Education
Indigenous counselling program honours latest graduates
Jean Erasmus called it a "memorable day," and looks forward to following their future careers
Over the July 5th weekend, twelve hard working students officially graduated from the Indigenous-only Northern Indigenous Counselling Program.
The NIC Program spans 21 months, and teaches it’s students how to make use of different counselling and coaching practices to help others overcome physical, emotional, and spiritual challenges in their lives. The Program is put together by Dene Wellness Warriors, and Rhodes Wellness College, with some additional help provided by the GNWT, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Dene Nation, Yellowknives Dene First Nation, Hotıì ts’eeda, and a few other organizations.
Jean and Roy Erasmus, the founders of the Dene Wellness Warriors group, shared that the graduation ceremony went well, saying that it was filled with “a lot of excitement, lots of laughs, and lots of sharing of stories!” They added that many family members made their way to the event from out of town, as well as a few Chiefs from the Sahtu region.
Rhodes Wellness College staff with College President Ben Colling and Jean and Roy Erasmus of the Dene Wellness Warriors. (Geoff Rodriguez)
They explained that all twelve graduates ended the day with a Professional Counsellors Diploma in their hands!
Both Jean and Roy have spent much of their careers providing counselling services to other members of their communities, and have even based some of their approaches on their personal experiences. Jean shared what she felt is the most important lesson that students at the NIC Program are taught.
“Roy and I have done the program ourselves, and I guess the biggest lesson would be that they are not their traumas. That despite all the hurt and impacts that they’ve experienced in their lives, I think that that’s major that they were able to overcome a lot of their fears and doubts that may have held them back before, but it’s helped them to be a lot more self aware.”
Jean added that many of the students at the graduation shared the feeling that their lives have greatly improved and changed for the better.
“They’re less reactive, they’re calmer, and a lot more grounded. I think it has a lot to do with the one year sobriety that we implemented for this program because we knew it was going to be really difficult working through all of the traumas and the hurts and the things that they’ve experienced in their lives.”
Northern Indigenous Counselling Graduation Ceremony (Geoff Rodriguez)
The Erasmus’ also each come from Dene backgrounds, which they incorporate into their respective counselling practices. The idea of using one’s own history and experiences throughout their work is something that they encourage for NIC students, as Roy explained.
“This is an experiential program. Often, each person has their own cultural knowledge and beliefs which they practice to different levels. So they have a lot of time to discuss how to integrate their values into the counselling and facilitation and coaching.”
Jean added that “what’s really important is that they build camaraderie amongst one another, and they created safety with each other because they got to know one another in an intimate level over the last two years. I think that really helped them to create that bond.”
The Northern Indigenous Counselling Program is no the only venture in helping people recover that the Erasmus’ have undertaken, either. Earlier this year, the two were awarded with a $7 million investment from the federal government to help with the construction of a new facility to help Northern residents receive cultural, land-based treatment for processing trauma.
Roy shared an update on the project, announcing that Ben Colling, the President of the Rhodes Wellness College, pitched in $10,000 to help with the new Lodge. Roy was happy for the donation, as despite being a much smaller amount than the $7 million, he said that the support from the small college shows that Colling believes in what the Erasmus’ are trying to achieve.
Despite this support, and attempts to set up partnerships with other organizations, the project still has a long way to go.
“We’re setting up meetings with the federal government because we still don’t have enough money. Seven million is a lot of money, but if we want to do a good job, we still need some more money. So we have our MP [Rebecca Alty] working on the Ottawa side, and we are also setting up meetings. We were going to go over to Ottawa a few weeks ago while the Parliament was still on, but we couldn’t arrange enough meetings.”
Roy added that they will attempt to schedule more meetings in Ottawa once Parliament returns. In the meantime, the two are open to support from the public, either in the form of financial donations, or volunteer work. While it is still very early to make a solid estimate, Roy feels that the healing lodge won’t be able to fully open until Fall of 2027.
