Orange Shirt Day

A poem by Hazel, aged 8, for Orange Shirt Day 2022

Learning, Indigenizing, and Delivering Forum Theatre Activities in Indigenous Communities: Reflections of Community Facilitators

In many Indigenous communities, wellness is a holistic balance of spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing through connections with self, family, community, and environment. Interventions to promote mental wellness (as a means of suicide prevention) with Indigenous youth thus need to focus on strengths and promoting these relations. First Nations and Métis communities in Alberta and the Northwest Territories in Canada partnered with academic researchers to adapt Forum Theatre as a mental health intervention for Indigenous youth. Forum Theatre, developed by Brazilian activist Augusto Boal, is based on playing games that encourage laughter, trust, and cooperation to build a community. The games lead to creating images with participants' bodies to reflect different life events, which are developed into a play with conflict and oppression. Through interaction with the play, community members explore solutions to the conflict. Indigenous community partners handpicked community members to train in facilitating Forum Theatre activities to deliver this mental health intervention. Our video showcases the reflections of a group of community facilitators and researchers on the process of being trained in Forum Theatre and indigenizing it for delivery to the participating communities. Community facilitators explain how they came to understand the potential and power of Forum Theatre activities. They describe their training experiences and briefly explain how they indigenized Forum Theatre in a manner that prioritized each community's assets and needs. Their description of the impact they saw in themselves, participants, and communities emphasizes the transformative nature of delivering indigenized Forum Theatre in communities

Supporting School Attendance Among Indigenous Children and Youth in Canada: A Review

Many community leaders in Canada have asserted the need for improved school attendance to promote educational success and well-being among Indigenous students. This paper reviews the extant literature from researchers, government agencies, school districts, and other organizations that have identified factors that improve school attendance among Indigenous students in Canada. The reviewed literature and reports indicate a need for more culturally relevant supports, as well as a more wholistic approach for Indigenous students and their families. This review also highlights the dearth of research on this topic and demonstrates the need for studies and initiatives that closely examine contributing factors at various levels (i.e., administrative, policy, community, classroom, household, individual), and that deeply engage families and communitie

Ayas Chap - Peace to All

Acknowledging the occurrence of family violence in our community is an integral step along the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh pathway toward healing and wellness for our families and community members. Within this work, it has been important for us to give cultural context to what we mean by “family violence”, better held in the language as kwétsiwit na wa ḵeyátnewas—violence toward one another. This short film was created as an offering of space for this context, while upholding our Sḵwx̱wú7mesh traditions of oral storytelling as a generative knowledge practice during the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw Family Wellness Week in November 2022. This short film honours the ancestral wisdom of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Elders and Knowledge Keepers as they share stories of traditions, teachings of love, connection, and hope. For us, it has allowed us to create safe space for both truth and hard conversations in our understandings of kwétsiwit na wa ḵeyátnewas. The stories within highlight the resilience of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh families to remember where we came and how we are moving forward on a pathway to healing. Community should be a place where people & families feel safe & secure. Restoring dignity, redressing harms & learning from the past as we see each other with renewed understanding in the need to move forward. Sḵwx̱wú7mesh cultural practices and traditions serve many purposes - often these traditions not only help define our community; they help create community. We are Sḵwx̱wú7mesh strong. While rooted in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh context, we know that there are echoes of this story and healing path in First Nations communities across the country. It is for this reason it feels important to share. This work was created within community, guided by the wisdom of Yataltenat, Kelley McReynolds— Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation member and Director of Ayás Mén̓men. Hannah Rushton—Team Leader of the Ayás Chap Program & Wellness Team; and Calder Cheverie, filmmaker and (former) Team Leader of Youth Services are invited guests into this community, both honored and grateful to be helping relatives. Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw is located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia with traditional territory extending from Vancouver to Gibsons Landing, and north of the town of Squamish into the Elaho and Squamish Valleys. We hold our hands up to the knowledge keepers for their stories & teachings in this video

Reclaiming Indigenous Sign Languages and Supporting Accessibility and Inclusion for Indigenous Deaf Children and their Families

This paper reports data from a research study and workshop about reclaiming Indigenous sign languages and cultures, and strengthening services for Indigenous deaf children and their families and communities. The purpose of this workshop was for presenters to share their lived experiences and knowledge as deaf and hearing Elders, parents, and youth, including what resources were and were not available to them. Findings revealed themes including the importance of support for accessibility and inclusion from First Nations political and community leadership; the importance of supporting children’s intersectional identities; the need for greater resources for First Nations communities to access services and supports for deaf children; and youth experiences of learning about deaf culture and sign language, and attending deaf schools These findings also suggested innovative models for including deaf children and their families

Castle Oaks Learning Portfolio: How we stand tall to end injustices and become allies to walk the path of Truth and Reconciliation

Students in F3A, F4A, 34A, F45, F5A and F5B at Castle Oaks Public School are learning how to stand tall and how to use their voices to advocate for equitable services and resources for Indigenous children. We are learning how we can listen, learn and honour the Truth in order to be allies and walk the path of Reconciliation. With our Reconciliation Ambearristers, we are learning how we can stand tall to end inequities and create a fair, safe and caring world for all children. We created a learning portfolio to showcase our learning thus far

Self-Determination, Public Accountability, and Rituals of Reform in First Peoples Child Welfare

First Peoples continue to face intergenerational harms as a result of settler systems of intervention in the lives of their families, including the forced removal of children. First Peoples resistance includes advocacy for systemic change, in particular focused on foundations of greater accountability of child welfare systems, and recognition of First Peoples’ right to self-determination. However achieving these necessary structural changes remains a pressing challenge. Using the example of the recent Aboriginal-led review of child welfare in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, ‘Family is Culture’, this paper explores the cycle of inquiry and response, and the repeated failures to enable self-determination or strengthen public accountability and oversight. Drawing on concepts including legitimacy and the rule of law, we conceptualise this pattern of reviews as a ritual of redemption by settler child welfare systems, distancing themselves from ‘past’ wrongs while refusing to address the harmful foundations of these systems, thereby perpetuating the violence imposed on First Peoples children, families and communities. This contrasts with First Peoples’ frameworks for child welfare reform, which must be urgently realised in order to establish such systems on more just and effective foundations. &nbsp

Demanding Change of Colonial Child Protection Systems Through Good Trouble: A Community‑Based Commentary of Resistance and Advocacy

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, led particularly by Grandmothers and Aunties, have persistently challenged statutory child protection systems and the harms they inflict on our children, families, and communities. Reflecting on our own experiences advocating for Aboriginal families and communities at the practice and systems level, this paper explores a reflective commentary approach concerning opportunities and challenges of community-based advocacy toward substantive sustained change. We note how the voices, experiences, and expertise of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to be marginalised or ignored by non- Indigenous authorities, colonial systems, and practice. Despite the apologies and promises of successive governments, contemporary systems continue to reflect “past” approaches. In this context, we honour the strong women who have, and continue, to stand up for their children, families, and communities, further rallying for ongoing resistance and reform

First Nations Voices in Child Protection Decision Making: Changing the Frame

First Nations children in Australia remain vastly over-represented in the child protection (CP) and out-of- home care (OOHC) systems, and in juvenile detention and adult incarceration systems. To change this, we need to tackle the problem at the source; by maintaining our efforts for the implementation of First Nations rights, so that self-determination and cultural safety are embedded into the child protection system from a family’s first contact and by constantly identifying opportunities in the current system to keep our children safe. Using policy and research literature, this paper identifies the principal barrier to change as the continuing failure of settler governance to recognise the fundamental importance of First Nations rights, including the need to embed self-determination and a specific, First Nations cultural framework into the child protection system. The article also offers personal reflections on the essential role of self-determination in keeping our children safe, drawing on Aunty Glendra Stubbs’ experiences in community-based advocacy and support of families for nearly three decades. Her reflections are linked to the literature and First Nations advocacy that support the findings and opportunities for change proposed in this paper