exerpt from:
Horse as Healer: An Examination of Equine Assisted Learning in the Healing of First Nations Youth from Solvent Abuse1

Introduction
Canada is an international leader in providing residential treatment to First
Nations youth who abuse solvents. Of its 8 treatment centres, 5 have been
in operation for over a decade, a laudable achievement given that internationally
most centres close down within the same year they are established
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(Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2003). The
Canadian centres are linked through the national Youth Solvent Addiction
Committee (YSAC) network. The network provides theoretical direction for
the treatment provided at the centres and strength-based counselor training
opportunities, emphasizing a culture-based resiliency model. One of the
YSAC treatment facilities, the White Buffalo Youth Inhalant Treatment Centre,
has expanded its programming to include Equine Assisted Learning (EAL).
White Buffalo has partnered with the Cartier Equine Learning Center to offer
EAL.
In this article, we discuss how YSAC’s culture-based model of resiliency
is put into practice at White Buffalo through the example of EAL. The
application of this model to a horse-assisted learning program is a unique
contribution to the literature. YSAC has expanded the Western concept of
resiliency, which focuses on the individual, to include both the individual
and community. Within a Western worldview, several resiliency dynamics
are associated with an individual, including insight (which is internal) and
external relationships. Within a First Nation’s worldview, an individual is at
the same time their inner spirit (internal) and relations with their collective
community. Resiliency is “. . . a balance between the ability to cope with stress
and adversity [inner spirit] and the availability of community support” (Dell,
Hopkins, and Dell, 2005, p. 5). This definition is operationalized at White
Buffalo through traditional First Nations teachings alongside such programs
as EAL, with specific attention paid in this case to the historic and contemporary
role of the horse within the lives of First Nations people. Both concepts
which comprise YSAC’s definition of resiliency — the inner spirit of an
individual and their community support — are illustrated using the example
of EAL from the intersecting perspectives of White Buffalo’s volatile solvent
abuse program, Cartier Equine Learning Center’s EAL program, and Elders’
stories.
Using the example of EAL, we also highlight in this article how YSAC’s
culture-based model of resiliency and a Western health promotion approach
are complementary. Both emphasize the importance of the individual and
the larger community in understanding and responding to health needs. It
follows that there is much to be learned from YSAC’s holistic approach to
treatment and healing that can be of assistance to both First Nations and
Western health promotion responses to substance abuse. A limitation of this
article is that we discuss the theoretical intersections between a culture-based
model of resiliency, EAL, and health promotion, but we do not test them em84
© Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health 6(1) 2008
pirically. We conclude the article with five key research suggestions as next
steps to further our understanding of EAL, and in particular as it relates to
First Nations community health.
Volatile Solvent Abuse
According to a 2005 report commissioned by the World Heath Organization,
the deliberate inhalation of volatile solvents and aerosols2 is an increasing
global problem. In Canada, attention to volatile solvent abuse (VSA) among
Indigenous youth was publicly recognized with a widely played media clip in
1993 of Innu youth in Davis Inlet, Newfoundland getting high by sniffing gasoline.
In 1996, a major response to VSA was undertaken on the part of First
Nations people and Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch;
several residential youth solvent treatment centres were established.
Volatile solvent abuse is the deliberate inhalation of fumes or vapours given
off from a substance for its intoxicating and mind-altering effect (National
Drug Abuse Information Centre, 1998). Volatile solvents are a large and diverse
group of chemical compounds located in hundreds of household and
industrial products, including paint thinner, glue, gasoline, and correctional
fluid (Dell and Beauchamp, 2006; Howard et al., 2008). The health effects of
inhaling can be acute, and include frostbite and burns (Albright et al., 1999;
Janezic, 1997), brain and nerve cell damage (Basu et al., 2004; Dewey, 2002),
and sudden heart failure (Ballard, 1998; Wille and Lambert, 2004). The social
effects are equally destructive, and include poor academic performance (Basu
et al., 2004; Carroll et al., 1998), decreased mental wellness (Kurtzman et al.,
2001; Mosher et al., 2004), spiritual harm (Etsten, 2005; Dell and Graves,
2005) and problem behaviour, such as delinquency (Best et al., 2004; Jacobs
and Ghodse, 1998).
The rate of VSA among First Nations and Inuit youth, and youth generally,
is not well documented in Canada. The most recent national survey on
substance use and abuse among Canadians 15 and older found that 1.9% of
males and 0.7% of females reported using a volatile solvent in their lifetime
(Adlaf, Begin, and Sawka, 2005). This is an increase from the 1994 reported
2. “A solvent is a chemical in a liquid or semi-solid state that dissolves other substances (e.g., nail polish
remover). The word volatile refers to the rapid evaporation of chemicals in products to a gas or vapour
when they are exposed to air. . . . Aerosol and spray cans contain a product (e.g., shaving cream) under
the pressure of a propellant. Propellants are typically solvents and are used to dissolve the content of
the can so it can be sprayed” (Dell and Beauchamp 2006, p. 1). Volatile solvent abuse is commonly
referred to as inhalant abuse, since inhaling is the mode of ingestion.
Horse as Healer 85
lifetime solvent use rate of 1.2% of males and 0.3% of females (Canadian
Centre on Substance Abuse, 1994). Canadian research indicates that the majority
of solvent abusers are between the ages of ten and seventeen, with peak
use between twelve and fifteen (Adlaf and Paglia, 2003; Barcelo et al., 1998;
Youth Solvent Addiction Committee, 2004). Volatile solvents are often the
first mood-altering substance used by children and youth because they are
readily available, inexpensive, and easily concealed (Basu et al., 2004; Wille
and Lambert, 2004).
Research and practice have indicated higher rates of VSA among youth experiencing
disenfranchised life conditions. This has been documented among
street youth, inner city youth, and some First Nations and Inuit youth living
in select rural and remote areas of the country (Research Group on Drug
Use, 2004; Manitoba Office of the Children’s Advocate, 2003). VSA among
First Nations and Inuit youth has been linked to high rates of poverty, boredom,
loss of self-respect, unemployment, family breakdown, and poor social
and economic structures (Dell et al., 2003). These issues are connected to
the historic impact of residential schooling, systemic racism and discrimination,
and multigenerational losses of land, language, and culture. For example,
a 2003 report from Pauingassi First Nation in Manitoba revealed that
half of the children on the reserve who were under 18 years abused solvents
(Manitoba Office of the Children’s Advocate, 2003).
Given the damaging biopsychosocial and spiritual effects of VSA, and the
myriad of impoverished social conditions surrounding chronic use, the treatment
of youth who abuse solvents has largely been ineffective. The literature
suggests that residential treatment programs for inhalant abuse rarely survive
for a multitude of reasons, including the degree of difficulty that treating solvent
users entails (Beauvais, 1990; Dinwiddie, 1994). Solvent abusing youth
have been typecast as “out of control” and “untreatable.” It has been widely
accepted that brain damage from ingesting solvents is extensive and irreversible,
though recent research (Cairney et al., 2002) and practice (YSAC, 2008)
have refuted this.
Residential Treatment for Volatile Solvent Abuse in Canada
In 1996, the decision to build several residential treatment facilities for volatile
solvent abuse created significant unease about which model of recovery
they should operate under. There was a dearth of research on effective treat86
© Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health 6(1) 2008
ment approaches for youth VSA on which to draw, and conflicting theories
about youth substance abuse residential treatment in general (Dell and
Graves, 2005). There was some consensus among clinicians and researchers,
however, that residential treatment can be helpful for individuals who
have special needs or require intensive programming (Jumper-Thurman and
Beauvais, 1997). In response, the emerging solvent treatment facilities in
Canada formed the national Youth Solvent Addiction Committee (YSAC) as
a mechanism to develop an overarching culture-informed approach to treatment,
and to share individual centre successes and lessons to treating youth
who abuse solvents. YSAC’s mission is to provide culturally appropriate,
therapeutic, inhalant treatment and community-intervention programming
for First Nations youth and their families. YSAC comprises treatment centre
Directors, field experts, and representatives of Health Canada’s First Nations
and Inuit Health Branch.
In line with the literature and understanding, the majority of youth who
enter into the YSAC programs have extensive histories of mental, physical,
social, and spiritual abuse (YSAC, 2008). Focusing on the cultural foundation
that the centres share, and their commitment to a strength-based approach
to treatment and healing, YSAC guided the centres’ early development with
the concept of resiliency, that is, how well a person can recover or bounce
back in spite of significant stress. YSAC began with the work of Wolin and
others on the seven resiliency dynamics (Wolin and Wolin, 1998; Resiliency
Center, 2002). These dynamics were found to coincide with parallel conceptions
of traditional teachings and holistic healing within First Nations3 culture
(Banai, n.d.) (see Table 1).
Key to YSAC’s development of a culture-based model of resiliency was understanding
the role of an individual’s inner spirit; inner spirit is the “motivator
and animator of one’s life” (Dell, Hopkins, and Dell 2005, p. 5) and that
it is nurtured through traditional First Nations teachings and healing. Within
YSAC’s model, inner spirit and community cannot be disentangled from one
another, as is commonly done within a Western worldview. An individual’s
inner spirit is intertwined with their family, community, and the land and
cannot be understood apart from them. YSAC’s holistic concept of resiliency
is suggested to “assist youth in uncovering their inner spirit [and] strengthen
their spirit by drawing on available community resources” (Dell, Hopkins,
and Dell, 2005, p. 5) (see Figure 1).
3. Anishinabe teachings.
Horse as Healer 87
Colleen Anne Dell, Research Chair in Substance Abuse, Department of Sociology
University of Saskatchewan*
Darlene Chalmers, Faculty of Social Work
University of Regina
Debra Dell, Coordinator, Youth Solvent Addiction Committee
Ernie Sauve, Executive Director, White Buffalo Youth Inhalant Treatment Centre
Sturgeon Lake First Nation
Tamara MacKinnon, Program Director, Cartier Equine Learning Centre
1. Contributions: This article is a collaborative community-based effort of the identified authors, with
Ernie Sauve representing Elders Herb, Gladys, and John (a pseudonym), staff and members of the
Board of Directors of the White Buffalo Youth Inhalant Treatment Centre, and Tamara MacKinnon
representing the staff of the Cartier Equine Learning Centre.
Acknowledgement: Two of the authors of this article, Darlene and Colleen, were driving from Saskatoon
to Sturgeon Lake First Nation to meet with two of the Elders who are trusted with providing spiritual
and cultural guidance at the White Buffalo Youth Inhalant Treatment Centre. As they passed a roadside
cross (referred to by Darlene as a shrine) to mark the passing of an individual(s) through a motor
vehicle accident, they began a discussion that observed how these “shrines” would not exist to the
extent they do if there were no vehicles, and, in place, horses were once again the primary mode of
transportation. When their morning meeting with the Elders was coming to a close, a final thought
was shared by one of the Elders, Herb. He said that the iron horse (i.e., automobile) has contributed
its share to the illness (e.g., materialism) that plagues society today. Another of the Elders, Gladys, reflected
that all is interconnected in life, and everything (e.g., seasons) comes full circle. In many ways,
this article represents a piece of the circle of life for each of the authors. We are happy to be able to
share this with the reader, and are grateful for what we have learned in the process.
82 © Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health 6(1) 2008