Survivors need mental health support as searches of former residential school sites continue, leaders say

The director of operations for an organization in northwestern Ontario dedicated to finding children who went missing while attending residential schools is calling for more mental health supports for residential school survivors.

James Cutfeet of Bringing Our Children Home said events like the recent discovery of 170 "plausible burials" by the Wauzhushk Onigum Nation at the former St. Mary's residential school in Kenora can traumatize survivors. 

"My concern is with the survivors, the families and the communities in general, how they will be affected," Cutfeet said. "There's a lot of dark trauma that they have to recount."

"They will need ... support from the mental health services, as well as land-based treatment programs," he said. "I hope the communities are organized in such a way that all these services, mental health and wellbeing programs, are linked together to work effectively for the benefit of those that will be affected."

Bringing Our Children Home is focused on searching for missing children who attended Pelican Lake Indian Residential School, which was located in Sioux Lookout. 

The initiative is led by Lac Seul First Nation, but more than 30 other First Nation communities are also involved. Bringing Our Children Home signed a memorandum of understanding with the provincial and federal governments in October.

Cutfeet said residential school survivors' healing journeys can be set back when new discoveries are announced, such as the anomalies discovered earlier this month at the former St. Mary's Residential School in Kenora.

The anomalies were discovered during a search of the property using ground-penetrating radar; Wauzhushk Onigum Nation has called the anomalies "plausible burials," and said that further investigation of the site will take place.

After the First Nation announced the discoveries, Wauzhushk Onigum Chief Chris Skead said there was support available for anyone who was traumatized by the news, and called on the federal and provincial governments to pay for that work to continue. 

"We need that funding, we need that accountability and we need those commitments from Canada, and the province," Skead said. "I'm using this opportunity to assert that they will do what they said they're going to do," Skead said. "And that, to me, is true reconciliation."

Cutfeet said Bringing Our Children Home is interviewing survivors of Pelican Lake.

"It's a volunteer process," he said. "The stories that we will hear will provide us some sense of where unmarked burials are, where potentially missing children were buried."

Cutfeet said a ground search of the site will likely begin in late summer.

"Canada tried to kill the Indigenous people, especially the children, by forcefully removing them," Cutfeet said. "That's Canada's history, and no one can deny that.

"Especially the survivors who have talked about it and said: 'Yes, I suffered at the residential school, at the hands of the people that were supposed to you care for me.' And I've heard those stories and sometimes it knocks me out and I just have to recuperate, and then sleep for a couple of days."

"I can't fathom the pain and the trauma that these survivors go through to share their stories."

Support is available for anyone affected by their experience at residential schools or by the latest reports.

A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. People can access emotional and crisis referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.

Mental health counselling and crisis support is also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through the Hope for Wellness hotline at 1-855-242-3310 or online at www.hopeforwellness.ca.