P.E.I. First Nations children benefit from Jordan's Principle program

TheMi'kmaqConfederacy of P.E.I. has found its Jordan's Principle pilot project is helping Island First Nations children better access health services.

The new child-first service coordinator position was fundedby the federal government to implement a program called Jordan's Principle named after Jordan Anderson, a five-year-old boy who died in hospital in 2005 after a drawn-out court battle between the federal government and Manitoba over who should pay his home-care costs.

"It's to ensure the First Nations children can access all public services when they need them," said Roseanne Sark, director of health for theMi'kmaqConfederacy of P.E.I.

"If there's jurisdictional disputes let's take care of that after."

Through the initiative, Sark said the Confederacy has become aware of services for children it didn't even know it could access, like speech and music therapy.

"It was a great opportunity for us to support our children in their needs," Sark said. "Before, we didn't know who was who and how do we access them."

'We are in great need'

One example is the fast-tracking of school assessments for a number of First Nations students. The Confederacy has been approved to hire an independent psychologist to do the assessments in September meaning only a nine-month wait. Other Island students are waiting more than three years.

Sark doesn't think P.E.I.'s needs are as serious as some other First Nations in Canada with larger populations, she said.

"But if you scale it to our population, I think that we are in great need as well," she said.

The Confederacy is now one year into the two-year pilot project, and is looking to replace the program's coordinator, who left the position.

How the Jordan's Principle program will be laid out beyond 2019 has yet to be determined, Sark said.

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