Garden program helps young First Nations inmates heal

A Thunder Bay detention centre is using First Nation traditions to help teen girls break the cycle of crime.

At the J.J. Kelso Centre, a secure facility for female young offenders who are between 12 and 17 years of age, several Aboriginal cultural programs are offered, including a healing garden, a sweat lodge and smudging.

An elder comes to visit regularly to lead the programs and toteach cultural skills to the youths, who often feel disconnected from their ancestry.

"I wasn't raised into this stuff, because of what happened ... with residential schools. So my family forgot about it," said one teen.

The girls cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Residential worker Tricia Butler said the First Nations programs play an important role in rehabilitation.

"A lot of the youth have lost their identity [and] don't have a sense of who they are," she said. "They feel very hopeless and feel that they don't have anything positive to offer."

Offering an alternative

Butler noted a disproportionate number of jailed youth in northwestern Ontario are Aboriginal.

"If we don't provide them with the opportunity to learn about the strengths that they possess and ... the gifts that they have, then they will never succeed in life and they will never move forward," she said. "And they'll continue to just engage in criminal activity."

At the corrections centre, two teenage girls crouch down among a garden of sage, sweet grass, tobacco and cedar to cut handfuls of the tender leaves with scissors. The girls will use the plants for smudging, a traditional healing ritual in the First Nations culture.

"I just wouldn't think this type of place would have this kind of stuff," one of the teens said.

The girls can smudge upon request when they feel they need healing. They can also smudge before the daily circle meeting, when the residents and staff can share how they are doing emotionally, physically and spiritually.

"This kind of helped me a lot while I was here," another teen said.

In addition to the First Nations programs, the girls go to school within the centre and learn life skills like cooking, as well as participate in exercise and recreation.

Butler said fosteringa sense of identity and self-worth can stop these girls from committing crimes again and give them a chance to become productive adults.