Though it may not be apparent to them, high-school students within the Cree School Board are a few steps ahead of the rest of the province when it comes to getting comprehensive healthy sexuality education through the Chi kayeh program.
Developed specifically to address the needs and cultural values of the Cree communities, the Chi kayeh program is a one-of-a-kind, year-round, mandatory two-credit course that is being offered to Grade 9 students in seven out of the nine Cree communities. The other two communities will be adopting the program next year.
“In the beginning we realized that there was no sexual-health education in the schools and we needed something to address sexually transmitted infections, HIV, unplanned pregnancy and other related topics,” said Marlene Beaulieu, a school health program officer from the Cree Board of Health and Social Services of James Bay.
Beaulieu, who is also a teacher, co-authored the program along with Francoise Caron, a sexologist who was “on loan” to the CBHSSJB from the Direction de la sante publique de la Monteregie.
In recognizing the need for the program, the CBHSSJB’s George Diamond, a program officer in charge of health and safety, put together a team to work closely with the communities to ensure that the project would be reflective of Cree values and address healthy sexuality.
An advisory committee was also formed to consult on the project that consisted of community health representatives, Elders, parents, principals, teachers, youth pastors, doctors, nurses and band-office representatives.
In total, over 100 people were consulted before the program could be written including several students who also answered an anonymous questionnaire on sexual health.
In recognizing the seriousness and the need for the program, school commissioners signed a resolution and agreed to integrate the program as a two-credit course within the school curriculum.
From the consultations it was decided that the program should address not only STIs, HIV and AIDS but Cree values, the consequences and costs related to teen pregnancies for both the youths and their families, peer pressure, what constitutes healthy relationships, substance abuse, fetal alcohol prevention, condom use, sexual violence, postponing sexual involvement, self-assertiveness and self-esteem.
The first pilot projects for the Chi kayeh program began during the 2006-07 school year in Waskaganish and Waswanipi. Unlike any other sex-education program in Quebec, as there is no formalized program within the Ministry of Education at present, the Chi kayeh program actually has both a complete teachers’ manual and student handbook.
“There is a fully coloured student workbook that is very user friendly and there is a teachers’ guide that includes lesson plans, activities, feedback guidelines and quizzes. There are also overheads that will become PowerPoint presentations on a disc in the final version,” said Beaulieu. The final version of the program will be released later this fall.
Having already taught the program as a pilot project for one year, Waswanipi secondary teacher Pamela Clayton is thrilled with both the program itself and her students’ enthusiasm for it.
“It’s a very good and relevant program. The students are responding very well. They enjoy it and find it a lot of fun. They are using what I am teaching and relating it to their everyday lives, to the problems and situations they encounter outside of the school,” Clayton said.
Clayton also found that the boundless resource materials within the teacher’s manual made the course easier to teach.
Otherwise she would have had to develop her own curriculum like the rest of the province’s teachers who often struggle with a lot of grey areas when it comes to teaching sexuality.
Within her classroom, Clayton was able to see positive changes with her students.
“I taught assertiveness and it’s at the beginning that you need to set the stage to develop a positive self-esteem before they even think about entering into a sexual nature or sexual relationship. During the year I saw the students’ body language change to a more assertive stance and their actual language also changed,” said Clayton.
Singing the program’s praises even further, Cree Public Health’s Dr. Robert Carlin is also thrilled with the project as it has the potential one day to lighten the burden on clinics as it targets kids before they are sexually active.
“I think it is a program that could potentially help reduce the high rates of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly Chlamydia and gonorrhea that we see in the region,” said Carlin.
Currently the rate of sexually transmitted infections is five to ten times higher within the Cree communities than it is within the rest of the province according to Carlin.
What Carlin also likes about the program is that unlike any other health promotion or prevention campaign or effort, the Chi kayeh program is ongoing as opposed to an ad or radio campaign.
As most Crees already know, the words “chi kayeh” themselves translate to “you too,” and that is the program’s message, that healthy sexuality, knowing the facts and how to make the right choices is for everyone.
