Province helping to fill training gap

Staff at the Central Urban Metis Federation Inc. (CUMFI) offices on Avenue M North see people high on methamphetamines daily.

The organization keeps its doors open so people can walk in off the street to warm up, do laundry or grab a snack.

“We used to just tell people ‘We have sweetgrass and sage in the building so please don’t come in if you’re using,’ ” CUMFI president Shirley Isbister says. “Now it’s a totally different reaction to when people are talking to them. More volatile. More quick to respond with anger.”

Her staff were scared and didn’t know how to approach people who came into the building on meth.

Isbister wanted to train her staff in how to operate in this new environment where they are interacting with people on meth every day, but CUMFI is a non-profit and couldn’t afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to bring in someone for workplace training.

That changed late last year, when Isbister’s staff were invited to sit in on the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s (SHA) Workplace Assessment and Violence Education course, which teaches people about crisis communication, de-escalation and managing body language. Fifteen CUMFI staff took the eight-hour course in the fall, and more will take the course early this year.

Tracy Muggli, director of health and addictions services with the SHA, said other non-profits have requested training and the health authority is looking into whether it can schedule more training sessions in the new year.

Isbister says her staff feel safer now that they have the training and she hopes as many front-line non-profits as possible can receive training from the health region — and quickly.