Community Holistic Circle Healing

About

From Seed To Tree

The Community Holistic Circle Healing (CHCH) approach at Hollow Water First Nation (HWFN) was developed in the mid 1980's out of community level discussions that stemmed from frustration with the Criminal Justice System (CJS) simplification of complex problems and gaps in delivery of services to victims and offenders residing in HWFN and adjacent communities.

CHCH began as a community-based response to these issues and, in particular, the problems of sexual abuse. Key objectives included:

Increased community level responsibility in addressing the problems of sexual abuse
Increased networking among resources within the community
Holistic intervention geared to the healing of all parties including the victim, the victim's family, the offender, the offender's family and the community at large
Inclusion of traditional Anishinaabe principles respecting community wellness in program operations.

From the onset the Crown recognized CHCH as:

A valid alternative to sentencing approaches traditionally employed by courts of Criminal Law
Having an even greater interest in the safety of their community
Being in a better position to assess the suitability of a community-based approach.

As time passed, other external service providers, particularly, CFS and CJS streams began to see the good sense of an approach that:

Effectively uses local knowledge
Develops local experience and expertise, and
Enables and draws upon the strengths and resources of the community.

Other features that attracted notice included:

Trained personnel who are on site and visible in the community
A capacity to provide intensive supervision and support
Tremendous continuity between home, school, work and community and,
Tailor made culturally appropriate responses to the most complex of people problems.

Moreover, internal and external service providers began to see:

Meaningful assessment of risk
Community based intervention planning
Victims becoming genuinely empowered
Offenders being held accountable before their victims and community
Families and parents receiving consistent support
Misguided and or deeply troubled youth and adults being treated at home
A human and homegrown fact to social service delivery that was previously bureaucratically and externally driven.

Not surprisingly, external service providers increasingly collaborated with CHCH and sought CHCH assistance in service delivery. In this way CHCH became a conduit for the renewal of community responsibility and over time evolved to embrace a wide range of community justice initiatives.

While home grown, the progression of CHCH activity has also been in step with CJS changes; particularly, Judicial requirements to look at Aboriginal offenders in the context of the impact of cultural factors and give consideration to reasonable alternatives to jail. As such there is increased CJS value on community capacity geared to assess, plan for and manage offender risk in ways that enable healing and provide accountability along with meaningful restorative remedies. Significantly, CHCH operationalizes all these features.

The Holistic Concept

The CHCH approach in HWFN is a restorative justice model that was developed as a means of reclaiming and restoring inherent responsibility to one another as Anishinaabe people.

The restorative justice model embraced by CHCH is one that views crime as a disruption in well-being. An individual is seen as being out of balance with themselves, others and life; whether it be physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. This imbalance is viewed as the causative factor in crime.

In addressing imbalance CHCH emphasizes individual and community responsibility during the entire intervention process.

A key objective of CHCH is to ensure offenders and victims avenues of concern are addressed in a manner that is applicable and culturally appropriate to the needs of the offender, victims and community.

CHCH is a process and it is inclusive of:

Supporting and guiding the process of reconciliation at both the individual and community level
Team approach utilizing First Nation expertise in a way that maximizes the opportunity of accessing the strengths of Community resources
The integrity, unity and equality of the healing circles. This has significant value in the context of achieving both collective and individual responsibility
Personal responsibility that entails being responsible for self, actions and the individual healing process
Focusing on our identity as First Nations people, connecting to self, others and life
Victims and other individuals, with whom the individual will restore relationships with in order to move forward
Having the offender and victim establish effective and clear communications with others in a positive atmosphere
A solution orientated method that is all encompassing of the group and individuals

CHCH is also geared to provide a bridge between the community and mainstream justice process. This entails offering:

Alternatives to incarceration (e.g. intensive supervision and support at the community level)
Avenue for the court to utilize the community perspective on notions of accountability and public safety
Networking initiative that incorporates work with victims and family services, social services, health services. (e.g. NADAP, FNIB)
Method to provide community-based intervention with misguided or deeply troubled youth and adults.
Team approach to issues of Workplace Health & Safety
Mechanism to address the needs of the victim, offender, families and community

In understanding the construct of CHCH it is important to understand what gave rise to the process. CHCH initiative goes back to the mid 1980's when a group of community women gathered to examine the issues of sexual abuse. Meetings started with discussions about cultural genocide in the context that colonization and Residential Schools impacted our spirituality, culture and communal lifestyle. From there focus went to the devastating cycle of, physical and domestic abuse within First Nations communities, a legacy that today has led to the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the Criminal Justice System. In the wake of this discussion and desire to achieve Community Wellness the CHCH process was created.

The irony of the situation is that the historical culture and communal lifestyle of the First Nations people is considered an idealistic goal of governance and relationships in the modern world today. Historically First Nations had highly developed societies inclusive of spiritual relations, communal responsibilities, leadership, occupational roles, governance and justice. First Nations view the world as relational; our environment, our language, our actions and our individuality are all seen as part of a greater whole. It is through this connectedness that the community is formed and a communal responsibility develops for the well-being of all. Individual responsibility is seen as an essential part of the process, enabling individuals to be held accountable to the greater responsibility of the whole.

Remembering Burma Tina Bushie

Burma was a day school and residential school survivor. She started her career in band administration as well as being an elected Band Councillor. She was a trailblazer and visionary in every aspect of her life from being the first community-based female Executive Director of Southeast Child & Family Services to co-founder of Community Holistic Circle Healing, to being an advocate for implementing the grandmothers program into the local school. She was a huge advocate for woman and children throughout her career and instilled the importance of language and culture for her family and community. She was famous for saying, "we need to focus on the children and bringing spirit back to our people." And "we need to bring woman back to a place of honour."

She was one of the first women in HW to expose sexual abuse and domestic violence and fought for alternative measures rather than incarceration for Indigenous people. She wore many hats during her life and in different capacities but we believed her heart belonged with CHCH. During her retirement she remained an active participant with CHCH doing many presentations and teachings for CHCH