Indigenous Mental Health and Culture

Indigenous Mental Health

• Indigenous mental health is interconnected with environmental, family, wisdom, physical, responsibility, community, cultural, emotional, human being, social, land, respect, mental, spiritual, relationships, nations, and economic factors

Thanksgiving Address

• Most Indigenous nations begin gatherings and ceremonies with Thanksgiving.
• Thanksgiving is typically done in traditional language and recognizes all relations, including living things on Mother Earth.

Identity

• North American Indigenous cultures introduce themselves by name, clans, community, nation, heritage, ancestors, place, land, language, and treaty.
• Identity is focused on relationships rather than status, position, or power.
• If Indigenous people have a spirit anme, they proclaim it.

Colonial Trauma and Mental Health

• Indigenous peoples in Canada have experienced complex and intergenerational traumas.
• Many Indigenous communities grapple with mental health and suicide crises due to these traumas.
• This trauma is a significant political factor in the health inequities borne by Indigenous peoples.
• Colonialism's ongoing shape-shifting nature impacts the mental health framework.
• Identifying ongoing colonialism helps understand trauma more thoroughly.
• Indigenous people in Canada face serious challenges related to mental illness and inadequate healthcare due to racism, stereotypes, ignorance, and historical government interventions.

Historical Traumas

• Complex trauma is caused by residential/day schools, the 60s scoop, and the continuing removal of children from their communities.
• Medical testing without consent, racism, the Indian Act, land apprehension, and state negligence lead to internalized inferiority.

Human Costs

• Internalization of racism and harm results from being told one is not good enough or a problem.
• Indigenous people are twice as likely to experience depression and other mental illnesses compared to non-Indigenous people.
• 16% of First Nation adults living on reserve experience major depression versus 8% of the Canadian population.
• First Nations' youth are nine times more likely to experience mental health problems relative to Canadian peers.

Mental Health in Canada

• A higher percentage of Indigenous participants report fair/poor mental health compared to non-Indigenous participants (38% vs. 23%).
• Common mental health diagnoses in Indigenous populations include PTSD, substance use disorder, major depression, and suicide.
• Suicide is the leading cause of death for young people aged 10-29 in Indigenous communities.
• Suicide rates are three times the national average, with Inuit youth and young adults particularly impacted.
• The British Columbia Aboriginal Survivors Study found that only 2 of 127 residential school survivors were free of mental illness.
• 30.4% of residential school survivors experienced a major depressive episode, 26.1% had chronic depression, and 64.2% had PTSD.
• Statistics Canada reports that First Nations youth suicide rates are five to seven times higher than non-Indigenous youth suicide rates, and Inuit youth suicide rates are eleven times higher.
• First Nations men die by suicide 2.4 times the national average and women five times higher

Mental Health Support

• Inadequate mental health resources exist
• Support is insufficient when access requires people to fill out multiple forms which is often prohibitive.
• There are limited service providers, especially in rural and remote Indigenous communities.
• Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) supports existing mental health services.
• ISC programs include:
  • The National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy (NAYSPS) Program Framework
  • Mental health counselling through the Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) Program
  • Jordan’s Principle
  • The Inuit Child First Initiative
  • The Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program
  • Health support services for those affected by the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls
• Phone and chat lines are also available, such as “hope for wellness."
• More long-term intensive and non-crisis response support is needed.

NIHB Program

• “The guide to mental health benefits” instructs clients/mental health service providers to attempt other avenues first.
• Then, contact a NIHB regional office to obtain a list of service providers.
• Clients eligible to receive up to 22 hours of counselling annually must find a service provider available in their area, and the counselling must be pre-approved.
• The administration, availability, and type of programming differs between provinces. Accessing existing supports is a cumbersome process if one is deemed eligible.
• Accessing the NIHB is another example of difficulty implementing support.
• Access often involves literacy and access to technology

Support Access

• Individuals in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and Two-Spirit (LGBTQ2S) community are more likely to experience mental health concerns like depression and anxiety.
• Approximately 33.8% of female and 17.2% of male youth living on reserve reported feeling sad, blue, or depressed for two weeks or more in a row in the past twelve months.
• Virtual and telehealth media for mental wellness services worsens access issues due to limited connectivity in remote communities.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission

• Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action 18-24 include health actions that could improve the mental well-being of Indigenous peoples and prevent suicide.
• Calls to Action include acknowledgment of harm and funding for healing centers and programming.
• Canada has not completed a single Health Call to Action for the second year in a row

What Is Needed

• Mental healthcare needed for Indigenous peoples should be accessible, free (and funded), and colonial trauma-informed, with trained practitioners available.
• Barriers need to be removed to ensure Indigenous persons who seek support can do so, in order to build strength.
• Direct financial support so that Indigenous peoples can allocate adequate time towards unraveling complex trauma is necessary.
• Reparations should include financial support and comprehensive trauma care.
• Programs should also be in collaboration with Indigenous Nations/peoples and respect self-determination.
• Education is needed regarding the oppression, genocidal and colonial acts by the state, and intergenerational trauma.

Traditional Healing

• Holistic Indigenous healing interconnects family, community, spirituality, and nature while focusing on balance and harmony.
• Emphasis is placed on strengths for fostering control over one's own health
• Indigenous treatment includes traditional teaching and spiritual practices, as well as remedies such as tobacco, sweet grass, and sage.
• Consulting with elders or healers, healing circles, and sweatlodges are traditional treatments
• CAMH in Toronto launched Shkaabe Makwa (Spirit Bear Helper), an Indigenous-led hospital center that incorporates traditional healing to improve healthcare services for First Nation, Inuit, and Métis members.
• Incentives are important to recruit and retain mental health practitioners, especially Indigenous practitioners, because many communities must travels to healthcare services.
• Giving importance to maintainiing community wellness is important
• Funding for housing, recreation, gymnasiums, fitness programs/centers, healthy food initiatives, cultural programming, and relevant community infrastructure should be prioritized.

Two Row Wampum Treaty

• Haudenosaunee see the Two Row Wampum as a way to establish living together in peace.
• The belt symbolizes the first agreement between Europeans and American Indians on Turtle Island.
• The agreement is a commitment to friendship and peace between people living perpetually in parallel that recognizes each other as an equal partner.

Two-Eyed Seeing

• ''Etuaptmumk or Two Eyed Seeing" brings knowledges together which can benefit all through multiple perspectives.
• The perspective simultaneously appreciates the strengths of Indigenous knowledge with one eye, and the Eurocentric (scientific) perspective with the other.
• Benefits also include prioritizing the diverse perspectives for learners. Framework has promoted its approach in healthcare concerns.

Knowledge Gardening

• Teaching and learning requires the expectation of sowing knowledge in individual minds with the expectation it is fully appreciated and may take many years to bloom.
• Ongoing spiritual experience that is nurtured by relationships and context.

Seven Generations

• Seven Generations considers past wisdom, knowledge, and gifts to protect, preserve, and provide for the next seven generations.
• Each generation is said to be 120 years
• Consideration on our actions today, and the impact they have on the next 840 years.

Seven Grandfather Teachings

• LOVE: unconditional love.
• RESPECT: demonstrated through communication.
• BRAVERY: defend what you believe in.
• TRUTH: using/honouring power.
• HONESTY: being trueful and accepting responsibility.
• HUMILITY: selfless life, respecting place.
• WISDOM: using experience to judge.

Medicine Wheel

• The medicine wheel for Indigenous wellness balances physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects, and should all be one.

Learned Behaviour

• Disruptions to parent/child can affect styles. Also disruption affects mental health.

Environmental Factors

• Events can shapes behaviours/coping. Coping can affect mental health.

Behaviour vs Coping

• Abuse like trauma, or displacement has a cause.
• Environment can adversities those communities of intergenerational reasons.