From benzos to berries: treatment offered at an Aboriginal youth solvent abuse treatment centre relays the importance of culture.

First Nations and Inuit youth who abuse solvents are one of the most highly stigmatized substance-abusing groups in Canada. Drawing on a residential treatment response that is grounded in a culture-based model of resiliency, this article discusses the cultural implications for psychiatry's individualized approach to treating mental disorders. A systematic review of articles published in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry during the past decade, augmented with a review of Canadian and international literature, revealed a gap in understanding and practice between Western psychiatric disorder-based and Aboriginal culture-based approaches to treatment and healing from substance abuse and mental disorders. Differing conceptualizations of mental health and substance abuse are discussed from Western psychiatric and Aboriginal worldviews, with a focus on connection to self, community, and political context. Applying an Aboriginal method of knowledge translation-storytelling-experiences from front-line workers in a youth solvent abuse treatment centre relay the difficulties with applying Western responses to Aboriginal healing. This lends to a discussion of how psychiatry can capitalize on the growing debate regarding the role of culture in the treatment of Aboriginal youth who abuse solvents. There is significant need for culturally competent psychiatric research specific to diagnosing and treating First Nations and Inuit youth who abuse substances, including solvents. Such understanding for front-line psychiatrists is necessary to improve practice. A health promotion perspective may be a valuable beginning point for attaining this understanding, as it situates psychiatry's approach to treating mental disorders within the etiology for Aboriginal Peoples

A Feasibility Trial of Mental Health First Aid First Nations: Acceptability, Cultural Adaptation, and Preliminary Outcomes

The Mental Health First Aid First Nations course was adapted from Mental Health First Aid Basic to create a community-based, culturally safe and relevant approach to promoting mental health literacy in First Nations contexts. Over 2.5 days, the course aims to build community capacity by teaching individuals to recognize and respond to mental health crises. This feasibility study utilized mixed methods to evaluate the acceptability, cultural adaptation, and preliminary effectiveness. Our approach was grounded in Community-Based Participatory Research principles, emphasizing relationship-driven procedures to collecting data and choice for how participants shared their voices. Data included participant interviews (n=89), and surveys (n=91) from ten groups in four provinces. Surveys contained open-ended questions, retrospective pre-post ratings, and a scenario. We utilized data from nine facilitator interviews and 24 facilitator implementation surveys. The different lines of evidence converged to highlight strong acceptability, mixed reactions to the cultural adaptation, and gains in participants’ knowledge, mental health first aid skill application, awareness, and self-efficacy, and reductions in stigma beliefs. Beyond promoting individual gains, the course served as a community-wide prevention approach by situating mental health in a colonial context and highlighting local resources and cultural strengths for promoting mental well-being

Results of a participatory needs assessment demonstrate an opportunity to involve people who use alcohol in drug user activism and harm reduction

BACKGROUND: Drug users’ organizations have made progress in recent years in advocating for the health and human rights of people who use illicit drugs but have historically not emphasized the needs of people who drink alcohol. METHODS: This paper reports on a qualitative participatory needs assessment with people who use illicit substances in British Columbia, Canada. We held workshops in 17 communities; these were facilitated by people who use illicit drugs, recorded with ethnographic fieldnotes, and analyzed using critical theory. RESULTS: Although the workshops were targeted to people who use illicit drugs, people who primarily consume alcohol also attended. An unexpected finding was the potential for drug users’ organizations and other harm reduction programs to involve “illicit drinkers”: people who drink non-beverage alcohol (e.g. mouthwash, rubbing alcohol) and those who drink beverage alcohol in criminalized ways (e.g., homeless drinkers). Potential points of alliance between these groups are common priorities (specifically, improving treatment by health professionals and the police, expanding housing options, and implementing harm reduction services), common values (reducing surveillance and improving accountability of services), and polysubstance use. CONCLUSIONS: Despite these potential points of alliance, there has historically been limited involvement of illicit drinkers in drug users’ activism. Possible barriers to involvement of illicit drinkers in drug users’ organizations include racism (as discourses around alcohol use are highly racialized), horizontal violence, the extreme marginalization of illicit drinkers, and knowledge gaps around harm reduction for alcohol. Understanding the commonalities between people who use drugs and people who use alcohol, as well as the potential barriers to alliance between them, may facilitate the greater involvement of illicit drinkers in drug users’ organizations and harm reduction services

Financial inclusion: Policies and practices

As a key enabler for development, financial inclusion is firmly placed on the agenda of most governments as a key policy priority. Against this background, this round table provides a global and regional perspective on the policies and practices of financial inclusion. Using macro data, the collection reveals the diversity in the efforts towards achieving financial inclusion and the need for a progressive approach in financial inclusion. Further to this, the round table provides the regional perspectives on the policies and practices of financial inclusion in India, South Africa, and Australia

Barriers and Levers for the Implementation of OCAP™

This article discusses the obstacles to and supports for the implementation of the First Nations Principles of OCAP™, specifically in the context of data holdings within Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) and the Government of Canada. It cites three types of barriers (legal, knowledge and capacity, and institutional) that obstruct OCAP™ and examines how federal legislation such as the Privacy Act and Access to Information Act undermine these First Nations Principles. It continues by exploring supports available to help operationalize OCAP™, including legal, policy, knowledge and capacity-based levers. It concludes by outlining how ANNDC’s increased knowledge about OCAP™ could help support capacity building in First Nations communities

First Nations Information Governance Centre Data Online

FNIGC Data Online is an online service from the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC), Canada’s premier source of information about First Nations people living on reserve and in northern communities. This new application will provide unprecedented access to FNIGC’s published data in the form of charts, tables and graphs that can be exported for use in presentations, reports and academic papers, beginning with the First Nations Regional Health Survey. In the weeks and months ahead FNIGC will populate Data Online with more data from RHS Phase 2, and RHS Phase 1. All data produced are aggregated nationally and weighted to represent First Nations communities across Canada