Overcoming the soul wound: Reflecting on experiences and resilience of intergenerational residential school survivors

BACKGROUND

Between 1883 and 1996, thousands of Indigenous children were apprehended into Canada's Residential School System. Survivors and their descendants have testified to genocidal harms caused across generations. Yet, Indigenous Peoples continue to exist and resist through inherent resilience described by intergenerational survivors in this paper.

OBJECTIVE

This article focuses on stories demonstrating the strength, power, and resilience of intergenerational residential school survivors.

PARTICIPANTS & SETTING

Cedar Project is an Indigenous-led cohort study that began as a HIV/AIDS response and contributes to healing among young Indigenous people who use drugs in British Columbia, Canada. It is governed by the Cedar Project Partnership, an Indigenous body of Elders, leaders, and health/social services experts.

METHODS

We present qualitative research involving in-depth interviews carried out with Cedar participants who have experienced significant and complex adversities including childhood maltreatment and illicit drug use. Woven throughout, Indigenous scholars who are themselves intergenerational (children and grandchildren) of residential school survivors provide first-person reflections on the findings.

RESULTS

Analysis focused on narratives of resilience and resistance to stresses of intergenerational traumas across three broad themes: working to break cycles of intergenerational trauma; foundations of resilience and making positive changes and; hopes and dreams.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings establish deeper understanding of processes that enable young people to cope with stresses of intergenerational traumas while facing institutional and structural barriers to wellness. Reflections provide context about how intergenerational experiences intersect with challenges that young intergenerational survivors continue to face. We highlight pathways to healing and sources of strength that inform recommendations for wellness.

The Cedar Project: resilience in the face of HIV vulnerability within a cohort study involving young Indigenous people who use drugs in three Canadian cities

BACKGROUND

Indigenous scholars have long argued that it is critical for researchers to identify factors related to cultural connectedness that may protect against HIV and hepatitis C infection and buffer the effects of historical and lifetime trauma among young Indigenous peoples. To our knowledge, no previous epidemiological studies have explored the effect of historical and lifetime traumas, cultural connectedness, and risk factors on resilience among young, urban Indigenous people who use drugs.

METHODS

This study explored risk and protective factors associated with resilience among participants of the Cedar Project, a cohort study involving young Indigenous peoples who use illicit drugs in three cities in British Columbia, Canada. We utilized the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale to measure resilience, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire to measure childhood maltreatment, and the Symptom-Checklist 90-Revised to measure psychological distress among study participants. Multivariate linear mixed effects models (LME) estimated the effect of study variables on mean change in resilience scores between 2011-2012.

RESULTS

Among 191 participants, 92 % had experienced any form of childhood maltreatment, 48 % had a parent who attended residential school, and 71 % had been in foster care. The overall mean resilience score was 62.04, with no differences between the young men and women (p = 0.871). Adjusted factors associated with higher mean resilience scores included having grown up in a family that often/always lived by traditional culture (B = 7.70, p = 0.004) and had often/always spoken their traditional language at home (B = 10.52, p < 0.001). Currently knowing how to speak a traditional language (B = 13.06, p = 0.001), currently often or always living by traditional culture (B = 6.50, p = 0.025), and having recently sought drug/alcohol treatment (B = 4.84, p = 0.036) were also significantly associated with higher mean resilience scores. Adjusted factors associated with diminished mean resilience scores included severe childhood emotional neglect (B = -13.34, p = 0.001), smoking crack daily (B = -5.42, p = 0.044), having been sexual assaulted (B =  14.42, p = 0.041), and blackout drinking (B = -6.19, p = 0.027).

CONCLUSIONS

Young people in this study have faced multiple complex challenges to their strength. However, cultural foundations continue to function as buffers that protect young Indigenous people from severe health outcomes, including vulnerability to HIV and HCV infection.

THE RATE OF SENESCENCE OF THE DOMESTIC FOWL AS MEASURED BY THE DECLINE IN EGG PRODUCTION WITH AGE

Data are presented showing that the course of decline of egg production with age in the domestic fowl from the time laying begins up to and including 8 years follows an exponential law, that is, each year's egg production is a constant percentage of the preceding year's production (88 per cent in the group of fowl studied). Since the exponential law is the same as the law of monomolecular change in chemistry, and since the course of egg production with age may be taken as an index of the course of senescence of organs, or tissues limiting egg production, it is suggested that this exponential law of egg production substantiates the idea that senescence is a physicochemical process the course of which is limited by a chemical reaction. It is shown that the exhaustion of the oocytes is not likely to be the factor limiting the course of egg production.