WEBVTT

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[music] When I started to drink, I couldn’t
stop and yeah, I drank during my pregnancy.

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CJ is easily manipulated. She’ll
believe anything you tell her.

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I got in a trouble with a law and order.
It wasn’t very good.

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The people that they can’t function
as society, we treat them like dirt.

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And we… we punish them for being disabled.
I’m a new person now because of this class.

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CJ Lutke is 18 years old.

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To meet her casually, you think she
is just like any other 18 year old.

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But CJ is different. She lives with
multiple and severe disabilities

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that while not immediately obvious
impact every aspect of her life.

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CJ is a really interesting kid,

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Uh… I think she is an example in my opinion
of, if you will, almost a worst case

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scenario for starting her life. CJ was
born with fetal alcohol syndrome, FAS.

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A full term baby, she came
into the world weighing

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just over two and a half pounds. She was born
with the amniotic full of… full of alcohol

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where the mother who wasn’t abbreated at delivery
with multiple, multiple medical problems.

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Uh… She was on a ventilator for a long
time, because she couldn’t breathe.

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She had seizures. She had a brain bleed. Um… She
had what’s called necrotizing enterocolitis,

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in other words, a form of gangrene in her intestines
which meant most of them had to be removed.

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[sil.]

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Shortly after she was born, CJ was
adopted by Lloyd and Jan Lutke.

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Well, we are going for her result. Oh, yeah.
There are 23 children in their family.

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Two are biological sons, and the rest

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either adopted or foster children.
Many live with fetal alcohol syndrome.

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All right. So by the time CJ came into their
lives, the Lutkes knew a lot about FAS.

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We went and saw all the
physicians and the doctors,

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and one of them told that she would be profoundly mentally handicapped.
She was so delayed and the alcohol exposure was so extreme.

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Fifty percent of people with
FAS are mentally handicapped.

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CJ isn’t one of them. However,
like many people with FAS,

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she does have severe deficits in
her thinking and understanding.

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But because she speaks so well and appears
bright, people expect a lot of her.

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Some people are like well, you know,
it’s not a real learning disability.

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You can get over it. And I don’t know.
I guess I’m somewhat incapable

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and I sort of believe them.
So I tried to get over it,

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you know, (inaudible) mainly those buildings,
and… and I can’t. It fell on my face.

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It’s frustrating because you think you
can do something and then you can’t.

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Those buildings are just too high.

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We have such trouble understanding
brain damage, because we can’t see it.

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When a pregnant woman drinks,

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so does her baby. Alcohol is more
toxic to the developing fetus

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than even heroin or cocaine, because
it passes freely through the placenta.

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Depending on when and how much the mother
drinks, the effective alcohol varies.

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It can cause retarded growth, facial anomalies,
and problems with the central nervous system.

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But the greatest impact is on the brain

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resulting in everything from mild learning disabilities
to major damage that can cause disorder thinking,

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memory problems, poor judgment, and an inability
to understand the consequences of action.

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Doctor Christine Loock

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is a pediatrician at Vancouver,
Sunnyhill Health Center for Children.

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On the left, this is the brain
of a… a… a normal baby,

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and that’s compared to the brain of a baby
who died from a fetal alcohol syndrome,

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and you can clearly see
the differences in size

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and shape and… and formation. Anyway, the
brain doesn’t appear to be formed at all.

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Alcohol maybe killing cells, it may
be turning off messages to cells,

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and there maybe cells that are growing too
fast at the wrong time, or in the wrong place,

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or there maybe cells that stopped growing…
stopped growing or don’t move to the right place

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at the right time. And… and then one has to look at the
connections that need to be made at critical times.

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So it hasn’t been too long, CJ, right? No.
Right, yeah. Jan, thanks for coming.

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Thank you. Christine Loock has been
CJ’s doctor since CJ was a little girl.

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She is an expert at diagnosing FAS. How
often did you get your eyes checked?

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I don’t know. Research suggests
that children diagnosed

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before the age of 8 have a better chance in life. Because
when parents and teachers recognize they have FAS,

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the children are more likely to
get the treatment they need.

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In full blown FAS, there are
distinct facial features.

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The eyes were actually smaller so that the eyelids,
the palpebral fissures are actually shortened,

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so we… we see short palpebral fissures,

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the nose tends to be flatter and uh… and
smaller. And then quite interesting is the way

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the upper lip forms so that there is indistinct
philtrum on this little cupid’s bow over… over the lip.

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And then the upper lip is thin so
that we say short palpebral fissures,

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long philtrum and thin upper lip sort
of the classic triad that we look for.

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Okay, that’s really, really good.
That’s good. Great job. Okay.

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But these features aren’t always present in
children who have had prenatal exposure to alcohol.

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That’s often the case for those who live
with wherein the past has been called,

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fetal alcohol effect. FAE is
more of an umbrella term uh…

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that was used to describe the children who showed
some of the effects from alcohol, but not all.

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It has been replaced now with the… with the term
called fetal alcohol syndrome spectrum disorder,

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so FASD trying to encompass
really a spectrum

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uh… as opposed to what one mighty as a light
switch diagnosis either have it or you don’t.

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CJ, what have you forgotten?
To add the rest of water.

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Yeah. FAS is a lifetime disability.
It can’t be outgrown.

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The damage is irreversible and
there is no cure. I told –

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Like many victims, CJ’s IQ is in
a normal range, but she finds it

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extremely difficult to adapt to new experiences, to
transfer what she’s learned from one situation to another.

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In a way she lacks commonsense.

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Turn on, I think you just turned it off.
No, I’ve turned it on.

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You’re still cooking for two years, and I (inaudible) can’t
work with stove. Can’t remember which way to turn things,

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because if you don’t do things like every five minutes whatever she
forget. So every time you go back to it, you are trying to figure it out

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all over again, very frustrating.

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Cup. Cup, is that a cup?
CJ is easily manipulated.

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She will believe anything you tell her, and she
wants friends and so if you want to manipulate her,

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you can do so. I sometimes (inaudible)
do a jam, because I’m a helpful person

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and I don’t know people take advantage of that,
you know, not, and I don’t know that they are.

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So I try to be very, very careful
and sometimes and I thought my god,

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but I’m always with people so
they can just like bail me out

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so, you know. Oh!

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What? I know. What? CJ and Nicol

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have been friends since they were intentionally
paired up by CJ’s teaching aid in grade sux.

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When they are together, Nichol
helps CJ make decisions.

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We’ve structured their friendship, because
of CJ’s neither take vocal ability

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and the fact that she doesn’t understand
things. And that friendship allows

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her to have things that she
can do without adults,

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without parents, without an older
sibling that are normal things

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that 18 and 19 year old kids do. You’re
feeling kind of even, or up, or down, or…?

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No, I’m feeling pretty good.
Like most people with FAS,

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CJ’s transition from adolescent to adult
brings with it a whole new set of challenges.

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Where we might have seen attentional
problems and impulsivity in the young child,

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we start to see the manifestation
of mood and anxiety disorder

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um… in the adolescent, young adult.
And so I’m… I’m really

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very much looking for any signs of
depression, any… any sign of symptoms.

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Do you feel stressed or panicky or? No,
I’m just worried about everything.

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Okay. Just get worried, okay.
CJ has the anxiety.

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She worries about everything. Sometimes she
just gets herself into a complete lap.

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She just freezes. She is just panicked because she doesn’t
know what to do. And if she doesn’t have somebody there

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to help her, then who knows
what eventually down

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the road could be the outfall of that. Yeah.
Okay. Write there, cocky and write that.

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Jan has learned that with FAS,
consistency and structure are key.

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CJ has just finished high school. She
has no immediate plans to leave home,

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but she is hoping to find a part time job.
I do not think she can work full time.

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I think it would be far
too stressful for her.

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Over the years, Jan Lutke has become a
self-taught authority about the effects

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of prenatal exposure to alcohol. Twelve
years ago she helped to form the FAS/E

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Support Network of B.C.,
a voluntary organization

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that provides information,
advocacy and training.

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I wasn’t an advocate by choice. I think I became an advocate
when I realized if I didn’t do it, nobody else was going to.

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What we have learned over the years about FAS is
that it’s very individual. It will not look the same

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between any two kids. So how old
does that make you now? 20.

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It’s estimated that each year, 4,000 babies
in Canada are born with full blown FAS

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and many more with fetal
alcohol related disorders.

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Each will cost taxpayers more than 2 million dollars
in care and supervision during their lifetime.

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Yet the disability is
still relatively unknown.

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Being at a school. The strongest thing
Janet Christie drinks these days

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is her morning coffee. But
that wasn’t always the case.

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I used alcohol since I was 13 years old,

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and I um… was unable to
stop when I first started

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and that included during my pregnancy.
I worked in a longue

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at that time. I was a… I was a bartender, and
I remember like it feeling really nauseous

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for the first three months of my
pregnancy, and the managers wife

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told me that she found that she drank a
little bit a gin. It helped her morning…

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her… her morning sickness. So I drank and
it sort of gave me permission to drink,

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because it did take away that
feeling of… of nauseousness.

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Janet’s marriage ended when
her son was still a baby.

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She continued to drink
through his early childhood.

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One of the few things she remembers from those
years is that when her son started school,

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he had problems. His teacher said he
was lazy and not applying himself.

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He is… he is little distracted.

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He doesn’t care. He is disruptive.

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When her son was 13,
Janet stopped drinking.

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I sorted up and all of a sudden
I realized that my son was

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um… into drugs hanging out
with their own crowd, um…

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skipping school, stealing,
doing all kinds of stuff.

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By this time, Janet was in recovery

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and determined to focus on parenting her
son. But by grade 10 he had quit school

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and was getting into trouble with the law.
An acquaintance suggested that her son

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might have FAS. So then I started to
make phone calls, just it kept getting

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hitting dead ends. Everywhere I went, people,
organizations refer me back to different organization.

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I have a file here actually of oh,

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a hospital, counselors,

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Ministry of children, families. During the
process of me making these phone calls,

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I’ve visited the family doctor. And…
and he told me that there is no way.

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I was one of those women who drank out of
a brown paper bag. And that I could have

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possibly think that much too have
caused my son the brain damage.

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Good afternoon, FAS/E Support Network.
Yes, we could. I called and Jan answered,

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I don’t remember very much about that
conversation. But I do remember me saying

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I’m a birth mom. I think my son,

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I did it through my pregnancy
and I think my son has FAS.

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And there was this pause,
this pause on the phone.

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And I said, and I called her
place and she said he is yeah.

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[music]

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Janet took her son to see Christine Loock,

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she is a pediatrician, but one of the few
physicians who diagnosis FAS in adults.

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But it can be difficult.
Often nothing is known

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about the birth mother’s drinking habits. And the
distinctive FAS facial features evident in a child

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soften and disappear as a person ages.

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Frankly, we start looking at adults.
We start looking for those things.

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So… so my adult colleagues, my… my
colleagues who practice adult medicine um…

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often we aren’t trained and we don’t look
for these conditions and then I don’t ask.

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Janet was able to provide what
was needed for a diagnosis.

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Her own drinking history and
pieces of her son’s early years.

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Photos and school records that showed a
pattern of learning and behaviour problems.

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At 21 years old, Janet’s
son was diagnosed as being

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fetal alcohol affected. I was really happy
to get the diagnosis, because I thought

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I was going to finally get help for my son
only to realize that there is no help.

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Janet’s son doesn’t live with her,
but she talks with him almost daily.

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He can’t hold down a job and has a
hard time functioning on his own.

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He does receive a disability payment,
but because his IQ is above 70

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he doesn’t qualify for other supportive
services. If their IQ is over 70,

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they qualify for nothing. They don’t
qualify for community living services.

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Their IQ is too high. They don’t qualify for
assisted living. There virtually isn’t any.

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They don’t qualify for a homemaker which most of them
would need. They don’t qualify for something like meals

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or wheels unless they have the money to pay for it and we can
make an end run around it. They don’t qualify for handydard

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and yet many of them cannot use
public transportations safely.

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They don’t qualify. With the proper supports,
he could have a life and now it is just this

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is a continual struggle of
trying to keep him alive

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and trying to keep him out of prison.
Trying to keep their son alive

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and out of jail, it’s a story that’s all
too familiar to Bob and June Steeves.

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Their son Mark has FAS. Today it
totally dominates their lives.

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But when they adopted him
as a baby 25 years ago,

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they’d never heard of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. They
were told only that he was born 10 weeks premature.

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I thought he was a uh… little boy
that had a rough start in life

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and we are going to fix it by um…
by lots of love in the home.

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Going to make an omelet first for lunch.

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Mark likes to cook, and he is good at it.

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But he does have profound learning disabilities
that were obvious as early as kindergarten.

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Even with the tutor at home
and one-on-one help at school

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by grade three he had fallen so far
behind that he failed the year.

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But he really began to have really low
self-esteem, and so it was affecting him

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not only academically, but also
how he was feeling about himself.

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In grade nine, a move to a bigger
school spelled trouble for Mark.

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I just wasn’t fitting in right
and I didn’t know anybody,

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so it just become hard and whatever, so I just
(inaudible)don’t want to do this anymore.

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Mark started skipping school

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and running away. And that was worrisome
enough, but then he began to break the law.

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Mark started off committing the yard
car theft and it kept escalating

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and escalating more and more calls from
the police, locked up again and again.

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And this just… this just
continued and continued.

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For Bob Steeves who at thaettime was a corrections
officer, this was his worst nightmare come true.

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None of my friends had their kids in jail, and then none
of the people I’ve worked with had their kids in jail.

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And I did, so you know somewhere,

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somehow I really invested as a
dad and I… and, I was angry.

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I was angry, really angry at Mark,
because he was making me look bad.

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So we just wanted to get… I just wanted to
get tougher with him, make him smart enough

00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
and still believing he would grow up.
We made appointments with…

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
with psychiatrists, psychologists, trying to get
assessments and trying to figure out what was going on,

00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.999
what was going on in his head, what
was wrong, what were we doing wrong.

00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
Trips to court and visits to Mark’s
Parole Officer became the norm.

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
He didn’t seem to learn from past mistakes.
He’d get arrested,

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
be charged and then get into trouble again.
He spent time in juvenile detention

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
and six months in a provincial jail.
Then one day,

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
a police officer who knew Mark
suggested he might have FAS.

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
When the diagnosis was confirmed,
the Steeves had mixed reactions.

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
We began to realize that this was a
problem that he had a difficulty

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
that he wasn’t just acting out
because for the sake of acting out.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
So there was a little bit of relief in
that regards. However, all of a sudden,

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
all of our dreams and our hopes were gone.
They were shattered.

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
There was not going to be all of a
sudden things weren’t going to click.

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
Then all of a sudden we realized

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
this may never end. Now the
Steeves knew that Mark

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
wasn’t going to change. It was they who
would have to deal with him differently.

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
We know thah my son doesn’t learn from consequences.
He simply doesn’t learn from consequences.

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
And so there was no point in punishing anymore. We had
to put structures in place that would prevent him

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
from getting in trouble in the first place.
Mark did stop committing crimes,

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
but because of delays in the legal
system, he and his parents had to deal

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
with the fallout from previous
crimes including a break and enter.

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
He was looking at several years
in a federal penitentiary.

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
Bob and June Steeves knew that if this happened, they
would lose their son forever. I’ve never believed

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
that because my son committed a crime that he… we
should be using FAS as an excuse was his bad behavior.

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
But because my son is so easily
influenced, we put him in a place where

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
there is other penitentiary people. He is going to be influenced
by them and I believe that in stopping the crime cycle

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
we had to keep him out of… out of custody.

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
Very nice. So you don’t know
what’s wrong with your bike yet?

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
Yeah, the rear is struck. They convinced the
judge to allow Mark to serve his time at home.

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
He would be under house arrest, and
they’d be his jailers 24 hours a day.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
Yeah, but when you do (inaudible) on the
street, the neighbors don’t like it.

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
There is a lot of noise. Bob would go to work in the
afternoon and I would go to work in the morning.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
So I would come in from work and
just give Bob the keys to the car,

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
and then he would leave to go to work in
the afternoon. So Bob or Mark always had

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
24 hours supervision. Mark,
here’s your money for today,

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
but be really careful, remember that’s how you
get, you don’t get anything more today. Yeah.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
Okay. In a sense, they two had been prisoners in their
own home when Mark served his two years sentence

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
and another three years of probation.
And it’s not over yet.

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
Even though Mark is no
longer committing crime

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
and you would think that everything will
be fine, however, life is never simple

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
with someone who has
fetal alcohol syndrome.

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
If Mark leaves to go and walk
the dog, he can meet someone

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
and all of a sudden forget that he’s supposed to be coming
home right away and go somewhere where he shouldn’t.

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
We never rest.

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
It’s labor intensive and time consuming to parent people with FAS. They’ve not
had any kind of respect care. They’ve not had support services. They’ve not had

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
support of intervention, especially in adolescents
when it can be crucial. So they are just find

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
they are so burned out and so tired.
At 25 years old,

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
Mark has the maturity of
a 13 or 14-year-old boy.

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
One of the things that helps keep him on track is his
relationship with his four-year-old daughter Jade.

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
As long as he stays out of trouble,
he sees her three times a week.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
He loves to play with his daughter.
In that sense, he is a wonderful dad.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
But he is not responsible. So he would never remember,
for instance, he could never look after her,

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
because he would forget to feed her. He is
always supervised when he has his daughter.

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
And I think he is starting to
understand that that’s necessary.

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
I don’t know maybe when she is
a teenager, then… then I can…

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
I can have her on my own or something,

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
and she don’t know what to do

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
and if I have to go away,
she can wake me off.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
Your ready, Mark? Yeah. Okay. Let’s go. We’ll
be late if you don’t. Recently, Mark got a job

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
doing clean up and maintenance at
a small manufacturing company.

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
For Bob and June that means letting go
of some control and slowly giving Mark

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
a bit more independence. I think the big thing
for us is to realize that he doesn’t go out

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
and do the wrong thing on purpose.
And so, when we can see that,

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
then there is I guess a lot of forgiveness and
understanding that we wouldn’t have had before.

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
Bob Steeves is now retired from
corrections. Since his son’s diagnosis,

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
he’s learned a lot about FAS, things
he wishes he’d known years ago.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
You know I would be in… I would be
in the jail and I would meet Mark.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
I would meet other guys just like my son.
And these are people that I made fun of.

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
I used to be… I used to ridicule them. I used
to tell them that they were my job security

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
that I’m glad they’re are because as long as we have
idiots like you in there, I’m always going to have a job.

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
And

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
I didn’t want people doing that to my son.

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
I don’t want people doing that to my son.

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
And I wish I could go back and undo…
undo all of that. I wish I could go back

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
and say, I’m sorry.

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
I can’t do that.

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
I think that,

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
you know, we talk about
correcting people and correct…

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
I think as a… as a Corrections Officer when
I’m misdealing with people with disabilities,

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
I was a lot more of a problem to them than I ever was
a help. I was part of the problem. The people that

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
they can’t function in society, we
treat them like dirt. We end up with…

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
we… we… we put them in jail, because
corrections is the only civil…

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
the only social service they can’t say no. And
so, we put them in there and we… we punish them

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
for being disabled.

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
Bob Steeves

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
is now determined to be part of the solution rather
than part of the problem. For the last few years,

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
he’s been training corrections
officers about FAS.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
No one can say for sure how
many people in jail have FAS.

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
But some research suggests that between
25 and 50% of those behind bars

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
may have been exposed
to alcohol in the womb.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
Historically, we’ve really haven’t
attended specifically to uh… brain injury.

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
At this point the corrections is

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
really coming to grips with
this issue for the first time.

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
Here at Matsqui BC construction is under
way for a new regional health center.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
It would be one of the first federal institutions in
the country with a specialized rehabilitation unit

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
for people suspected of having FAS.
Formal diagnosis will be rare

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
since most don’t have childhood records and
information about their mother’s drinking habits.

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
But on intake, each inmate
will be screened for FAS like

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
behaviors and characteristics. What we want
to add to the mix is a better understanding

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
of… of which individuals
um… suffer from some form

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
of learning disability or brain injury, so
that we can ensure that the sort of treatment

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
and programming we do is appropriate
to their learning ability.

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
At this point, their treatment and
programming is not yet in place

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
and inmates with FAS are still mixed
in with the general population.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
But Corrections Canada does have a vision
for the future. We are learning as we go,

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
and we have to be very clear that
we’re not going to cure anything.

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
We’re not going to fix the problem. We’re
not going to take someone who’s FAS today

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
and say you’re no longer FAS. I think
what we can do is we can optimize

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
their ability to learn, their
ability to self control.

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
A pilot project at this halfway
house is trying to do just that.

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
The West Coast Genesis Society
operates a 20-bed facility

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
for federal offenders on parole making
a transition back into the community.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
Six of those beds have been set aside
specifically for offenders with FAS.

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
We make sure the environment itself is
structured uh… that there is routines

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
and clear roles that don’t change and change
is very difficult for individuals with FAS,

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
FAE and so we… we make sure that there is a
consistency with roles and expectations.

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
So how are you feeling? Yeah, pretty good. Yeah.
It’s good to be out. Yeah. But there is a catch 22.

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
Until the new health center at Matsqui is
up and running, very few offenders with FAS

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
are being referred. Has anyone take event?

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
Yeah. Yeah, kind of but now I got… We’re all set
to go… Andrew Boyd is the Executive Director.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
One of the biggest problems that we’ve encountered is that
we went and built a program, but there is no real mechanism

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
to refer appropriate clientele to this program
and that is primarily due to the fact that

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
very few individuals have been
diagnosed uh… with FAS let alone FAE.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
In the mean time, they are applying the structure
and learning techniques they know work

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
with people with FAS to all of the residents
in the house. Okay, we want to initially,

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
you know, have you stick around the
house more, okay. Okay. Genesis House

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
is not funded to provide assistance once clients leave
and for those they suspect might be alcohol affected,

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
it’s especially concerning.
Because the individuals

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
have a really hard time functioning out in
the community and what they know best is uh…

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
how to support themselves by committing crime.
Certainly, people had become aware of… of

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
what needed to be done with children with
FAS, but these children have grown up and…

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
and there is a vast um… void in terms
of what their needs are out there.

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
Burns Lake, a small resource-based
town in Northern BC,

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
it’s home to 6,000 people,
40% of them First Nations.

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
This region has one of the highest rates
of alcohol consumption in Canada.

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
It’s estimated that one third of the
population is affected with alcohol

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
related birth defects. But
Burns Lake isn’t in denial

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
about the extent of the problem. In
fact, this community has become a model

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
for what can be done to prevent FAS and
support adult living with a disability.

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
Good afternoon, Healthier Babies.

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
And Price heads up an
FAS prevention program,

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
that’s the only one of its kind in Canada.
Healthier Babies - Brighter Futures

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
works to convince pregnant women
not to drink and to offer support

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
throughout their pregnancy.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
Most of the women that we work with have FAS behaviors and characteristics.
We can’t say that they have FAS, but they have the behaviors

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
and characteristics and so that’s what we are
working with. Oh, (inaudible), come, come.

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
25-year-old Mellissa has four
children and is pregnant again.

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
A recent incident has left them homeless.
So for the time being

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
they are all living in a one room motel
unit. This kind of upheaval isn’t unusual

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
for the women in the Healthier Babies program.
Many have experienced family violence,

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
most quit school by grade nine.
And they live in poverty.

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
They can’t rely on their families for help. Over 90%
of these women don’t have a mother in their lives.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
That’s where Healthier Babies comes in.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
Specially trained support workers
make regular home visits

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
to expectant mothers like Mellissa. Hi.
Mellissa does a great job with her kids.

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
She… she stays on track for the most part.
Every once in a while

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
things may get out of whack for her and
she needs uh… some advocacy and support

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
to get back on track. So you have a
couple of more months to go away.

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
Yeah. I can’t wait. Why that? It’s
too hard at night for me. Yeah.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:31:59.999
The support workers visit about once a
week. They might help with budgeting,

00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.999
nutrition, parenting, whatever the mum needs.
You must be tired by the end of the day?

00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:09.999
Some days I won’t feel like
going anywhere, doing anything.

00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:14.999
So I just make them easy stuff to eat

00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:19.999
and put a video on for them while I
lay down. Without these home visits,

00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:24.999
some women wouldn’t be able to keep their family
together. People with FAS often get overwhelmed.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
They have difficulty with
time and money, so it is

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
very hard for them to make appointments. They may understand
in one place what’s going on and what they need to do,

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
but they… they have difficulty generalizing
that information to another place.

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
And so uh… people can misinterpret that as
or she is a mum that just doesn’t care.

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
Since opening its doors five years ago,

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
Healthier Babies has brought about
a remarkable change in Burns Lake.

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
Over 95% of the mums that
served have stopped using drugs

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
and alcohol during pregnancy. And almost all of the
babies were born with the healthy birth weight.

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
Mellissa did drink during one
of her previous pregnancies,

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
but not this time. I
think knowing about FAS

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
and the… the characteristics and behaviors
is critical for the work that we are doing.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
If we were going to ignore those behaviors and
characteristics, we wouldn’t be successful.

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
Healthier Babies is offered through
the college of New Caledonia

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
as it’s another ground breaking program.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
This is what the day is going to look like today. We
have a check-in and then we are going to do an English

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
reading exercise and… FOCUS is a program

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
developed especially for fetal alcohol
affected adults who want to find work.

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
They don’t have to be formally diagnosed.
It’s enough for them to say

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
they believe they have the disability. I notice people are
really seem to have… be having a bit of a problem listening.

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
Is that hard today for some reason?
It’s the first day of school like

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
it’s difficult level but it is
difficult for everybody else to relax.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.999
Students come to this
classroom five days a week.

00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.999
Everything is tailor made for
the way people with FAS learn.

00:34:20.000 --> 00:34:24.999
Lots of structure and routine and
a simple environment, bear walls

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:29.999
and no outside distractions.

00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.999
When there is too much stimulation, it is too hard for them. They
can’t take the things and it’s too difficult. They learn skills

00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:39.999
they need on the job, time and
anger management, resume writing,

00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.999
how to dress for work. They are
encouraged to choose projects

00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.999
they’d like to work on independently
something they are especially good at

00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:54.999
or they can take on a challenge. Was it
hard enough? Hardened, yeah. Hardened.

00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:59.999
At 39 years old, Duncan is working on a goal
he’d had all his life to read and write.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:04.999
That is very difficult for me to learn

00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:09.999
because once you are an adult, you
don’t… you don’t want to sit there

00:35:10.000 --> 00:35:14.999
as a person to teach you how to read and write,
because you are so embarrassed to seeing

00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:19.999
that about it. That is why I like this class
too, because you can be really open here

00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:24.999
and nobody laugh at you because they… they know what you
are going through, right. Yeah. Like many people with FAS,

00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:29.999
these students have had a lot of failures in their
lives. That’s how we learn new things, isn’t it,

00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.999
if we talk about them and then gradually
over time you start… 67% of the people

00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.999
who have come through the FOCUS program have
been entangled with the justice system.

00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.999
Many suffer from depression, and they’ve
often been abused. They can blame themselves

00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.999
for the things that have gone wrong. For
many, FOCUS provides the first opportunity

00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:54.999
to talk about how FAS has affected their
lives. Barge, did you have another one?

00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.999
Anger? Oh! Yeah. Can I put that one here with
the frustration? They seem to go together.

00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.999
Don’t they? Can you talk about
like uh… how does that,

00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:09.999
why is that why did people get so frustrated?
It’s just everything that is all go inside

00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:14.999
nothing corrects like, and you get frustrated and it builds
and builds and builds and all of a sudden you get really mad

00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:19.999
and you are like boom, all over the place,
you’re just like blow up. So this builds up…

00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:24.999
Well, Focus is an employment program. The
measure of success goes far beyond whether

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:29.999
or not they actually find a job. In fact, most of
these students would find full time work impossible,

00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.999
but coming here has made a big
difference in how they see themselves.

00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:39.999
I feel a lot better about myself now than
the past these past couple of the years.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
I started realizing there… there was a…

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
it wasn’t really just me but there is
something wrong, something wrong with me

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
that the… that’s what you will help me.
And now… now it’s like…

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
it’s like the lights shining on
me right now, and it’s all good.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
I’ve had like not… not only like some family
members, but like some other people in the community

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
are not nurturing tell me that like,
you know, like you are nothing.

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
You know, you can get nowhere life and nothing you know. And
just in a… just in a few weeks when I was coming to the class,

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
you know, I’ve had lot of other teachers come up to me and
tell me, you know, you’ve got a lot of potential in learning,

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
I kind of felt like little small before that and
they after told me that you know, it’s just like…

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
it’s just like I just grew away.

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
[music]

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
Last spring, the FOCUS class
turned this abandon lot

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
into a garden for the people of Burns Lake.
In the past, many of them felt ostracized

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
by the community. Here they
were being seen in a new light.

00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.999
They spend days, building boxes, transporting
soil, and finally planting the seeds.

00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:59.999
They really worked hard and the

00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:04.999
students felt good. And there was
interactions, social interaction,

00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:09.999
the part of the community and when they see these people,
they know them and can talk to them on the street,

00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:14.999
and it gives them an entirely different feeling
about themselves. The people of Burns Lake

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
have shown that it is possible to improve the
quality of life for people living with FAS.

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
Something Jan Lutke believes needs to happen for
every individual born fetal alcohol affected.

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
I hope the society will recognize

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.999
that it has a duty to people
with disability. People with FAS

00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.999
are not disabled by choice any more than a person with downs
and was disabled by choice, but they are in fact disabled.

00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.999
And you can either proactively
provide support services

00:38:45.000 --> 00:38:49.999
for adulthood or you
will reactively provide

00:38:50.000 --> 00:38:54.999
housing in jail. Proactive
services are the way to go,

00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:59.999
and they should be their right.
In CJ’s case,

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
life started as a worst case scenario, but
she’s grown into a best case scenario.

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
She’s still severely disabled
by FAS, something she’d live

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
with for the rest of her life. But
when asked on a scale from 1 to 10,

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
how life’s being so far, she doesn’t
hesitate. I think 10 because there…

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
there’d be a million things that could
have gone wrong between now and then.

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
A million. And? So, it haven’t gone wrong.

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:35.000
So it’s pretty good.