scholarly journals Indigenous land-based interventions and nature-oriented wellness programs: Commonalities and important differences.

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-45
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Sommerfeld ◽  
David Danto ◽  
Russ Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Wellness Programs ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Task Force Report ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Indigenous Mental Health ◽  
Indigenous Land

The importance of Indigenous mental health has been highlighted and affirmed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report (2015), the Canadian Psychological Association and The Psychology Foundation of Canada’s Task Force report responding to the TRC findings (2018), as well as numerous recent studies. Unfortunately, Indigenous Peoples in Canada continue to suffer from a lack of appropriate mental health care. Land-based interventions have been cited as one culturally appropriate approach to wellness; nevertheless, given the diversity of nature-oriented wellness programs, confusion exists over the qualities unique to and common across each program. As such, this paper will discuss the qualities of nature-oriented wellness programs currently in use by Indigenous communities (e.g. landbased interventions) with land-based approaches outside of Indigenous communities such as forest bathing, Outward Bound programs, and green or blue space research. The authors will then explore what sets Indigenous land-based interventions apart from these other wellness programs and discuss why land-based interventions hold a deeper meaning for Indigenous Peoples.

scholarly journals Rethinking Representation: Indigenous Peoples and Contexts at the University of Alberta Libraries

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Farnel ◽  
Denise Koufogiannakis ◽  
Sheila Laroque ◽  
Ian Bigelow ◽  
Anne Carr-Wiggin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Library And Information Science ◽  
Library Of Congress ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
The University

Appropriate subject access and descriptive practices within library and information science are social justice issues. Standards that are well established and commonly used in academic libraries in Canada and elsewhere, including Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and Library of Congress Classification (LCC), continue to perpetuate colonial biases toward Indigenous peoples. In the fall of 2016, the University of Alberta Libraries (UAL) established a Decolonizing Description Working Group (DDWG) to investigate, define, and propose a plan of action for how descriptive metadata practices could more accurately, appropriately, and respectfully represent Indigenous peoples and contexts. The DDWG is currently beginning the implementation of recommendations approved by UAL’s strategic leadership team. In this paper we describe the genesis of the DDWG within the broader context of the libraries’ and the university’s responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action; outline the group’s activities and recommendations; and describe initial steps toward the implementation of those recommendations, with a focus on engaging local Indigenous communities. We reflect on the potential impact of revised descriptive practices in removing many of the barriers that Indigenous communities and individuals face in finding and accessing library materials relevant to their cultures and histories.

scholarly journals Structural Genocide and Institutionalized Racism in Canada: The Department of Indian Affairs and Framing of Indigenous Peoples

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-37
Author(s):  
Laura Mudde
Keyword(s):  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Canadian Government ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Cultural Genocide ◽  
Indian Affairs

This review problematizes the health and socio-economic disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, which I argue is due to the role of the Canadian government. Specifically, I analyse the continuous process of Indigenous administrative subjugation under Canadian rule to uncover the intrinsic racial predilections of Canadian government policy toward First Nations peoples in Canada’s Prairie West provinces through the application of diagnostic frame analysis as a multidisciplinary research method to analyse how people understand situations and activities. My research results reveal the racialized marginalization of First Nation peoples through the administrative regimes in Canada as a continuous contemporary process established in the late nineteenth and twentieth century. In exposing the structural discrimination of First Nations peoples, my research introduces the reader to the concept of political master narratives, or ‘imaginaries’. These imaginaries foster the health and socio-economic disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups in Canadian society. The critical analysis of these historically structural government instituted imaginaries and the indirect, exponentially higher chances of tuberculosis and related diseases and deaths among Indigenous peoples’ challenge conclusions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) on cultural genocide. This study proposes structural genocide as a more accurate and inclusive term for the continuous institutional marginalization of not only Indigenous peoples as seen in this case study of the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) but for all Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Using the Medicine Wheel for Curriculum Design in Intercultural Communication

2020 ◽  
pp. 686-711
Author(s):  
Marcella LaFever
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Communication ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Bloom's Taxonomy ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Medicine Wheel ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Bloom’S Taxonomy ◽  
Teaching Learning

In December 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its calls to action for reconciliation related to the oppressive legacy of Indian Residential Schools. Required actions include increased teaching of intercultural competencies and incorporation of indigenous ways of knowing and learning. Intercultural Communication as a discipline has primarily been developed from euro-centric traditions based in three domains of learning referred to as Bloom's taxonomy. Scholars and practitioners have increasingly identified problems in the way that intercultural competency is taught. The decolonization of education is implicated in finding solutions to those problems. Indigenization of education is one such effort. This chapter posits the Medicine Wheel, a teaching/learning framework that has widespread use in indigenous communities, for use in instructing intercultural communication. Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains, is missing the fourth quadrant of the Medicine Wheel, spiritual. Examples of the spiritual quadrant are offered.

scholarly journals Jordan’s Principle: Reconciliation and the First Nations Child

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Colleen Sheppard
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Child Welfare Services ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Nations Child ◽  
The Individual

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was mandated to “document the individual and collective harms” of residential schools and to “guide and inspire a process of truth and healing, leading toward reconciliation.”  The stories of survivors revealed the intergenerational and egregious harms of taking children from their families and communities. In seeking to redress the legacy of the residential schools era, the TRC Calls to Action include greater recognition of self-governance of Indigenous Peoples, as well as numerous recommendations for equitable funding of health, educational, and child welfare services.

scholarly journals The Implementation of the 2012 Mental Health Strategy for Canada Through the Lens of FASD

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Anderson ◽  
Mansfield Mela ◽  
Michelle Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Individual Treatment ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Health Strategy ◽  
Treatment Plans

It is the current authors’ perspective that the successful implementation of Changing Directions, Changing Lives, which seeks to improve mental health and well-being in Canada, cannot be realized effectively without considering FASD. Given that 94% of individuals with FASD also have mental disorders, practitioners in the mental health system are encountering these individuals every day. Most mental health professionals have not been trained to identify or diagnose FASD, and therefore it goes largely “unseen,” and individual treatment plans lack efficacy. Implementation of FASD-informed recommendations, such as those of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015), can provide a more effective approach to mental health services and improve mental health outcomes.

‘Best Intentions’ Lives on: Untoward Health Outcomes of Some Contemporary Initiatives in Indigenous Affairs

2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 575-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Hunter
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Services ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Indigenous Health ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Indigenous Mental Health

Objective: A shortened version of a presentation to the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, this paper raises questions regarding policy and program directions in Indigenous affairs with consequences for Indigenous health. Method: The author notes the inadequate Indigenous mental health database, and describes contemporary conflicts in the arena of Indigenous mental health, drawing on personal experience in clinical service delivery, policy and programme development. Results: Medicalized responses to the Stolen Generations report and constructions of suicide that accompanied the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody are presented to demonstrate unforeseen health outcomes. Examples are also given of wellintentioned social interventions that, in the context of contemporary Indigenous society appear to be contributing to, rather than alleviating, harm. Problems of setting priorities that confront mental health service planners are considered in the light of past and continuing social disadvantage that informs the burden of mental disorder in Indigenous communities. Conclusions: The importance of acknowledging untoward outcomes of initiatives, even when motivated by concerns for social justice, is emphasized. The tension within mental health services of responding to the underpinning social issues versus providing equity in access to proven mental health services for Indigenous populations is considered.

scholarly journals An Approach to Treating Depressive and Psychotic Illness in Indigenous Communities

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tricia Nagel ◽  
Gary Robinson ◽  
Thomas Trauer ◽  
John Condon
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Northern Territory ◽  
Remote Communities ◽  
Problem Solving Therapy ◽  
Randomised Controlled ◽  
Indigenous Mental Health

This study is one of the activities of a multi-site research program, the Australian Mental Health Initiative (AIMhi), funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council. AIMhi in the Northern Territory collaborated with Aboriginal mental health workers and Northern Territory remote service providers in developing a range of resources and strategies to promote improved Indigenous mental health outcomes. A brief intervention that combines the principles of motivational interviewing, problem solving therapy and chronic disease self-management is described. The intervention has been integrated into a randomised controlled trial. Early findings suggest that the strategy and its components are well received by clients with chronic mental illness, and their carers, in remote communities.

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