Survivors need mental health support as searches of former residential school sites continue, leaders say – CBC

Jan 27, 2023

James Cutfeet, director of Bringing our Children Home, says survivors will be set back by new discoveries

The director of operations for an organization in northwestern Ontario dedicated to finding children who went missing while attending residential schools is calling for more mental health supports for residential school survivors.

James Cutfeet of Bringing Our Children Home said events like the recent discovery of 170 “plausible burials” by the Wauzhushk Onigum Nation at the former St. Mary’s residential school in Kenora can traumatize survivors.

“My concern is with the survivors, the families and the communities in general, how they will be affected,” Cutfeet said. “There’s a lot of dark trauma that they have to recount.”

“They will need … support from the mental health services, as well as land-based treatment programs,” he said. “I hope the communities are organized in such a way that all these services, mental health and wellbeing programs, are linked together to work effectively for the benefit of those that will be affected.”

Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/bring-our-children-home-1.6727145