Indigenous healing offered at Branscombe centre
It has been many years since Seapieces Marsland first saw the need for a program offering traditional teachings and mental health counselling for Indigenous people.
Now, after years of work, that program is a reality.
“I have been advocating for this for 17 years in three different provinces, and this is the first time that an agency has responded so amazingly to the call to action,” she said Wednesday, during an event to open the Indigenous Healing Room at Branscombe Mental Health Centre on Fourth Avenue in St. Catharines.
Marsland, an Indigenous clinician, said she met Pathstone Mental Health chief executive officer Shaun Baylis during a conference about a year ago, and discussed the idea.
Baylis said the local mental
health organization quickly made establishing the Indigenous Healing Room a priority.
“It’s something we have identified,” he said, adding upper-tier
governments have been supportive “understanding that this needs to happen.”
“I think it’s just the timing,” Baylis said. “With Sea (Marsland)
taking a leadership role, it made it really easy. That’s how it came together.”
The program, which Baylis described as one of the first of its kind, was created in response to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation: Commission of Canada to enhance services for First Nations clients, while focusing on Indigenous healing practices.
“I feel that it’s our responsibility as a lead agency that when have identified a barrier or gap that it’s our responsibility to meet that need. That was a definite need on the Indigenous side.”
The need, he explained in a media release, is evident in the “alarming rates of suicide among Indigenous children and youth that is up to 15 per cent higher than non-Indigenous people.”
Marsland is expecting many clients for the new program.
“We have a lot of Indigenous clients coming through.”