GROUP TACKLING AIDS, DRUGS AMONG ABORIGINALS

An Aboriginal Youth in Crisis task force has been created to address
the HIV/AIDS and intravenous drug use epidemic among First Nations
people in northern B.C.

Dan George, president of Four Directions Management Services Ltd.,
will lead the task force. George said Aboriginal people throughout
northern B.C. are forging ahead with their own action plan to
identify, marshall and focus on the crisis at hand.

The news comes in the wake of a Citizen story last week that showed
HIV rates among Aboriginals in the North have more than doubled
during the past two years.

"We can't keep up with it," said Catherine Baylis, an HIV/AIDS worker
with Positive Living North.

"We're getting one new client per week, and these are just the people
who are connected to Positive Living North. There are a lot who don't
come for services and don't even know they are infected," Baylis said.

George is charged with "leading the task force in developing a
political strategy to get decision-makers to recognize what a major
issue this is."

The task force needs to find ways to get policy and legislation
changed to make the climate more favourable to deal with the
multifaceted issues faced by the Aboriginal population, said George,
adding it will mean mobilizing both Aboriginal and non-aboriginal politicians.

He said there's major need for a service delivery strategy compiled
of prevention, intervention and after-care support.

"There's few detox beds and no treatment facilities for young people
in northern B.C.," he said.

"If someone does want to get off drugs, there's nothing here for
them, and they can't afford the cost to go south" said George.

"Part of our strategy will be prevention so they don't need treatment
centres, but if it comes to that, we need to look at beds, services
and after-care support programs so they don't relapse.

"We also need a communication strategy to get the word out to the
public and get feedback from the people being served in order to go
in the right direction."

The task force is made up of more than 20 representatives with the
majority from First Nations organizations coupled with organizations
like the RCMP, the Ministry of Children and Family Development,
street youth, the Northern Health Authority and the Public Health Agency.

George particularly lauds Carrier Sekani Family Services which
"championed the creation of this task force, recognizing the pressing need."

George believes getting to the root of the crisis now gripping
northern B.C. will mean going back a generation or two. But it starts
with today, and the fact that 900 of the 1,100 children in northern
B.C. in foster care under the Ministry of Children and Family
Development are Aboriginal.

"We represent 74 per cent of the case load, yet we only represent 18
per cent of the population.

"There's something very wrong there. Obviously a breakdown in
parenting skills brought on by the residential school system, Indian
Act, colonization..."

He said history has begun to repeat itself.

"We had a whole generation of children taken away from their parents
and placed in residential schools who didn't learn parenting skills
and the cycle continues. Year after year kids are having kids with no
parenting skills to raise them," George said.

"Now these parents can't care for their children so the kids are
being apprehended and put into the system again, just in a different way."