Butler-Jones – community decision making

And we haven’t, as a society we haven’t always offered the same opportunities to everybody and that’s where some of the things, as well meaning as they might have been for some, things like residential school where kids were taken away from their families, put into a school, it did afford an opportunity for some education but it, again, in some situations there it was abusive, but it was also denying of culture, denying of experience, and many of those kids because they didn’t have the opportunity to be parented have a greater challenge in parenting their own kids, and how do you break that cycle? Well you do need supports, advice, etcetera moving forward and as the kids grow, too, opportunities to actually see that the decisions they make have an influence, they do have a choice. 

What we find is those reserves that actually have greater control compared to those who have very little control – their suicide rates in adolescents are virtually zero; much less than the general population. Again that ability, that what we do makes a difference. The choices we make a difference, and then you invest as communities and individuals and that, and then local leadership that supports that. I mean it’s all really critical, and we sort of take it for granted and we worry about the mistakes etcetera, but the reality is when you look at the development of Canada, you look at the development of municipalities, you look at al these things, that it’s not an even course for any community no matter what your origins, but you have to have the ability to make those choices and you need some supports in doing it, and evidence to support that and a conversation that allows us to learn from each other moving forward.  

That’s why one of the reasons we do the annual report on the state of public health as to engender some conversations, hopefully some different ways of looking at things that are beneficial as we go through our training or whether as municipalities, or as band councils in terms of what are the kinds of things that will actually help our community, and it’s amazing, it’s an old Samuel Johnson quote from hundreds of years ago, but it’s amazing what you accomplish when no one has to get the credit. In other words, when the focus is on the community, or the program, or the activity, and it’s not just about that individual thing it’s in the context of that society that we’re working with and having respect for that and listening to that and it’s not about the experts coming in and telling people what to do, it’s about us collectively journeying together from where we are to where we would hope to be. 

And communities have a lot of wisdom in that, even dysfunctional communities have some wisdom in that, so how can we support them to get where they would like to go, nor presuming where that is. That’s a big challenge for public health and for public services more generally. But we’ve learned a lot about how important that is, and listening to the community is probably the first step.  

When we as a community or a society figure out what works we actually do very well, but then when we do well we kind of forget what got us there and we take things for granted and we break down some of those structures or institutions, so it’s really a caution to be willing to actually step back and not presume and learn from the past and apply that as we move forward, but it does require conversation. It’s not about anyone’s vision, it’s amazing when you get people together that by in large, you know, the collective wisdom actually usually is pretty good if the motives are there that what can we do better together as opposed to just what’s in it for me.