Improve Response to Child Abuse in the Arctic

** ACYF wishes to thank all that chose to donate and support the Umingmak Centre. Staff and the Board are thankful and especially when it goes to supporting children and youth get the proper safe, culturally relevant services that are needed. Qajunnamiik!/Thank you!**

Client Activities

1. Child and Family Advocate activities

2 Inuit advocates support children and families through all stages of disclosure, interview, investigation, and healing. The advocates play an important role at the Umingmak Centre. They are usually the first point of contact with families and children and ensure safe connections are made so that children and youth feel comfortable coming to the centre. Sometimes, some of our young clients are not quite ready for ongoing therapy. There are many reasons, such as familial stressors, active placement breakdowns, and distrust of services. The advocates will do activities that help build trust.  This fiscal year 75 clients were supported by the Child and Family Advocates. This does not include the caregivers involved in these files. 

2. Coordination of services around clients and caregivers

There are several services coordinated out of the Umingmak Centre that is performed by members of other departments and agencies.

Forensic Interviews:  Child and youth interviews after abuse allegations are conducted in the Centre’s soft-interview room. Total interviews conducted were 37, and 36 were monitored by CFS. 4 interviews needed interpretation between English and Inuktitut.

Pediatric clinic:  Pediatricians provide forensic exams, initial assessments, and follow-up appointments for clients at the Umingmak Centre. Clinics began regularly at the Umingmak Centre in June 2020, with 75 client appointments recorded in this reporting period.

Other appointments are made at the Centre for our clients. This year, we had dieticians, rehabilitation therapists, neuropsychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and mental health workers use the Centre location for appointments. In this reporting period, there were 4 of these appointments.

3. Therapy Appointments

 Our therapists have three main activities: 1) Assessment and treatment of clients, including psychoeducation of caregivers, 2) professional development for our community through the community of practice and consultation and 3) development of Nunavut- and child and youth- specific therapy practices. We hired a clinician on March 4, 2021, who was available 4 hours each week. On May 3, 2021, we hired a full-time therapist. We also had a graduate student from May 2021 to December 2021 complete their clinical hours with the Umingmak Centre for three days a week. During the current reporting period, there were 611 appointments.

4. Professional Development

The Community of Practice continues to meet bi-weekly, consisting of mental health workers in Iqaluit who work with children and youth and want to increase their assessment and treatment abilities. Our partners have started to lead this meeting as well. 

Dr. Garfinkel (Clinical Psychologist): Dr. Daniel Garfinkel is a Clinical Child Psychologist with a background in supporting children, adolescents, and families following periods of disclosure. His primary specialty area relates to sexual abuse and problematic sexualized behaviors. Dr. Garfinkel provides bi-weekly education and consultation to the Umingmak team and partners on the topic area. During the current reporting period, the Umingmak Centre had 18 meetings with Dr. Garfinkel and reviewed 40 client cases. 

Dr. Dundas (Psychiatrist): Dr. Dundas is a Psychiatrist through Sick Kids hospital in Toronto. She is specialized in attachment disorders and other traumas. Dr. Dundas met with the Umingmak team and partners for 15 times and reviewed 30 client cases during this reporting period. 

Telehealth: The Umingmak Centre was gifted a Telehealth machine through our partners at the Department of Health. The machine has made it easier for many of our young clients in being able to access additional supports and specialties at the Centre. During this reporting period, 6 appointments occurred with a psychiatrist through our Telehealth system. There were also 13 client appointments through Telehealth connected to the following communities: Kimmirut and Pangnirtung. 

Clinical Director Consultation: As the community continues to learn about the Umingmak Centre, more and more service partners (i.e., CFS, Victim Services, and Mental Health) have been calling the Umingmak for expertise and consultation around clients that they are supporting. During the reporting period, the Clinical Director provided 20 consultation calls to community partners in the following communities (Pangnirtung, Iqaluit, Clyde River, Baker Lake, Arviat, Kimmirut, and Whitehorse) about trauma interventions. 

5. Performance evaluation

Development of programs: e.g., Groups for parents and clients, land programs, Inuit counselling: Umingmak was invited to involve young clients with the other program under Arctic Children and Youth Foundation, the Iqaluit Child’s First Initiative office. They delivered 7 weeks of land-based group programs from February to March, comprising 20 youth. The youth would meet on weekends and learn about traditional life-skills practices. The children did many activities, including igloo building, ptarmigan hunting, and tool making. 

    During the reporting period, Umingmak ran four different groups. A summer camp program on the land in partnership with Youth Mental Health. The second group was geared towards children in grades 3 and 4 who had shared experiences of exposure to caregiver violence. The third group was geared toward adolescent girls in grade nine with shared histories of sexual abuse; the group ran for three sessions. Our team is actively reviewing different ways of engaging with our clients further. In the coming year, we will likely run more recreational and skill-building activities based on feedback from previous groups. The fourth group was co-facilitated by our Lead Physician and Clinical Director. The pilot group matched a couple of caregivers with similar children who had complex medical and mental health needs.

The hiring of additional staff as needed e.g., Intake/administration, therapists, advocates:

During this period, the previous practicum student became employed with the Umingmak Centre once they completed their schooling by contract.