The bulk of harm residential schools inflicted on First Nation children happened more than 40 years ago, but it still resonates across the country today.

In fact, it’s getting worse, says Rupert Ross, a former assistant Crown prosecutor from Kenora, Ont.

Ross will visit Whitehorse and Carcross next week to take part in workshops alongside two leading experts, Dr. Lee Brown and Tonya Gomes, on the psychological damages done by residential schools.

The sessions will also examine what can be done to stop cycles of violence and abuses the schools have created.

On top of depriving them of their culture, taking them away from their families and inflicting them with severe abuses, the residential schools created generations of First Nation men and women unable to express their emotions.

“If you think of little children in residential schools, no one wanted to hear them talk about anything,” Ross said in an interview Wednesday.

Being deprived of that experience from age three to 16 carries into adulthood.

“That means you’re just bottling up everything as an adult,” he said.

“It just grows inside you until, for many people, it explodes in acts of violence.”

Ross would know – he prosecuted cases in remote First Nation communities in northwestern Ontario for two decades.

He worked more than 20 homicide cases, many characterized by a sudden explosion of anger from the offenders.

“It was towards the end of my career that I began to see the violence I was dealing with all the time came almost directly from residential school experiences 50 years before,” he said.

The last major case he worked on involved two teenagers who beat up a young adult.

“They beat his head in, stomped him on the head and dragged his body outside under some boards,” Ross remembered.

The two teenagers then went on with their day, as if nothing had happened.

Even the witnesses who testified admitted they didn’t pay much attention to the beating.

“How can children be put in a position when they don’t feel anything about it?” Ross asked.

While he worked on creating diversion programs within the justice system for young people, he described these as minors.

“I’m not sure the justice system is the place to turn things around,” he said.

“It can’t be the agency that brings health back.”

What can bring health back are programs aimed at dealing with the psychological trauma of residential schools, he said.

That trauma continues to affect First Nation communities because it changed the way parents raise their children – for example, on how to deal with their emotions, Ross said.

One of the other forms of psychological damage was learned helplessness.

“As a child, you are never given an opportunity to try things on your own, to fail, then to recover,” he explained.

“It makes people unable to do virtually anything.”

Dealing with these traumas is possible, and Ross experienced it firsthand.

“To see adults stuck with this (emotional) numbing learn that they are more than that, that they can control their emotion, it’s absolutely wonderful,” he said.

First Nation societies were very healthy up to colonization, he noted, as emotional well-being was an integral part of what was defined as “healthy” in many First Nation cultures.

Change is possible, but that means investments by the government in programs that have a proven track record, he said.

“It’s gonna cost CTFN (Carcross/Tagish First Nation) a bit of money to fly me and keep me here for a week,” he said.

“Where are they supposed to find the money?”

Ending cycles of violence also involves educating people, especially police officers.

“A lot of work needs to be done so young police officers don’t get sent cold in communities,” he said.

“They do so much harm out of ignorance.”

While it’s not the case in every community, Ross noted, he has seen a lot of that across Canada.

“They’re going in like commandos, they’re not prompting respect for police by First Nation (people),” he said.

“They come in like the enemy and leave like the enemy.”

A CTFN citizen invited Ross to come to the territory.

Upon learning that, the First Nation also invited Brown and Gomes to talk about health, education, justice and trauma.

“These are issues that affect our community and other communities and individuals,” CTFN Chief Danny Cresswell, Kha Shade Heni in Tlingit, said in an email to the Star.

“Leadership at all levels know the value of healthier communities and of individuals seeking knowledge and having dialogue amongst themselves on these issues.”

The first workshop, “Exploring the psychological damage of residential schools”, will be held from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. next Tuesday at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre,.

The workshop will be open to anybody. The admission fee is $75, but organizers said the fee could be waived if a person can’t afford it.

The other workshops will be held from Wednesday to Friday at the CTFN capacity building in Carcross.

For more information, contact Beverly Sembsmoen; beverly.sembsmoen@ctfn.ca