'Just sick to my stomach': Sask. mom says cheer team asked daughter to hide self-harm scars
'Just sick to my stomach': Sask. mom says cheer team asked daughter to hide self-harm scars
It’s been a week since a North Battleford mother found out that her 13-year-old daughter was no longer being treated like everyone else at her school.
“I was just sick to my stomach,” the mother said, who asked that she and her daughter not be identified.
“Honestly, after that conversation, I couldn't believe what they were telling me.”
She says the conversation was between her and the vice principal at her daughter’s school, John Paul II Collegiate in North Battleford, where her daughter took part in the cheer team.
Her daughter has scars on her arms and legs from self-harm and is being told she can’t participate in certain events with the rest of her cheer teammates.
“If she wanted to compete in the competition coming up in February, she was to have her arms and legs covered and the sleeping arrangements were changing,” she said.
“She would have to stay in the hotel room with me, and she also would not be allowed to join her teammates when they went swimming.”
The mother says her daughter also will not be allowed to participate in gym class at her school, where the uniform is shorts and a t-shirt which would not cover her scars.
“She's been working with the school counsellor,” she said.
“This has been going on the entire time she has been in cheer, it's not just like an isolated incident. It didn't just one-time happen. She's been in cheer since October, and we've all been made aware of [the scars] but there was just no policy surrounding it.”
In an email, the Saskatchewan Cheer Association says there are no protocols regarding self-harm scars or injuries, and any limitations imposed on the athlete would have come from another source.
The email went on to say the SCA does not support any decision to discriminate, limit or exclude any athlete with actual or perceived physical impairments such as scars from self-harm.
In a statement, Light of Christ Catholic School Division says it takes the mental health of all students very seriously, but is unable to discuss any details around any student’s personal circumstances due to privacy requirements.
Executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Saskatoon branch Faith Bodnar says she was shocked when she heard of the situation.
“To have these kinds of restrictions placed on her because of a mental health issue is really, I'm going to use the word, quite archaic,” she said.
Bodnar says the approach of excluding students based on their mental health needs is not best practice.
“This just reinforces that stigma about mental health and we need to talk about it as we would any other health issue,” she said.
“I'm pretty certain that most youth are struggling with some area of their mental health. They're also at a time in their lives when it's really difficult to talk about it and we don't want to have these kinds of secrets, we want to have them brought forward.”
The mother says her daughter feels like she’s been left out, and has decided she doesn’t want to take part in a team that treats her differently from others because of a mental health issue.
“She doesn't feel like she has to cover her arms and legs, and I'm not going to force her to do so,” she said.
“We're working towards ending the stigma surrounding mental health and this situation right here is increasing it. It's not helping.”
U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Ottawa Thursday evening for a whirlwind 27-hour visit expected to focus on both the friendly and thorny aspects of the Canada-U.S. relationship, including protectionism and migration on both sides of the border.
Canada and the United States are negotiating a deal that could see asylum seekers turned back at irregular border crossings across the border, including Roxham Road in Quebec.
Amid renewed questions over the pervasiveness of alleged interference by China in Canadian elections and affairs broadly, opposition MPs voted Thursday afternoon to affirm a parliamentary committee's call for the federal government to strike a public inquiry.
An asteroid discovered just last week will pass closer to the Earth than the orbit of the moon this weekend, an occurrence so rare it happens only once in a decade, according to NASA.
The number of Canadians receiving employment insurance benefits are at record lows and down 44 per cent from last year, new figures from Statistics Canada show.
Two Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk) sisters from Montreal are on a mission that is close to their hearts: to save their ancestors' first language by developing video games young and old can play.
Zellers has opened the first of 25 new locations within Hudson's Bay stores across the country. The Canadian retail chain launched 12 stores in Ontario and Alberta Thursday, along with a new e-commerce website.
Embattled South Carolina Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom will resign next month after a US$3.5 billion accounting error in the year-end financial report he oversaw.
Selkirk RCMP have arrested and charged a man after he allegedly killed his dog, smashed out the windows of a home and two cars with an axe, and set fire to a shed on his property.
The Alberta legislature wrapped up its spring sitting Thursday with politicians on both sides of the aisle test-driving insults and expected attack lines ahead of the scheduled May 29 provincial election.
An Ontario man said he was shocked when his truck was stolen not once but twice, and the second time it was taken he was surprised to discover he was no longer covered for theft.
U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Ottawa Thursday evening for a whirlwind 27-hour visit expected to focus on both the friendly and thorny aspects of the Canada-U.S. relationship, including protectionism and migration on both sides of the border.
U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived in Ottawa on a foggy Thursday evening, kicking off a whirlwind two-day visit to the capital. Ottawa police and the city of Ottawa have warned residents and visitors will see an increased police presence across the downtown core, and there will be "significant traffic and transit disruptions" during the visit.
When a former detective with the Vancouver Police Department discovered photos of his home were being used in a rental scam, he decided to start his own investigation.
The federal government is contributing $12.5 million to the construction of a healing centre at the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation almost two years after the nation announced the discovery of 215 suspected unmarked graves near a former residential school.
For the first time, the owner of a building in Old Montreal has responded to questions about the fire — through his lawyer — addressing allegations that the building was unsafe.
Friends of Camille Maheux are trying to assemble some of her life's work. The 76-year-old photographer was killed in the Old Montreal fire and her photographs and negatives were destroyed.
A Victoria man’s life of crime has turned into one of survival, hope and advocacy amid ongoing conversations in the community about how best to tackle public safety matters.
The Tim Houston PC government remains firm in their promise they'll fix the health-care system by spending more taxpayer money on health than any previous government before.
The rate of snow and rain falling in the Maritimes will pick up late Thursday afternoon into evening as a weather system makes its way across the region.
The co-owners of a new liquidation store in North Bay, Samuel Quesnel and Chloé Boivenue, say they want to bring a treasure hunt shopping experience to the city.
The new provincial budget features items specific to southwestern Ontario, including a new English public elementary school in London, Ont. that will serve 556 students and include 88 licensed childcare spaces.
A young Strathroy, Ont. man believes there's a promising way forward in the effort to fight his disease. But, he's being told, right now, that path isn't open to him. Friends and family are stepping up to try and make a case for Kyle McPhee to receive immunotherapy treatments.
