Women’s shelter including Cree culture in domestic violence prevention

Bigstone Cree Nation elders teach traditional skills as part of the domestic violence prevention at the Neepinise Family Healing Centre in Wabasca, Alta.

Neepinise runs a women’s domestic violence shelter, domestic violence outreach centre, and a food bank for Bigstone Cree Nation in Wabasca.

This community about 320 km north of Edmonton is made up of several Bigstone reserves and a hamlet within the M.D. of Opportunity. It is also a hub for smaller hamlets and other Bigstone reserves which are more remote. The estimated combined population for the M.D. and all Bigstone reserves in the 2021 Census is 5,337, although the population is likely higher.

The Bigstone Cree Nation website estimates on and off-reserve membership of about 5,000.

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Cree culture and domestic violence prevention

From September to April, the Neepinise outreach centre runs family violence prevention and understanding family violence programs in Wabasca.

“Some groups are closed and some are open,” says Jennifer Gladue, Neepinise manager.

“The Families are Sacred program is open to men,” she adds. The others are for women.

The Families are Sacred program runs from late September to Christmas and includes information on healthy relationships, parenting, addictions, and much more.

Many of the Neepinise programs, including the weekly Stitches and Storytelling, include Bigstone elders teaching traditional skills. In Stitches and Stories, the elders teach how to make star blankets.

Over the summer, Neepinise ran a one-week family culture camp. Participants learned how to smoke fish, cut meat, make moose calls, make rattles and drums, etc.

Neepinise also runs healthy family social events including tea dances, karaoke, quarterly elders dine and dance events and a round dance during family violence prevention month.

Intimate partner violence

The inclusion of cultural knowledge and activities is important, because studies have connected the increased likelihood of Indigenous women being victims of intimate partner violence with the loss of cultural connections and practices.

One of these studies was released in 2021, by Statistics Canada, called ‘Intimate partner violence: Experiences of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women in Canada, 2018.’

The study found that six in 10 Indigenous women had experienced some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetimes.

It defines intimate partner violence as violence against a person by someone a person is (or has been) dating, married to, or in a common-law relationship with. Types of intimate partner abuse include physical, emotional, financial, sexual, and psychological.

The study found that in Canada, intimate partner violence is the most common type of violence that women in general are victims of, and Indigenous women are more likely to be victims of violence than non-Indigenous women.

The study also found that recognizing intergenerational trauma from the “forceful erasure of culture and traditions” during Canada’s history of colonialism toward Indigenous people was one of the factors which might help explain the high number of Indigenous women who are victims of domestic violence. Long distances between shelters, fear of police, and other systemic barriers also likely contribute to these numbers.

The shelter

In keeping with these studies, the Neepinise shelter is far away from any other shelters.

The nearest ones are Northern Haven Support Society in Slave Lake (about 125 km southwest of Wabasca), one established in 2023 in Atikameg (198 km west), and one in Lac La Biche (230 km southeast). Athabasca, the next town to the southwest, doesn’t have a women’s shelter.

Two of these - Neepinise and Atikameg - are on-reserve. This is significant because on-reserve shelters are federally funded and other shelters are provincially funded.

This funding affects online searches for shelters. For example, Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters (ACWS)’s website (acws.ca) has a map with provincially-funded women’s domestic violence shelters in Alberta. Neepinise and the Atikameg shelters aren’t on this map.

The type of funding doesn’t usually affect access to services.

When it comes to domestic violence shelters, says Gladue, all of them help everyone, and then figure out whether to send the bill to the federal or provincial government.

“It’s (the Neepinise shelter is) open to everybody,” says Neepinise. “We accept everyone.”

There are many Bigstone members who live off of the reserve in the M.D., she adds. Also, it is the only women’s shelter in the area.

The Neepinise shelter has been around for a long time.

“Probably since 1993,” says Gladue.

It has 23 beds and four transitional housing units.

The units are apartments for women and their children. It does not allow pets.

Asked about statistics, Gladue says, “we haven’t done our numbers yet,” and adds that Bigstone doesn’t release the numbers publicly.

“But we are usually full …,” she adds, “especially in our transitional housing. We’re always full.”

She estimates the shelter is full about 90 to 95 per cent of the time.

Asked how long women can stay in the transitional housing, she says, “it can be up to two years. It is supposed to be temporary, but it’s just a lack of resources. Housing is always an issue here.”

One of Gladue’s long-term goals is to increase the amount of housing. She applied for the most recent set of grants, but was denied.

At the moment, she is slowly working on renovating the transitional housing units, which are about 30 years old.”

Food bank

The food bank is also always busy, says Gladue.

“We try to avoid the cheque run days,” she says.

One example is GST, which is paid out quarterly. When this happens, the food bank is open the following week.

A monthly example is pay day.

The food bank is open two weeks a month and is enough food to get people by between cheques.

Like the shelter, this is the only food bank in Wabasca, so it helps everyone. The nearest food banks are the Slave Lake one run by the Slave Lake Native Friendship Centre and the Athabasca Good Samaritan Food Bank, in Athabasca (about 185 km southeast of Wabasca).