Akwe:go Urban Aboriginal Children's Programme

Goals & Objectives

The Akwe:go (Mohawk meaning "All of Us") Programme is designed to provide comprehensive services to urban Aboriginal at-risk children between the ages of 7 - 12 with the support, tools and healthy activities that will build upon and foster their inherent ability to make healthy lifestyle choices.

Programme Summary

The Akwe:go Programme for many families not only provides their children with a place to go, the programme provides them with a sense of self, a social connection and more importantly, a cultural awareness they may not have had the opportunity to access before. Hundreds of children have been helped, and as a result families and communities have been strengthened.

A one-on-one and participant based programme, Akwe:go has been able to provide direct services to urban Aboriginal at-risk children and their families since 2006.

Focus on Success

"One of my clients is a ten year old boy who has been diagnosed with ADHD and has had huge difficulty with out of control behaviour, smoking, seeing drugs and staying home. He was taken out of the home and placed in foster care for two months. During this time, I was able to follow-up with him weekly and now he is back at home with his mother and is able to follow rules and is receiving help at school. I had spoken to his mom and she was willing to get counseling to help work with her child. To date, she said the counseling is working great and her son is displaying more positive behaviours. We also met with CASD Worker and they report that he is more stable and happy to be at home and is excited to be a part of the Akwe:go Programme".

Development

A briefing note was completed by the Akwe:go Programme Analyst which was approved by the Board of Directors to address Friendship Centres not delivering their maximum programme client numbers of 20 children, conflict of interest issues between children of Friendship Centre staff participating in the at-risk programme and the lack of use of the Akwe:go Database system to track one-on-one service delivery.

These issues are being addressed through an Akwe:go/Wasa-Nabin Strategic Plan which was established by the Akwe:go/Wasa-Nabin working group in October 2009.