UNews - Constance Day Chief

Constance Day Chief leads the way in educating educators about the impacts of residential schools

caroline.zentner — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 17:32:36 +0000

Constance Day Chief (BN ’17, MN ’21) is a changemaker and her ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge experience is testament to that. The newly minted Master of Nursing graduate saw a need for change in how Indigenous people were presented in the nursing curriculum while she was a student and that propelled her to focus on the health impacts of residential schools for her project.

“I’m the daughter of a residential school survivor, so undertaking this project did have a very big emotional toll on my well-being,” says Day Chief. “However, I did feel like this was something that needed to be done to help bring this dark part of Canadian history to light.”

Day Chief, who now works as a plasma nurse for Canadian Blood Services, couldn’t have known it when she began working on her project, but that dismal part of Canada’s history was recently spotlighted with the discovery of 215 children’s graves at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

“I feel non-Indigenous people do not understand the extent of what happened with these schools and what it did to our ways of life and what it took from us,” says Day Chief. “People thought these schools operated a long time ago and that people should just get over it. It is sad and unfortunate that it took the finding of those 215 buried children for the rest of Canada to understand and feel the heartache that our people have been feeling since the start of those schools.”

Even as an undergraduate student, Day Chief thought stereotypes were being perpetuated in the curriculum and leading to negative attitudes towards Indigenous people. She recalls a class where she and her fellow students were examining a case study about an Indigenous man who came to the Emergency Room in an intoxicated state. The students were asked to consider how to provide culturally safe care to the man.

“I immediately spoke up and asked why was it that, whenever the Indigenous population was brought up, there were always addictions or negative behaviour attached to them,” she says. “How come this Indigenous man could not be presenting with coming to the ER with chest pain or a broken bone? Me speaking up did change the material in that course and for future courses.”

Initially, Day Chief wanted to focus her project on developing curriculum about residential schools for the Nursing Education in Southern Alberta (NESA) program. However, when she pursued it a little further, she learned that process was already underway. Instead, she developed a workshop for faculty and instructors to help them understand the material they would be teaching and translate that knowledge in the classroom.

Her goals for the workshop were to build a basic understanding of Indian residential schools, who operated them and the impact on Indigenous ways of life, including the impacts on Indigenous people’s health to this day. She also provided knowledge and strategies on how to provide this education in a culturally safe and sensitive manner.

“I did have a personal connection to the material of my project,” she says. “My own family did not realize the extent of the abuse until after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s investigation. My parent who did attend Indian residential school began to open up about their experiences, but it caused them in turn to relive their traumas. It was a tough time for our family and a learning period for all of us. My brother and I were never taught our Blackfoot language as there was a fear of us being beaten, as my parent was for speaking their language in school. Growing up, we had a strict upbringing and only certain adults were trusted with taking care of us, as our parent did not want us being abused as they were by the adults who were in charge of taking care of them. Addiction was also present with my parent; it was seen as a way to numb their memories and the emotions of their experiences. Overall, this has been a journey of learning, healing and understanding for our family and it will be ongoing in the future, as it will be for other families and communities.”

The last residential school closed in 1996 and Day Chief knows other family members, her grandfather, who sadly passed away shortly after she began her master’s program, grandmother, and aunts and uncles also attended these schools. She suspects their stories just scratch the surface of what really happened.

“I think people need to be open to what happened to us to fully understand the circumstances we’re in right now in regard to our own health and well-being,” says Day Chief. “We do have a lot of addictions within our community and I feel a lot of that has to do with the traumas that we’ve experienced in these schools. The adults didn’t learn proper parenting skills and that’s why you see a lot of the youth being raised by their grandparents instead of their own parents. Our whole well-being has been affected by these schools and I don’t think people fully understand that.”

Overall, Day Chief says she enjoyed a positive experience at the U of L and the support of faculty members and her friends and family helped her realize how much she could achieve. And she has a few tips for other up-and-coming changemakers.

“My advice for youth who are going into post-secondary education is to never silence your voice at the risk of making others feel uncomfortable,” says Day Chief. “If you want change to happen, be willing to engage in those uncomfortable situations and conversations.”

Scholarship program to honour influential quartet, support educational opportunities for Blackfoot students

trevor.kenney — Wed, 15 Nov 2017 17:22:04 +0000

In honour of National Philanthropy Day on Wednesday, Nov. 15, those of us at the U of L's UNews website wanted to highlight some stories from our archives. Each day this week, we'll republish a story that demonstrates the many ways the campus community benefits from philanthropy. Our second story describes the efforts of the Janes to honour Blackfoot Elders and create awards for Blackfoot students.

Seeking to preserve the Blackfoot cultural legacies of four influential men while furthering educational opportunities for Blackfoot students, Dr. Robert and Mrs. Priscilla Janes and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge have created a series of new student awards for Blackfoot students.

Dr. Robert and Mrs. Priscilla Janes and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge have created a series of new student awards for Blackfoot students.

The awards, for both graduate and undergraduate level students from the Blackfoot Confederacy, are named in honour and in memory of Narcisse (Tatsikiistamik “Middle Bull”) Blood, Gerald (Sikapiistamix “Grey Bull”) Conaty, Allan (Mi’kskimmiisoka’simii “Iron Shirt”) Pard, and Frank (Miiksskim “Iron”) Weasel Head.

“I knew these men and worked with them closely over the course of 25 years and then, all of a sudden, they all passed away within about three years of each other,” says Dr. Janes. “That had been on my mind ever since and I’d been thinking, how can these men be recognized, and their legacies carried on in some way? So, Priscilla and I came up with this idea of scholarships, which we named for them.”

Janes, who now lives in Canmore with his wife Priscilla, has a long history of working with the country’s First Nations and Inuit peoples. He was the founding director of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, NWT and spent 14 years working with Northern residents to establish the first professional museum in the Canadian Subarctic, as well as the Science Institute of the NWT.

Janes then took over as President and Chief Executive Officer at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum (1989-2000) and went to work on building stronger relationships with First Nations.

“That was a process of hiring the right people and developing relationships with the Four Nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy,” he says. “We began by striking a First Nations Advisory Council, hiring Blackfoot staff, and meeting the Blackfoot personally at their traditional ceremonies. Over time, a relationship of trust, mutual respect and learning developed. The culmination of this relationship was the decision to return sacred Blackfoot objects to the Confederacy – the largest repatriation of its kind in Canadian history.”

Upon leaving the Glenbow, Janes continued to work with First Nations peoples on a number of projects. When he looked at establishing a series of scholarships to honour his late colleagues, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge stood out due to its close relationship with the Blackfoot Confederacy and its longtime commitment to First Nations, Métis and Indigenous (FNMI) education.

“They were all key players in preserving the Blackfoot culture in Alberta,” Janes says of his late friends. “The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge was a natural because it truly is in the heart of Blackfoot country and has a very strong presence of both Blackfoot undergraduate and graduate students – it was just a natural fit.”

U of L President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Mike Mahon says the gift will further promote Blackfoot education at the U of L and serve as a valuable link to the men who were so committed to preserving Blackfoot culture.

“We’re extremely fortunate to be able to present these scholarships and very thankful to Dr. Janes and Priscilla for this enduring gift,” says Mahon, who was bestowed the Blackfoot name Iipisowahsi or Morning Star, meaning son of the sun and the moon, when he was inducted into the Kainai Chieftainship in 2012. “The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ embraces its responsibility to continue to provide educational opportunities for Blackfoot students and for preserving their rich culture for generations to come. Through this gift, Blackfoot students will be encouraged to celebrate the legacies left by these very influential and prominent men, and to continue the work they devoted so much to over the course of their lives.”

The undergraduate and graduate level awards will be available to students from the Blackfoot Confederacy: Siksika, Piikani (North and South Peigan) and Kainaiwa (Blood) who actively participate and contribute to their Blackfoot culture and heritage through activities of preservation, interpretation or celebration.

The first recipients of the awards are: Constance Day Chief (Dr. Gerald Conaty Memorial Award); Miracle Grier (Narcisse Blood Award); Alison Frank (Frank Weasel Head Award); Malcolm Many Chiefs (Allan Pard Award).

UNews - Constance Day Chief

Constance Day Chief leads the way in educating educators about the impacts of residential schools

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Scholarship program to honour influential quartet, support educational opportunities for Blackfoot students

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