Call and join this conversation – 612-341-0980 – or Tweet us@TTTAndyDriscoll or post onTruthToTell’s Facebook page.

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Somehow, most of the people we know who are caring for another person, no matter if this caregiver is a family member or a detached professional, we rarely hear about the extraordinary work and, yes, loving, that powers the work that keep homebound aging, sick and/or disabled relatives and clients as comfortable and occupied as humanly possible.

People just don’t talk about such responsibilities having been lain in the laps through one or more of the physical and mental circumstances human frailty creates. Often, it’s our wives, mothers, fathers, siblings entering the last stages of life – stages that can stretch ten years or more and often marked by diminished capacity or mobility or both.

Your writer can think of at least several dozen of his own extended family members who have nurtured loved ones right to the end, sometimes in hospice, often not even that, and especially those afflicted with memory loss or dementia, losing their love and companionship years before they physically leave this vale. Most, but not all of these friends and family, suffer in silence and even more often in a rapid descent into poverty if professional assistance or skilled nursing care is needed 24/7/365 for very many months or years.

In fact some of our most prominent citizens can be found caring or spelling professional caregivers. Since some of them are known publicly, I can mention them by name. For example, former Governor Al Quie, who must care for his beloved Gretchen with some respite, but very steadily day in, day out. That great lawyer of progressive causes, includingWounded Knee defendants and 1980s Powerline protestors, among dozens of others,Ken Tilsen, is himself struggling with severe loss of memory recording while his equally prominent spouse of some 12 years, Connie Goldman, the former arts correspondent forNational Public Radio and a multi-book author on volumes about keeping aging people active, tries to care for him. Sometimes, family care is simply not possible; then come the high costs of skilled nursing facilities, for which many public funds are simply not available – including Medicare – which does NOT pay for “custodial” care – care that escorts all of us to our life’s end.

But, for all its nobility, personal and family caregiving is notoriously unheralded and badly underpaid. Even professionals suffer under the assumption that people who do such good works ought to just love the work right into the poor house. Professional caregivers struggle enough, but human services professionals responsible for compensating family members were, until a court order reversing them a short time ago, convinced that if you paid a living wage to a family caregiver, they’d rip off the state, and besides, it's a family member, after all. Why should they be paid to care for one of their own? Never mind the human and pocketbook costs that can devastate caregivers almost as much as their charges. Never mind the emotional and physical toll such continued concentrated care takes on – not the patient, but the caregiver.

So, when sued, the state courts agreed unanimously with caregivers who challenged those state and county bureaucrats’ contention that family caregivers need or deserve that much less than the state is willing to cough up for professional aides, and that ain’t much, either.

Finally, this year, thanks to the efforts of both professionals and family personal care assistants, legislation is on the cusp of providing what the courts have already insisted must be done: adequate compensation and the ability to unionize. The Senate has passed thebill, authored by Sen. Sandy Pappas. The House will have had its floor debate Saturday.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI talk with personal care assistants and advocates and hear their stories while tracking the work of the legislature and those pressing for measures to empower and professionalize the entire field.

GUESTS:

CONNIE GOLDMAN – Author, former Arts Correspondent and Personal Caregiver

BRIDGET SILJANDER – Executive Director at The Youth Legacy Foundation; President and Chair at Direct Support Professional Assoc of MN and Self-Employed Home Health Aide

BOB HINES – President of Mature Voices; Personal Care Assistant to family member; former newscaster, KFAI

INVITED: GALEN SMITH – Organizer SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, representing Direct Support Professionals

Call and join this conversation – 612-341-0980 – or Tweet us@TTTAndyDriscoll or post onTruthToTell’s Facebook page.

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Most of us can be forgiven if we come away from the word, “coaching” with some confusion or, at the very least, some predefined meaning of the term. Such is the what might be termed the laziness of the English language in that a single word can have so many applications that understanding any one or more of them often requires research and study.

Not a one of us misunderstands the term as it applies to sports. Coaching a sport is a revered position in any of those physical pursuits and very direct in terms of its hierarchical authority.

This hierarchy seems to disappear into a more nebulous realm – and controversy – when linked to the profession of so-called life coaching. Guidance seems a better word to describe this application of the term.

Here’s how the term appears in Wikipedia:

“Life coaching is a practice that helps people identify and achieve personal goals. Life coaches assist clients by using a variety of tools and techniques. Life coaching draws inspiration from disciplines such as sociology, psychology, positive adult development and career counseling. Specialty life coaches may have degrees in psychological counseling, hypnosis, dream analysis, marketing and other areas relevant to providing guidance. However, they are not necessarily therapists or consultants; psychological intervention and business analysis may be outside the scope of some coaches' work.”

The idea is relatively new, originating, it appears, in fact, in the sports arena in the late 1970’s/early 80s. That may be one of the reasons some distrust its purpose and motivation, not to mention its possible impingement on other counseling professions, including psychotherapy. Some states have risen to the challenge that this life coaching is a generally unregulated industry of mind-workers presents and have attempted to address its overall position in the mental health field as a behavioral practice even as other of the behavioral health professions – psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy and other counseling pursuits – are regulated to a fare-thee-well. Certificates credentialing life coaches are supplied those who see this as a both a needed and possibly lucrative addition to the behavioral field. The degree to which those certificates are recognized as qualifying documents for what is essentially a counseling practice may depend entirely on the schools and jurisdictions involved.

Coaching itself is a Topsy-like pursuit. A sample of the specialty areas where varying techniques apply include: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); business coaching, especially as a human resource development tool; the self-explanatory executive coaching arena; career, financial, personal, conflict and health coaching. Mentioned in the list are the interesting specialties, victimization and dating – even “Christian” – coaching.

All of this to say that this rapidly burgeoning and increasingly popular field is touching huge numbers of people, companies, and specific constituencies. What do the practitioners have to say about all this? We’ll ask them.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI talk with three of the many coaches who have zeroed in on what seems like a growing demand for a more collaborative form of self-realization and improvement without a prescription, per se.

GUESTS:

PAULA HEMMING, MA, PCC – Principal, Relationship Champions

DAVE WONDRA, PCC – ICF Professional Certified Coach; Founder, WondraGroup

ELIZABETH DICKINSON, B.Ed., M.A, CLC, MACP – Adler-certified coach

Call and join this conversation – 612-341-0980 – or Tweet us @TTTAndyDriscoll or post onTruthToTell’s Facebook page.

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Here in the United States, the Canadian-originated Idle No More movement has had little mainstream media play, but spreading anger among Native communities of both countries over continued exploitation of what they maintain are indigenous lands – lands ceded to colonial powers in exchange for preserved protection of those lands for all future generations – especially that of the land, air and waters “and all creation.”

Canada’s Indians – called Aboriginals – comprising First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples – initiated the Idle No More movement largely in response to Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government rewriting of the critical Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) of 1882, loosening built-in restrictions on “construction of any kind …(taking) place in or around any water which could, in principle, be navigated by any kind of floating craft. Under the newly-named NPA, the approval process would only be required for development around one of a vastly circumscribed list of waterways set by the Minister of Transportation. Many of the newly deregulated waterways passed through traditional First Nations land.” (Wikipedia entry on Idle No More – for a much more detailed explanation of this campaign).

Needless to say, navigable waters salt the whole of the Canadian landscape, giving the NWPA more importance for First Nations as an instrument of environmental protection – but which would be gutted and many protections removed under Harper’s C-45 bill – a 450-page part ofso-calleed Omnibus bills package to smooth the way for much more industrial development.

In fact, as First Nations people see it, the NPA rewrite has legitimized one of the great and egregious violations of indigenous sovereignty over those protections has been the Canadian Government’s “…campaign for approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines Project, a proposal to build a pipeline for bitumen condensate connecting the Athabasca tar sands with the Pacific Ocean, facilitating unprocessed bitumen exports to China.” (Ibid.)

This is the origin of infamous Keystone Pipeline – now familiar to US residents, not to mention the American Indian community in solidarity with their Canada-based brothers and sisters. (The US and Canada are not precisely recognized as separate countries under the concept of indigenism and the designation of all North America as Turtle Island – home to all Native peoples in this hemisphere.)

Idle No More is leading the protests over tar sands oil development and the shipment of this expensively extracted crude oil down through the US by way of the Keystone Pipeline.

Even though the Senate overwhelmingly approved the pipeline in the early hours of Saturday’s marathon budget session with a mixture of Republican and vulnerable Democratic incumbents in 2014, President Obama has held off on his approval of the Keystone which would traverse the Dakotas and other Midwestern states. (It’s possible the lame duck President will not approve, letting those Dems off the hook in both left and right camps.)

The Idle No More movement has been inspired in large measure “…by the liquid diet hunger strikeof Attawapiskat Cree Chief Theresa Spence and further coordinated via social media. Solidarity sessions have sprung up throughout Canada and the US, including last Friday’s symposium in Minneapolis’ American Indian Center on these issues and featuring many speakers connected not only to resisting the Keystone pipeline and tar sands oil extraction in general, but by others battling  other environmental threats, one of which we have covered extensively – the introduction of sulfide mining – copper and nickel – in Minnesota’s North Country and newer iron ore mining operations sought for the Penokee Mountains of Northern Wisconsin.

Attawapiskat Grand Elder Ray Robinson, far left, Nina Wilson (with yellow shirt), Marty Cobenais (right behind)

Attawapiskat Elder Ray Robinson, far left, Nina Wilson (with yellow shirt), Marty Cobenais (right behind)

Under the top layers Northeastern Minnesota lands and lakes – much of it part of areas ceded but still protected against fouling by treaties over century-and-a-half old – lies a large and rich lode of those precious metals, extraction of which could turn the waters of the entire area to sulfuric acid and kill off the lakes we all deem precious and Indians consider sacred for their Manoomin (wild rice) stands.

The issues are many and complex – often colliding with corporate and governmental powers now seen as an extension of the persistent colonialism around Native lands and peoples in both countries. – aided and abetted by state and local politicians under duress from labor unions trying to rekindle a job market for miners and related craftsmen long idled (pardon the pun) by the Great Recession of 2008 and their slow or stagnant growth in employment opportunities.

Of course, the same can be said of Indians residing throughout those same areas. State legislators from the Iron Range and DFLers still reliant on labor support for reelection have joined with mining companies and the Departments of National Resources and the Pollution Control Agency to advance Minnesota’s exploitation of those resources for jobs and the billions awaiting those companies under the crust and cover of lands up north.

Idle No More was initiated by activists Nina Wilson, Sheelah Mclean, Sylvia McAdam and Jessica Gordon. While no one personality is leading the movement, these women and their supporters are traveling around. The idea’s caught on and the name usurped as the basis for political action at many levels – right down to a high school in Minneapolis.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI talk with leaders of the movement – locally and internationally – about the successes and the struggles of Turtle Islanders to preserve the environmental integrity of their lands and waters under the Idle No More rubric – and how the contagion of solidarity is taking hold.

GUESTS:

NINA WILSON (Ojibwe) – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Co-Founder, Idle No More

RAY ROBINSON (Cree/Anishinaabe) – Grand Elder from Quebec

PATRICIA SHEPARD, MSW (Prairie Band Potawatomi/Ojibwe), Minneapolis, founder of the Native Youth Crisis Hotline; Honor the Youth Organization Project Coordinator.

WINONA VIZENOR (Ojibwe) – South High School Student – Minneapolis

Call and join this conversation – 612-341-0980 – or Tweet us @TTTAndyDriscoll or post onTruthToTell’s Facebook page.

HELP US BRING YOU THESE IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS OF COMMUNITY INTEREST – PLEASE DONATE HERE!

Here in the United States, the Canadian-originated Idle No More movement has had little mainstream media play, but spreading anger among Native communities of both countries over continued exploitation of what they maintain are indigenous lands – lands ceded to colonial powers in exchange for preserved protection of those lands for all future generations – especially that of the land, air and waters “and all creation.”

Canada’s Indians – called Aboriginals – comprising First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples – initiated the Idle No More movement largely in response to Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government rewriting of the critical Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) of 1882, loosening built-in restrictions on “construction of any kind …(taking) place in or around any water which could, in principle, be navigated by any kind of floating craft. Under the newly-named NPA, the approval process would only be required for development around one of a vastly circumscribed list of waterways set by the Minister of Transportation. Many of the newly deregulated waterways passed through traditional First Nations land.” (Wikipedia entry on Idle No More – for a much more detailed explanation of this campaign).

Needless to say, navigable waters salt the whole of the Canadian landscape, giving the NWPA more importance for First Nations as an instrument of environmental protection – but which would be gutted and many protections removed under Harper’s C-45 bill – a 450-page part ofso-calleed Omnibus bills package to smooth the way for much more industrial development.

In fact, as First Nations people see it, the NPA rewrite has legitimized one of the great and egregious violations of indigenous sovereignty over those protections has been the Canadian Government’s “…campaign for approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines Project, a proposal to build a pipeline for bitumen condensate connecting the Athabasca tar sands with the Pacific Ocean, facilitating unprocessed bitumen exports to China.” (Ibid.)

This is the origin of infamous Keystone Pipeline – now familiar to US residents, not to mention the American Indian community in solidarity with their Canada-based brothers and sisters. (The US and Canada are not precisely recognized as separate countries under the concept of indigenism and the designation of all North America as Turtle Island – home to all Native peoples in this hemisphere.)

Idle No More is leading the protests over tar sands oil development and the shipment of this expensively extracted crude oil down through the US by way of the Keystone Pipeline.

Even though the Senate overwhelmingly approved the pipeline in the early hours of Saturday’s marathon budget session with a mixture of Republican and vulnerable Democratic incumbents in 2014, President Obama has held off on his approval of the Keystone which would traverse the Dakotas and other Midwestern states. (It’s possible the lame duck President will not approve, letting those Dems off the hook in both left and right camps.)

The Idle No More movement has been inspired in large measure “…by the liquid diet hunger strikeof Attawapiskat Cree Chief Theresa Spence and further coordinated via social media. Solidarity sessions have sprung up throughout Canada and the US, including last Friday’s symposium in Minneapolis’ American Indian Center on these issues and featuring many speakers connected not only to resisting the Keystone pipeline and tar sands oil extraction in general, but by others battling  other environmental threats, one of which we have covered extensively – the introduction of sulfide mining – copper and nickel – in Minnesota’s North Country and newer iron ore mining operations sought for the Penokee Mountains of Northern Wisconsin.

Attawapiskat Grand Elder Ray Robinson, far left, Nina Wilson (with yellow shirt), Marty Cobenais (right behind)

Attawapiskat Elder Ray Robinson, far left, Nina Wilson (with yellow shirt), Marty Cobenais (right behind)

Under the top layers Northeastern Minnesota lands and lakes – much of it part of areas ceded but still protected against fouling by treaties over century-and-a-half old – lies a large and rich lode of those precious metals, extraction of which could turn the waters of the entire area to sulfuric acid and kill off the lakes we all deem precious and Indians consider sacred for their Manoomin (wild rice) stands.

The issues are many and complex – often colliding with corporate and governmental powers now seen as an extension of the persistent colonialism around Native lands and peoples in both countries. – aided and abetted by state and local politicians under duress from labor unions trying to rekindle a job market for miners and related craftsmen long idled (pardon the pun) by the Great Recession of 2008 and their slow or stagnant growth in employment opportunities.

Of course, the same can be said of Indians residing throughout those same areas. State legislators from the Iron Range and DFLers still reliant on labor support for reelection have joined with mining companies and the Departments of National Resources and the Pollution Control Agency to advance Minnesota’s exploitation of those resources for jobs and the billions awaiting those companies under the crust and cover of lands up north.

Idle No More was initiated by activists Nina Wilson, Sheelah Mclean, Sylvia McAdam and Jessica Gordon. While no one personality is leading the movement, these women and their supporters are traveling around. The idea’s caught on and the name usurped as the basis for political action at many levels – right down to a high school in Minneapolis.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI talk with leaders of the movement – locally and internationally – about the successes and the struggles of Turtle Islanders to preserve the environmental integrity of their lands and waters under the Idle No More rubric – and how the contagion of solidarity is taking hold.

GUESTS:

NINA WILSON (Ojibwe) – Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; Co-Founder, Idle No More

RAY ROBINSON (Cree/Anishinaabe) – Grand Elder from Quebec

PATRICIA SHEPARD, MSW (Prairie Band Potawatomi/Ojibwe), Minneapolis, founder of the Native Youth Crisis Hotline; Honor the Youth Organization Project Coordinator.

WINONA VIZENOR (Ojibwe) – South High School Student – Minneapolis