Good Practices and Innovations in Public Governance 2003-2011

2007 Category 3: Canada
Europe and North America
Canada
2007 Category 3 Winner
Tli Cho Community Services
Tli Cho Community Services Agency, Canada
Description
Increasing the well-being of indigenous communities by involving all stakeholders
in the decision-making processes and management of health, education and other
related social issues.
Summary
The Tlicho Model of Integrated Service represents a new and unique institutional
mechanism – the only one of its kind in the Northwest Territories, based upon: an
integrated service delivery approach; a wellness model; refining the services to make
them more culturally relevant; and a community development approach based upon
identifying individual and community strengths and building upon them.
The Problem
For centuries, the Tlicho had lived a very independent, nomadic lifestyle on their
land, in what is now part of Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT). But in the later
1950s, with the crash of the fur market, the Tlicho people could no longer sustain
themselves by living their traditional lifestyle. They moved into settlements run, for
the most part, by the federal government, the church and the Hudson Bay Company.
Like many other aboriginal groups that had a similar experience, the Tlicho found it
difficult to adapt to this new way of life. They entered a period of their history that
they often refer to as “The Time of Darkness” – a period when there was a sense of
helplessness from the loss of independence that they had had for so many centuries.
The changing lifestyle, the overcrowded housing, the increased exposure to alcohol
and the lack of meaningful employment, led to various illnesses and social problems,
especially in regard to family life. This was also the time when a whole generation of
children were taken from their families and shipped off to schools far from their
homes. In many cases, their culture was ridiculed, they were forbidden to speak their
language, and they were sometimes physically abused.
The Solution
In 1971, Chief Jimmy Bruneau seeing what was happening to the children, requested
that the Government of the Northwest Territories allow the Dogrib to set up their own
school board in Rae-Edzo. The government agreed. Responsibility for education was
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