be certified Life Coaches.
Those students who pass their Canadian Professional Counsellor Association (CPCA) qualifying exam will be Registered Professional Counsellor Candidates and can immediately start practicing as a licensed counselling therapist under CPCA, a national governing body.
NIC’s goal was to end up with 14 professional Indigenous counsellors who will be ready to provide counselling in their communities. It looks like the program is on track. Yayyyyy.
Government support and jobs
NIC has been warmly welcomed by government. For instance, the Federal Government assists NIC financially to add Northern and Indigenous content to the program. Yay for our federal and territorial governments.
The GNWT assists the program by providing funding for an Indigenous Program Coordinator. I must add that the success of the program is largely due to the hard work of the Program Coordinator, Cody Erasmus, who has developed a real bond with the students and also acts as a classroom assistant. Right on Cody.
Julie Green is the Minister for the Department of Health and Social Services. Replying to a question in the legislative Assembly in February, she said the department has provided support to deliver the NIC program.
“It’s my understanding that the first graduates of this program will be coming out next year,” she said.”We see a unique opportunity here to hire these NWT residents who have this specialized counselling training and to bring them into our communities in the different roles that we have available there.” Woohoo.
That’s great. And, it would be nice if the counselling positions did not have over-inflated qualifications. As a former senior manager in the GNWT, I often saw positions with qualifications that were too high.
It appears we are seeing that now, with a Master’s Degree required to apply for the Child, Youth, and Family Counsellor positions. We will likely end up with people from the south in these positions who know very little about us.
We’re hearing all schools will soon have a counsellor. Hopefully, the counselors will not require a Master’s Degree, or we could have a similar situation to teachers who mostly only stay for a short period of time in the communities.
Many students already don’t trust the teacher who comes for one or two years and leaves. It probably won’t improve things much to have a counsellor who also stops at their school briefly to get experience before moving on.
Please join me in congratulating the students for almost reaching the halfway point in their studies and wishing them good luck in their next three-and-a-half semesters.