We Still Have More To Do…

KCA is doing it’s best to improve the lives and over all well-being of our Affiliated First Nations communities. While we’re making the most of the funding we receive there is still much more that we would like to accomplish. Below is a list of several needs that would greatly benefit the communities we serve. Whether it’s developing new programs or improving upon existing ones, building much needed facilities, providing proper training or purchasing much needed equipment. The needs are followed by the corresponding solution to be funded to support those needs.

Create Mobile Meeting Areas

The Need

With little available space in most communities, staff often have to meet with families in cars, bathrooms and broom closets, which is both uncomfortable and inappropriate.

The Solution

Using traditional methods and materials, build mobile hubs that can travel around and between communities. Offer a seamless mix of services and provide hotel space for outside agencies as well.

Provide Programming and Facilities for the Disabled

The Need

Neither day programming nor housing for people with disabilities exists in any of our communities, and the nearest Association for Community Living is in Kenora.

The Solution

Build a supported housing complex in one community and increase KCA’s capacity to serve people with disabilities by training more Personal and Developmental Support Workers, Special Education and Rehabilitation Assistants, and Speech Therapists.

Improve and Expand the KCA Family Rookie League

The Need

As successful as it is, the KCA Family Rookie League could be even better if it accommodated different groups and skill levels in each community, and if this kind of sports activity was available year-round.

The Solution

Add Women’s, T-ball (9 and under) and Fast-Pitch (15-19) divisions and a school-based program to extend the season. Create a Hockey League modelled on the baseball program, using rinks in our communities and in Kenora.

Create Non-Sport Related Alternative Programming

The Need

While the Family Rookie League has more than proven the benefits of activities that involve the whole community, not everyone likes sports.

The Solution

Bring in visiting artists – dancers, actors, musicians, painters, poets – to work with community members who want to explore their creativity. Start an annual Pow Wow that travels to a different community each year.

Provide Local Post-Secondary Training

The Need

Post-secondary training is only available far from our communities and does not accommodate Indigenous learning styles.

The Solution

Partner with Ontario colleges to adapt and deliver courses on reserve or via Skype. Focus on skilled trades, healthcare and information technology.

Provide Help for Youth In Crisis

The Need

Youth in acute mental health crisis are sent to hospitals in Kenora or Thunder Bay to be stabilized, far from home and family. Rather than more psychiatric care, what they need next is a place where they can complete their journey of healing. Instead, released from hospital before they are stable enough, they return to the environment that first triggered the crisis – and the cycle starts all over again.

The Solution

While some funding has been received for beds at our proposed Residential Youth Stabilization Centre – offering a safe, home-like setting and wraparound care – much more is needed before construction can start. Here children and youth aged 10-18 and their families can work together on long-term recovery, with the support of both community-based mental health services and the traditional healing of Knowledge Keepers and Elders.

Provide Employment Coaching for People on Social Assistance

The Need

Many community members are afraid to leave the relative safety of social assistance to enter the workforce. They worry that physical or mental health issues will cause them to lose a job, leaving them with nothing.

The Solution

Train employment coaches to provide on-the-job supports and life skills and employment readiness training to enable people to avoid common pitfalls and gain confidence in their abilities.

Provide Bus Service to Those Without Vehicles

The Need

Even when communities are relatively close to a larger centre, only those with cars can easily get to and from work, medical appointments, extra-curricular activities, or special events.

The Solution

Purchase a large van or bus that collects people from communities within 100km of Kenora to enable those without cars to get to jobs and participate in different activities outside their communities.

Provide Anishinaabe Cultural Teachings

The Need

Anishinaabe culture has been so weakened over the past century that many community members have lost their identity. Of 3,700 people, less than 40% still speak Ojibwe, and as Elders age, less and less of their knowledge is being passed on to the next generation.

The Solution

Develop land-based learning programs that immerse people of all ages in Anishinaabe ceremonies, teachings, and such traditional activities as canoe-building, story-telling, drumming, dancing, healing with ceremony, fishing and trapping, and harvesting traditional medicines.

Improve Internet Access to All

The Need

Internet access is patchy in many communities and non-existent in others, undermining its power to level the playing field.

The Solution

Put up one or more towers to bring broadband internet access to all communities to facilitate distance/remote learning, improve outreach and communication, and enable community members to apply for social benefits or education and recreation programs online.

Offer Guidance to Transitioning Students

The Need

Kids moving from Grade 8 to an off-reserve high school, or from Grade 12 to college, struggle with leaving home and mixing with people outside their own culture. Those who do enter mainstream education find themselves surrounded by – yet isolated from – their healthier and more experienced peers. This makes them easy prey for drug dealers and gangs because they so want to belong somewhere.

The Solution

To help Indigenous youth develop a comfort level with kids from other cultures, forge a partnership with the Ontario Camping Association to reserve spaces for them at camps throughout Ontario, chosen for the diversity of both their locations and participants. Alternatively, develop a camp at one of the First Nations, featuring traditional, land-based activities, and work with settlement and youth agencies from around the province to recruit diverse youth to attend with Indigenous youth.

Build an Addictions Family Treatment Centre

The Need

Addictions often run in families, yet most rehabilitation programs separate adults from youth so that neither has the chance to learn from and support each other.

The Solution

Build a family treatment centre that works with all members of the family at the same time – a teaching and healing lodge where people can overcome inter-generational addictions.

Build a Long Term Care Facility for Elders

The Need

For those Elders who can no longer live independently, the only option is a nursing home in Kenora. Once there, they are cut off from their families and friends, as well as the culture that brings them comfort at the last stage of their lives.

The Solution

Build a long-term care facility in one of our communities, connected to the supported living complex for people with disabilities and/or the Family Treatment Centre. Ensure that traditional healing is part of all these services.

Train a Team of Client/Family Advocates

The Need

For community members in urgent need of services or various government benefits, finding their way through the maze of providers and eligibility requirements can be overwhelming and discouraging.

The Solution

Create and train a dedicated team of Client/Family Advocates to help people navigate each system to ensure they receive the services and benefits to which they are entitled.