June 2019 The Centre for Newcomers and the Real ME partnership group, Legal Aid Youth Law, The City of Calgary Youth Probation and the Office of the Child and Youth Advocate organized a well-attended and thought provoking educational event that focused on improving our practice with newcomer children and youth, being served by the justice system, with backgrounds of trauma and mental health concerns. The event allowed us to hear from experts in the field and youth with lived experience. It started to build a bridge and trust with the newcomer community and created more allies for these issues. But this event was just the start of a long-needed conversation about what is working and what needs to change.

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The most concerning pattern we see is the over-representation of newcomer and 1st generation Canadian young people from immigrant families involved with child intervention and very young boys, of African decent, incarcerated within youth justice facilities. The other helping systems - health, children services and schools - are also experiencing challenges supporting newcomer families and how to serve individuals experiencing post-traumatic stress, separation from loved ones, cultural isolation, racism and discrimination. The Truth and Reconciliation process and the trauma-informed practice movement have shown us that responding to these issues in a colonial and punitive manner will only widen the gap between services and the community they are intended to help. 

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The conversations and learnings that stemmed from this event needed to continue. Hosted by CFN's Real ME team October 5 - 7, 2020, Shades of Africa gave us the opportunity to do just that. 

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Below is a list of conference content available for viewing, Simply click the available links below to view, for a detailed conference agenda click here and click here to see the master playlist of all conference video.

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