The Threat to Indigenous Agencies (From Within)

So you may not understand why there's Indigenous specific agencies, why we have employment and training agencies or wellness agencies or clinics even that are Indigenous specific or come from that Indigenous worldview. You may not understand why they exist, but most people don't understand why we're at risk of losing them. We need to talk about it. Bonjour. Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario, Canada. And I have worked in and for Indigenous agencies and communities and peoples my entire adult life. Now in the last eight, 10 years, I've started working with non Indigenous Canadian entities to try to balance the reconciliation feather. I realized that when you're trying to reconcile two groups, yeah, I can only work with one group. And that mainstream was missing, missing information, had misinformation and note notes, stereotypes in some ways. But before I started this career, I worked in Indigenous employment and training. So those amazing agencies that exist out there that help Indigenous people find a job, go back to school or even start their own business for the people that are at that stage. And I know Canada loves to scream how Indigenous people should get a job, never once wanting to acknowledge that because of what happened to us, government sanctioned actions against us that still continue to this day, systems that set us up to fail that still exist today, that many of our people are not ready to have a job, to try to hold down a job. It's just they're not ready. And we would have been at one point if Canada didn't happen to us. But I digress. Today's video is about those agencies. So way back when I shared with you the evolution of the marginalized. Reader's Digest condensed version, of course. But it's one of my seminars and it is the path that I have watched so many Indigenous people take. It's the path I took. So it starts in stage one. And every one of the stages has a phrase I've assigned to it to really set sum up the, the mental head space, the mindset of that stage. So stage one is I can't be me anywhere. And I don't think it's hard for you to think of someone that's at that stage. These are the people we are at risk of losing. Whatever their age, many of our youth are there. They don't have the same hatred or anger or judgment as the people in their community or they do and they don't understand why. And then they come out of the communities and they're not accepted or welcome in mainstream either. And they're stuck in this God awful in between. How do you help people out of stage one? You accept them exactly the way you are. They are. You don't suggest they talk different, dress different, wear their hair different, anything. You just love them exactly, exactly the way they are. So that they come to realize there's at least one other person on the planet that they do fit with. Stage. Now in many cases, these people in stage one are the people that the indigenous agencies are trying to help, trying to reach, trying to keep alive. It sounds dramatic, that's true. Stage two is I can only be me and my inner circle. Now this could be a negative or positive depending on who's your inner circle. This is where we lose people to gangs, this is where we lose people to groups that have very unhealthy habits going on. But the individual feels accepted there. This is also where we see what is commonly called group speak, that the people in the, the group no longer have individual ideas or they do, they don't, they don't share them because they don't want to go back to stage one. They want to be accepted. So they start repeating the rhetoric of the group. And I'm sorry, we can see that in adults in politics nowadays that people start, stop questioning and they put their wisdom on a shelf and they just blindly follow. So again, the agencies, often these are the people the agencies are trying to help and support. And again, how to get a person on stage two is acceptance. You have to be another place that they're accepted. They're accepted in their inner circle. But if they come to your office or your agency and they're fully accepted, then it's another place and it allows them to start thinking as an individual again, not when they're with the group, but when they're with you. And that actually so fits my day's agenda today because this afternoon I'm having lunch with Holly Goan. You wouldn't know her, but she runs an amazing agency that works with the houseless people in the city I live in. And not policy driven, not, you know, formal program. She goes out to the tent cities and literally interacts with the people. And why I want to meet with her is her agency provides health support, health care without appointments because they don't expect, they accept, they're another safe space. And that fascinates me. So I need to learn more about that. Now the subject of this video is actually stage three. Stage three is I can only be me among People who are like me. And in the case of indigenous people, we're talking other indigenous people. So these are the strong leaders, the strong advocates, the executive directors, the. The managers of a department in these indigenous agencies who have found their voice and supposedly their confidence, but only among their own. Now, our agencies are known for their lateral violence, and nobody should be shocked at that. You take a whole bunch of unhealthy people and stick them together, you're not going to have a healthy work environment. Especially since I've yet to come across an indigenous agency or community that insists on healthy work practices. They understand where it comes from, and so do I. That doesn't mean I'm going to allow it. I understand where it's come from. I'm going to provide you support and training. But if you insist on behaving in an unhealthy way, it's not going to work. And unfortunately, what we see time and time again is the victims are let go and not the problematic people. Often this is where let's. Let's get real here. The bullies, the problematic people in these agencies are often mainstream educated. So because they have a degree, we're going to keep them. Doesn't matter that they're torturing their staff, we're going to keep them. Or because they've been there forever, so they've been promoting unhealthy environments forever, but we're going to keep them because they've been here forever or there's some kind of family tie. And the reality is, in any First Nation community, there's a family tied, almost everyone, or at least half of the community. So that's why I put that one third. But this is where all the infining happens. And this is where, like at the beginning of this video, I talked about why we are at risk of losing our agencies. Because this is what happens. You put a bunch of unhealthy people together, they create a very unhealthy environment. Anyone in that agency working in that agency that is attempting to get on a healthy path will not be able to stay in that environment. And we lose them or the people for their behavior, are judged for their behavior rather than supported and guided and expected to behave in a different way. And eventually, and I have had this happen so many times that I'm quite comfy saying this, eventually the indigenous are replaced with non indigenous and our agencies become indigenous in name only. You cannot run an indigenous agency with a non indigenous worldview because then you're going to get caught up in statistics and programming and you're going to lose the spirituality side. You're going to lose the holistic teachings that are part of our every being. And the reason we have indigenous agencies, in case you didn't understand why we have them, is because mainstream mindset and mentality doesn't work for indigenous people. Mainstream education systems do not work for indigenous people. That's why we're starting to see indigenous education schools and bodies. And it's amazing. Mainstream health care with its control in its boxes. So many indigenous people have so many horrific memories of mainstream health care and those problems continue. And mainstream employment and training agencies have never worked for indigenous people. So the agencies were created. But because we're not getting it together and supporting each other to be healthy, the very positions in our own agencies are being replaced with non indigenous people. And we're about to lose the supports we fought to have. They are becoming quote, unquote white from the inside out. And I don't care how fancy your niche logo is or how many vowels are in your niche name, if all you have are non indigenous people living there, you do not have an indigenous agency. And I may be the only one telling you that. But your clients already know that. That's a given. We got to get on this path. We have to have agencies that require that their, their employees are working on a healthy path. Are they healthy now? No. But every single time on something unhealthy, it happens. There has to be a healing circle, There has to be a discussion. We have to, because we've got to make it uncomfortable for people to be unhealthy in healthy work environments. That is the only way you encourage someone to be healthy. And by the way, indigenous model here we had, you know, our elders councils, we didn't have judge and juries. This is not about judgment. This is about loving people back to health. But it also comes with an expectation that here we're working to be healthy, which means unhealthy practices are going to be addressed and we're going to support you and encourage you and give you better ways to deal with things. But the old negative way can't. I am incredibly passionate about this because I worked in an indigenous agency and guess what? They were needed. Our participants needed them. We still need them. And we can't. We've got to stop taking the easy route. Convenience kills mainstream preach on a regular basis. Like Pam Pometer said, if it's convenient. It's not reconciliation. And in our indigenous agencies and communities, hiring the so called healthy white person isn't the way to go. That's just convenient. And you're paying way more for that than the salary of that person. It's going to take. As my mom and my elder Elsie Quandermans used to always say, you're not going to fix this by Tuesday. We got to stop expecting healthy people or stop expecting indigenous people to be healthy and help them become healthy. But we can't create environments where, you know, ostrich principle. They stick their head in the sand and just pretend that everything's hunky dory and quit complaining. We're not. No one should have to endure employment. I don't care what your background is. We gotta fix this before we lose everything we fought for. When I walk into an indigenous agency and the boss is non indigenous, my heart breaks. And every single indigenous brand new client that walks in there and sees same, they're making mental note that this is in our place. It's just the logo and the name of an agency. Food for thought. If you're non indigenous, don't judge. Like don't judge us for the state we're in because of what non indigenous did to us. Just think about it. And if you're non indigenous, quit applying to work in indigenous agencies. You're not what we need. Sorry, but it's true indigenous. Let's get it together. Not because anyone else is expecting us to, but because we deserve to be healthy. We have always deserved to be healthy. And it's time to get past the bs. Because we can't fight the barriers that still exist if we're still fighting the generational barriers. It's a long, hard journey. But without it, life is a long, hard journey. We got this. If you need suggestions, reach out. I love you. Until tomorrow. Take care. Bye bye.