Human and Social Services
The Human and Social Services Department's is committed to strengthening our Wet’suwet’en Culture, facilitating healthier and more positive lifestyles to enrich the quality of life of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The department provides community-based programs and services to Wet’suwet’en community members in a confidential, individualized and supportive manner toward healthy living. We also provide ongoing support and administration of the existing programs and services working with appropriate community members, stakeholders, and government ministries. The initial signing of the Accord of Recognition and Respect in 1994 provided the framework to start the Human and Social Service department in our office. Initiatives were started such as the community need assessment which provided the documentation for the need for new programs in our communities. New programs such as Healthy Families Healthy Babies, Wet’suwet’en Unlocking Aboriginal Justice, Mental Health, Distinctly Wet’suwet’en Cultural Camps and the Social Justice Worker Training project were established. The Human and Social Services has a team of 11 full times staff members and a number of summer camp staff:
“We Can Change Our Future” DVD Project
The Early Childhood Development Program of the Office of the Wet’suwet’en has been selected to take part in this exciting project. Parents of the program have been interviewed and are commenting on the value of the program to them and their children. One of the young moms who was interviewed stated, “I can’t teach them their culture because I grew up in Vancouver, I didn’t know too much about my culture at all”. It is said today that, “It takes a whole community to raise a child” well, in the aboriginal cultures, we grew up knowing and living that. We need help from all that has happened in the past, the past has left families searching for their identities and they use programs such as the Early Childhood Development Program to help them pass on the values of their cultures to their children. We now search to build strong role models for children, because it is through role models that our values, traditions and culture can be extended to the children. The clips that have parents from this program are “ Benefits to Socitiety” and the “Important Role of Tradition”, both clips are inspiring to watch and make us realize that all that we do, does make a difference.
The leadership DVD is a designed to engage communities in dialogue regarding the importance of early childhood development. The goal of the project is the development of a multimedia resource (DVD) that may be used as a template for communities to use in meetings and gatherings to inform and raise awareness among Aboriginal Leadership regarding the importance of the early years in Aboriginal children’s development.
The indirect goals of the project are to make children a priority in our communities and to engage communities and leadership in dialogue for community change. The DVD aims to provide information about the research on the early years and brain development, to illustrate how culture and language are critical aspects in caring for, teaching and raising young Aboriginal children and to provide information regarding the economical importance of investing in the early years for the future of our communities.
The DVD has been created for use with multi-viewer groups and is approximately 15 minutes in length. This interactive DVD has a pause feature to allow for discussion/reflection; can be user directed enabling the user to choose from a menu (or chapter) a topic area of interest for the community and to facilitate choice in viewing. The DVD resource development is nearing completion and will be available in early May 2009.
Success By 6 is proud to announce the release of a newly created DVD resource "We Can Change Our Future". This DVD is a collaborative project of representatives from provincial Aboriginal organizations that work to support Aboriginal children and families in BC, with funding from Success By 6.