1. Impacts of Intergenerational Trauma
Tim Fox
Director, Indigenous Relations

2. IGT context
To the Commission (TRC), reconciliation is about establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country.
In order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past, Introduction of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behavior.
Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015

3. What we know
Canada's Indigenous population is growing faster than the general population, increasing by 20.1% from 2001 to 2006.
We need to prepare ourselves, our children and the rest of society for this growth.
Through increased awareness on legacy education and the truth telling movement we’ve seen with the TRC.
Personal story

4. Traditional community structure
Women/Men
Healers
Elders/
Teachers
Children

5. Traditional family structure
Goes beyond the biological connection we have to our parents
Extends to our aunts/uncles, grandparents considered our parents
Cousins considered our siblings etc…

6. Brain architecture Scientist, Judy Cameron

7. Three Types of Trauma- based on Video: Intergenerational Trauma and Healing with Dr. Joe Solanto
1) Single episode event
Accident, disaster, assault, death
People have the ability to pull it together with support.
2) Repetitive ongoing trauma- trauma is prolonged
Hostage, kidnapping, chronic or severe neglect, history of physical/ sexual assault
Greater fragmentation, harder to pull it back together, requires significant support.
Symptoms include: body illness, mind distortions, emotional deregulation, fragmented social relationships

8. Shock- numbed, too much too feel Survival mode
3) Intergenerational Trauma
Epidemics, starvation, colonial subjugation, assimilation, acculturation, relocation, alcohol, residential school.
Intergenerational Effects
Shock- numbed, too much too feel
Survival mode
Stunned silence- talking about but disconnected, talk is focused on harm, failure to protect
Self blame- get stuck
Accumulated loss/ grief- residue of unresolved loss= loss of balance
Next generation, although not experience direct assaults there is stuff emerging in youth as if they were present in past trauma.
Disguised trauma symptoms.
Start at 4:00

9. Intergenerational Trauma
Historic Trauma:
Intergenerational/Multigenerational…When the effects of trauma are not resolved in one generation. When trauma is ignored and there is no support in dealing with it, the trauma will be passed from one generation to the next. What we learn to see as “normal” when we are children, we pass on to our own children… (i.e. sexual, physical abuse…)
Reclaiming Connections: Understanding Residential School Trauma
Among Aboriginal People, 2005
A definition of Intergenerational Trauma is:
…When the effects of trauma are not resolved in one
generation. When trauma is ignored and there is no
support in dealing with it, the trauma will be passed
from one generation to the next. What we learn to
see as “normal” when we are children, we pass on
to our own children… (i.e. sexual, physical abuse…)

10. Colonization and Oppression
Colonization refers to the process of encroachment and subsequent subjugation of Indigenous people since the arrival of Europeans. From the Indigenous perspective, it refers to a loss of lands, resources and self direction and to the severe disturbance of cultural ways and values.
New Directions, Aboriginal Women's Family Violence Treatment Program, 2006
Colonization is the process of one dominant culture (such as the English and French in Canada) oppressing or enforcing dominion over another culture through force (in this case Aboriginal people).
Colonization is about power and control. The control is all inclusive and absolute. It focuses on the economic, political, social, cultural and psychological aspects of the colonized. It is this shift in power that has added to the complexity of the trauma Aboriginal families and communities face today.
This has led to loss of land, resources, self direction and disturbance of cultural ways among Aboriginal people that continues throughout generations.

11. Powers of influence
Two key individuals that played a role in the trauma that would be inflicted on our families and communities:
John A Macdonald - “Indian children should be taken away from their parents so as to eliminate their barbarian influence and expose the children to the benefits of civilization. The teacher has been sent out as an educational missionary to introduce cultural changes in Indian societies.”
Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott – “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and therefore rid us of the Indian problem.”
This thought pattern of the dominant society fuelled colonization.
There were two people in history that played a role in colonization:
Sir John A MacDonald – who said that all Indian children should be taken away from their parents to eliminate their barbarian influence and to become civilized
AND
Dr. Duncan Campbell Scott – who wanted to get rid of the Indian problem through extermination legislation

12. Why does this matter?
This thought pattern “reinforce(s) this whole dichotomy, colonial dichotomy, of the savage and the civilized. The savage being Indigenous and the civilized being the colonial forces.”
Cindy Blackstock
Another impact of intergenerational woundedness and further reason there is a need to reconcile

13. Indian Residential School System
Many generations of Indigenous children spent the greater part of their childhood, if not all of their childhood, in the Indian Residential School System. The abuse and neglect they suffered there left its mark on their adult lives as well as the lives of their descendants whose families have been characterized by further abuse and neglect.
As adults, many survivors of residential abuse found themselves struggling alone with the pain, rage, and grief of unresolved trauma.
New Directions, Aboriginal Women's Family Violence Treatment Program, 2006
Many generations of Aboriginal children spent their childhood in the Indian Residential School System.
They were neglected and abused and this left lasting marks on their adult lives, with very little coping skills to deal with the trauma from attending these schools.
The residential school system had important and complex negative effects for many Aboriginal communities. For Aboriginal people, the connections between the schools’ corrosive effects on culture and the dysfunction now experienced in their communities is clear. The residential school system was a concerted attempt to obliterate cultural practices, associations, languages, traditions and beliefs.

14. Historical Trauma within Families and Communities
As a consequence of years and years of oppression and colonization, our Nations have experienced repeated traumas and continues to carry an intergenerational woundedness that contributes to the damaging use of alcohol, drugs, and other substances and unhealthy behaviors.
Amber Dion 2011
There is an over representation of FNMI children, youth and adults in the sorrow systems.
Child welfare
Prison and probation
Historically low high school graduation rates
unemployment
Because of Residential Schools and Colonization there are multiple generations that have experienced repeated traumas and it has created damaging coping and trauma responses including alcohol and drug use, and unhealthy behaviour.
There is an overrepresentation of FNMI children, youth and adults in “systems”, such as:
Child Welfare
Prison
Historically low high school graduation rates

15. Activity
We need 6 volunteers to help demonstrate the impacts of Intergenerational Trauma
These volunteers will be blindfolded, with different stages of being able to “see”
We will ask that you try and make this “play-doh” whole again
While doing so you will try and make it into a balanced ball
Each person will have 5 seconds and then must pass it on to the next person
The last person can go back to the beginning to retrieve any pieces that may have been left behind
I will act as the influence of Colonization and Residential Schools
Read Screen Shot

16. Activity Debrief
What influence did I have as Residential Schools and Colonization have on the “play doh”?
If each person represents a new generation, what happened to the “play doh” as it was passed down? What was the last person able to do?
I took away pieces of the “play doh” so that the ball could never be whole again. This represents cultural traditions, practices, and protocols that will be lost forever because of these influences. Language is an example of this.
Does this provide new ways of thinking about Intergenerational Trauma?
Can you see any family traits, good or bad, that have been passed throughout your family lines? The depression? Holocaust? War? Etc?
Damaging the whole-ness or balance of the person or ball of play-doh
Residential schools broke the person and ripped into to multiple pieces
As it went through the generations the ball became more whole, more round and the last person was whole enough to find some lost pieces
Lost pieces, can they ever be replaced and healed?
Did this make you think of intergenerational trauma differently? People always say “why don’t they just get over it?” does this shed new light onto that?
Grandpa story? – LeeAnne
Any other questions?

17. Truth and Reconciliation Commission
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada has a mandate to learn the truth about what happened in the residential schools and to inform all Canadians about what happened in the schools. The Commission will document the truth of what happened by relying on records held by those who operated and funded the schools, testimony from officials of the institutions that operated the schools, and experiences reported by survivors, their families, communities and anyone personally affected by the residential school experience and its subsequent impacts.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has documented various stories about those experiences of children in Residential Schools and is setting out to inform all Canadians.
They hope to build mutual understanding and move forward in a healthy way.

18. “There are connections between poverty and residential schools”
“connections between addictions and residential schools”
“connections between over representation and residential schools”
“connections between homelessness and residential schools”
Truth, healing, justice then reconciliation
Coming from the perspective of working with children and youth

19. “Young people are going to be left with the challenge of reconciliation”
- Honourable Justice Murray Sinclair

20. What can you do?
Ask yourself….
“why should I get involved, I did not have anything to do with this piece of history?”
…because it isn’t just about individuals, it is about systems. Think beyond the individual to shifts of power in social, economic and political systems. We need to explore our concept of “white privilege”.
Derek Chewka Presentation, Blue Quills College Intergenerational Trauma Symposium, Edmonton AB, 2012
Ask yourself….
“why should I get involved, I did not have anything to do with this piece of history?”
…because it isn’t just about individuals, it is about systems. Think beyond the individual to shifts of power in social, economic and political systems. We need to explore our concept of “white privilege”.
White privilege is a term that has historically been used to identify the privileges, opportunities, and gratuities offered by the American society to anyone who is Caucasian and not a member of an ethnic group. This has manifested itself in a number of ways, such as, better housing, education, economic opportunities, and higher wages, etc. for Caucasians.

21. Going forward.. Acknowledge over-representation Privilege
Moving towards Culturally safe (anti-oppressive) practice
Understanding resistance
Empowerment

22. Moving Towards Cultural Safety
Cultural Awareness:
The beginning step to understanding there is difference.
Cultural sensitivity:
The recognition of the importance of respecting difference. Cultural sensitivity is expressed through behaviours that are considered polite and respectful by the other.
Cultural Competence:
The attitudes, knowledge and skills necessary for providing quality care to diverse populations. The key strength about cultural competence is it suggests action.
Cultural Safety:
Anti Oppressive Practise takes us beyond these other definitions.. It includes understanding the power differentials inherent in service delivery.

23. Thank you! | Sokaapi!