Play the Difference Game!Two-Eyed Seeing
Two-Eyed Seeing is the guiding principle of the Eastern Door Centre.
Our Early Years with Elder Josie Augustine
Working through Stigma
It is the bravery and strength of the first birth parents in Elsipogtog who led the way because of their great love of their children—wanting them to succeed and get support and help.
Diagnosis
ED referrals are largely based an annual school screening. This is a whole-system screening but it occurs at the classroom level with the classroom teachers as informants using the MWSI. This tool is now embedded in the schools Educational Information System (EIS). The MWSI data provides referral lists for individual specialists as well as for the ED- The goal is early identification and assessment. Referrals may also come from physicians, parents and other agency staff. Individuals can also self-refer.
Two Eyed Seeing Diagnostic Assessment
The ED diagnostic team provides trauma informed TES diagnostic services for FASD and related disorders. (Clairmont 2010). The team consists of a traditional healer, physician, nurse practitioner, and family outreach social workers, as well as the school specialists--psychologists, OT, SLP, physiotherapist, resource and methods coordinator. Team members are leveraged from the staff of NB provincial health and also Elsipogtog health (EHWC), education and mental health. Office space is provided by the EHWC and the Education Division. Half of the professionals on the team are Indigenous or married into the community; these team members speak Mi'kmaq, the language of the community. The ED team uses a TES interdisciplinary diagnostic process that includes standardized assessments, medical examination and measurements, and a MW evaluation by the traditional healer on the team. Youth voice is entered into the diagnostic clinic process through the use of the MW Difference Game Cards as they identify issues they feel are interfering with their well-being. The family’s voice, particularly the birth mothers, is brought into the diagnostic clinic meeting by information gathered by the workers at the ED Family Outreach Program (EDFO). EDFO staff meet with the families of the referred youth, explain to them the clinic process, facilitates their active participation in the process.
Two-Eyed Seeing Assessment Wheel: Assessment tool inspired by Mi'kmaq Elders. It widens the lens of the mainstream FASD diagnostic process. Half of the TES wheel is a template to record the measurements needed for diagnosis using medically accepted diagnostic criteria of the Canadian FASD Guidelines and the DSM-5. The other half looks at these conditions as life-time disorders, reflecting other factors that might contribute to how prenatal alcohol or drug exposure might be expressed in an individual, family and community system. For instance there is a consideration of paternal alcohol use, secondary conditions, residential schooling, and a generational family trauma component extending back three generations (Loock, Elliot & Cox 2020). FASD is seen in the context of system adversity and transgenerational trauma rather than the simple result of PAE.