Page 61 - Walking_The_Red_Road

Our Mental Health is Strengthened Through Culture
Mental health is working towards maintaining balance: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in our lives. Having this balance helps to sustain a good life.
As one community member said, “working towards maintaining balance...will help to
sustain a good life.” For many in our community, working towards that balance includes being involved with Aboriginal programs and services. During our research, we learned that while community members are aware of some mental health services, with additional support, the overall community could share knowledge more effectively, foster partnerships and strengthen services across Aboriginal and non-aboriginal services. In this story, we describe how we learned about our community’s views and vision for an Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre. A place that would help our community work towards balance and a good life by providing leadership,
a welcoming space, a continuum of culturally responsive and safe services, training and support for information sharing and problem-solving.
The opportunity
The Ontario Federation of Indian (now Indigenous) Friendship Centres was asked by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care to work with Aboriginal communities to identify their mental health priorities, best practices, strengths, gaps and partnerships. U-ACT undertook this project in North Bay.
What we did
We initially drafted questions designed to address the goals of the request. We then shared them with two key members from our CAC and one from our Elders Circle to ensure the questions were respectful of our Aboriginal community.
Based on their feedback, two questions were added, the first intended to explore awareness of
the differences between Aboriginal and non-aboriginal mental health services. Consistent with our community’s goal to ultimately develop an Urban Aboriginal Strategy for North Bay, the other question added was, “What is your vision for mental health and addictions services for our urban Aboriginal community?”
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Aboriginal knowledge, teachings and practices should be used more often in treatment with some describing these practices as “fundamental” and others saying that greater exposure to and participation in Aboriginal culture “is treatment.”
Service provider participating in discussion