Wikwemikong Tribal Police Service equipping youth with tools to combat opioid drug crisis

By Rick Garrick

WIIKWEMKOONG UNCEDED TERRITORY—The Wikwemikong Tribal Police Service (WTPS) is hosting a Youth Empowerment and Safety (Y.E.S) Drug/Opioid Awareness Conference featuring nationally recognized musicians Rob KASP Sawan and Mary Black and Blaine Constant of Bloodline-Music on March 30-31.

“We’re labelling it Y.E.S — we’re inviting all youth from our island and all youth from Wiikwemkoong to attend,” says WTPS Chief of Police Terry McCaffrey. “It should be a really great event. In speaking with the [WTPS] members and the community members, they haven’t done anything like this for as long as anyone can remember, so we’re really excited as a police service to present this for our community and for our youth.”

The Y.E.S conference will be held at the Manitoulin Hotel and Conference Centre in Little Current to provide youth with information about the impacts of drug and opioid addictions, the resources available to fight addictions and what leadership is doing to help combat the opioid drug crisis.

“As everybody is aware, opioids, drug related issues, Fentanyl, all of these things are on the rise, and not only in our community, not only in Indigenous communities but all communities across Canada,” McCaffrey says. “Everybody is experiencing this, so it is so important we recognize here at WTPS that we start focusing on our youth. If we focus on our youth [so] they are able to have strategies and knowledge in place to avoid this type of lifestyle, then we’re not going to see as much of it in the future.”

The three nationally-recognized musicians, who are all on their healing journeys from substance and alcohol abuse, will speak about their healing journeys during workshops and through a Dance Party – Performance on the evening of March 30.

“A lot of their workshops are based on the fact that they themselves have struggled with addictions in their time and how they have been able to overcome that and find success,” McCaffrey says. “Those will be some of the healing journeys they will be looking to share. And then, also a good thing for the youth, they are going to be teaming up together to put on a dance party on the Saturday night from 7-10 p.m.”

Local Anishinabek leaders will also provide comments on the opioid drug issue during the Y.E.S conference.

“We want to provide a safe place for our youth to come to learn that they can live a healthy lifestyle without involving these life-damaging drugs,” McCaffrey says. “This is a complex health and social issue that needs a response that is comprehensive, collaborative, compassionate and culturally-based. This is why I have pushed for this Y.E.S conference to take place, to raise awareness on this issue.”

McCaffrey says it is important for the community to collaborate as a group to deal with the opioid drug crisis.

“We have to look at the problem from an educational perspective, we have to look at it from prevention, from treatment as well as enforcement,” McCaffrey says. “All of those pillars have to work together in order for us to effectively look at the problem. So seeing us do this and working towards the safety and security of our youth and for our community—that makes us at WTPS very proud.”