Reconciliation - Doing our Part

RECONCILIATION - DOING OUR PART

Currently, around 85% of individuals Inner Hope serves are Indigenous. These youth and families have chosen to be a part of the Inner Hope community and have put a lot of trust in our staff and volunteers. We feel a deep responsibility to be advocates of justice. This includes doing the difficult work of acknowledging where we have all participated in systems of oppression and being part of reconciliation in East Vancouver.

As a social service organization rooted in faith, we acknowledge the historic role that Canada’s religious institutions played in harming the Indigenous community, and we take seriously our responsibility for healing damage and reforming harmful practices. God instructs us through scripture to stand up for the vulnerable. We seek an active role in reconciliation by responding directly to the Calls to Action from Canada’s Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Our programs are shaped by Indigenous staff, volunteers, board members, cultural mentors, and most importantly, our community.

In 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its final report, with 94 Calls to Action that implored the Canadian government, along with all Canadian citizens, to acknowledge the past and pursue a new path together for the future.[1] Inner Hope has chosen three Calls to Action to focus on and support.

If you would like to learn how you can be part of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada, two tools that may be helpful to you are a prayer guide created by the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada,[2] and our list of 50 Acts of Reconciliation.

Call to Action 1

We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the number of Aboriginal children in care by: providing adequate resources to enable Aboriginal communities and child-welfare organizations to keep Aboriginal families together where it is safe to do so, and to keep children in culturally appropriate environments, regardless of where they reside.

Inner Hope journeys with parents as they seek to strengthen family relationships and grow in their capacity to care for their children. Several times we have been able to advocate in the court system and/or provide a reference for foster parent screening for family members to take over the care of child relatives in foster care. Other ways we support this call:

Providing a space for holiday gatherings where extended families can build memories and celebrate.
Partnering with parents in supporting our Boundless youth.
Modeling healthy boundaries, routines and community in the Inner Hope Home, empowering residents to break generational cycles which have led to abuse and instability.
Ensuring, with guidance from our Cultural Mentors and Community Advisory Committee, that Inner Hope is a place where Indigenous youth and families feel supported and affirmed in their identity.

CALL TO ACTION 10

We call on the federal government to draft new Aboriginal education legislation with the full participation and informed consent of Aboriginal peoples. The new legislation would include a commitment to sufficient funding and would incorporate the following principles:
i. Providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation.
ii. Improving education attainment levels and success rates.
vi. Enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children.

Inner Hope's life skills and housing programs have a strong focus on education; both in terms of high school completion and in the pursuit of higher education. We work with youth, young adults and their families to create a supportive foundation that will see the youth through their entire educational journey. We do this by:

Helping youth with High School and College enrollment - accessing educational programs that meet their needs and support their interests.
Supporting parent participation in the education of their children by partnering with them to strengthen school attendance and work habits, accompanying parents to school meetings, and inviting the parents into discussions with their children.
Providing practical support with assignments, providing rides to classes and appointments, and providing a quiet space for youth to complete school work.
Enabling the celebration of graduates by helping them get outfits, transporting their families to ceremonies, attending ceremonies with them, and hosting our own community celebration.

CALL TO ACTION 19

We call upon the federal government, in consultation with Aboriginal peoples, to establish measurable goals to identify and close the gaps in health outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities, and to publish annual progress reports and assess long-term trends.

At Inner Hope, we believe that health is more than just the absence of illness: it is the wholeness of a person’s spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional well-being. Because the majority of the youth and families we walk alongside are Indigenous, we intentionally ground our approach to health in the Medicine Wheel, which teaches that each area of health is interconnected and must be nurtured in balance. Other ways we support this call:

Connecting youth and families with doctors, counsellors, dentists, and other health professionals.
Providing rides, reminders, and even personal accompaniment to appointments when requested, ensuring no one has to navigate the health system alone.
Advocating for appropriate treatment, helping with paperwork, and supporting families in difficult conversations to ensure our community receives the quality of care they deserve.

CALL TO ACTION 30

We call upon federal, provincial, and territorial governments to commit to eliminating the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody over the next decade.

Approximately 75% of Inner Hope’s participants have an immediate family member who has spent time in the correctional system. Many of our young people also have peers who are caught up in the system. We support our community's goal in breaking this cycle. Some of our strategies are:

Providing safe and supervised environments where youth and young adults can socialize and build relationships.
Providing healthy role models and adult mentors.
Providing evening and weekend activities as alternatives to settings where youth are prone to make poor decisions.
Supporting youth to deal with their pain, learn how to control their anger and avoid a lifestyle of addiction. This is critical in preventing them from getting caught up in a destructive lifestyle.

CALL TO ACTION 60

We call upon leaders of the church parties to the Settlement Agreement and all other faiths, in collaboration with Indigenous spiritual leaders, Survivors, schools of theology, seminaries, and other religious training centres, to develop and teach curriculum for all student clergy, and all clergy and staff who work in Aboriginal communities, on the need to respect Indigenous spirituality in its own right, the history and legacy of residential schools and the roles of the church parties in that system, the history and legacy of religious conflict in Aboriginal families and communities, and the responsibility that churches have to mitigate such conflicts and prevent spiritual violence.

At Inner Hope, we recognize that true reconciliation cannot happen without acknowledging the church’s role in residential schools and the deep spiritual harm experienced by Indigenous peoples. We have named Reconciliation as one of our five core values, and we intentionally shape our work so that staff, volunteers, and leaders learn to walk with humility, respect, and openness. How this looks in practice:

Living out the gospel with humility, recognizing that trust with Christians and the Church needs to be rebuilt, and actions speak louder than words. Faith at Inner Hope is never about force—it is about invitation, about healing, and about a community that welcomes you as you are.
Offering pathways for churches to deepen their understanding of Indigenous history and spirituality, we host the Ride for Refuge to encourage tangible and relational steps of reconciliation, lead the Blanket Exercise each fall, an experiential learning exercise on the impacts of colonization, and provide speaking and learning opportunities for our partner churches and camps.
Providing cultural opportunities in partnership with our community (such as workshops, cultural outings, and our annual Grad Blanketing Ceremony) for youth, young adults, and families throughout the year.

References:

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 2015. http://caid.ca/TRCFinExeSum2015.pdf; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Calls to Action. 2015. http://nctr.ca/assets/reports/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf

Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action Learning and Prayer Guide,” The Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada: https://www.cmacan.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/trc-prayer-guide.pdf