Searching for Traditional Indigenous Healing And Wellness

Operates as a program under the Healing and Wellness Branch

• Promotes healthy lifestyles through culturally based programs and healing
• Aims to reduce family violence

Provides assistance for individuals to identify areas of concern and to develop action plans to address concerns through the following:

• Sharing of appropriate information with related health and social agencies and providing referrals
• Crisis intervention education and workshops
• Illness prevention and wellness planning, information and education
• Traditional sharing circles
• Community outreach education to promote cultural awareness

Also provides:

• Assistance with completing forms of any kind
• Accessing existing programs and services
• Peer counselling for any identified concerns

Promotes healthy individuals, families and communities

• Supports reduction or prevention of family and community violence
• Provides culturally appropriate support services, resources, educational materials, and workshops to address community wellness needs
• Promotes a culturally appropriate approach to healing and wellness

Coordinates the following programs:

• Aboriginal Healing & Wellness Strategy
• Community Food Educator
• Early Childhood Development
• Federal Family Violence Initiatives

• Provides support services to Indigenous women and their families who are struggling with mental health issues
• Aims to help improve Indigenous health and reduce family violence

Services offered include:

• Access to elders and healers
• Addictions
• Aftercare support
• Land-based therapy
• Mental health
• Traditional counselling
• Referrals to other programs or agencies
• Sharing/healing circles

• Provides services and support for Indigenous women who have experienced violence and for the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW)

Services offered include:

• Assistance with understanding the criminal justice process
• Court support
• Crisis and emergency response due to violence/death
• Healing services including talking circles, cultural healing, Elder's guidance and referrals to other services
• Support at meetings with the police, the courts, and other service providers

• ​Assists Indigenous women and their families who have experienced family violence
• Promotes a healthy lifestyle, health awareness, and mental health wellness

Services offered include:

• Cultural supports and ceremonies
• Emergency support
• Land-based activities
• Prevention of family violence
• Referrals to other services
• Safety planning
• Traditional healing

• Provides support services to Indigenous women and their families who are experiencing violence and are involved in the child welfare system
• Works to meet the needs of women involved with both the Child Welfare Systems (CAS) and Violence Against Women Sectors (VAW)

Aims to create a safe and supportive means of living through collaboration with other community services and the provision of culturally based services including:

• Advocacy support
• Crisis management
• Cultural and traditional supports such as holistic teachings, sharing circles, ceremonies and guidance from Elders
• Information and education provision for mothers on their rights and responsibilities
• Systems navigation
• Work with families and Children's Aid Society (CAS) to resolve conflict

Anishinabek Nation/Union of Ontario Indians (UOI) initiative to assist each Indigenous community to design and deliver their own holistic, prevention-focused services/programs and cultural supports to promote a healthy community and support families as needed in the community

• Focus is on improving the overall health and well-being of communities and to empower families to build healthy relationships
• Works to eliminate family violence, the number of youth involved in the justice system and the number of children in care

Activities and programs provided can include but are not limited to the following:

• Activities that revitalize Native language
• Alcohol and drug abuse prevention and intervention
• Community events such as feasts
• Family circles, counselling and child/youth support groups
• Referrals to other programs and services
• School programs
• Traditional land-based healing events

• Provides services to promote family and community healing and wellness
• Holds cultural sessions and workshops to empower community members with traditional knowledge and skills
• Acts as the resource person for community workshops

Services include but are not limited to:

• Advocacy on behalf of community members for treatment centres and counselling
• Refers clients to Dilico for drug and alcohol assessments
• Assists with prevention programs
• Liaises for clients with Dilico, Children's Aid Society and other agencies
• Provides transportation to counselling sessions, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings (Schreiber and Terrace Bay) and Treatment Centre

Offers a variety of programs and services to reduce the level of solvent addiction and to establish mental health services

• Focuses on mental health crises and youth solvent abuse
• Works to develop community-based approaches to address mental health and addictions issues and to increase awareness and understanding
• Provides initiatives to address problems of hopelessness, suicide and family violence
• Provides training for caregivers and community members in post treatment

Services can include:

• Assessments
• Counselling services (individual and family)
• Referrals for treatment and follow-up treatment
• Aftercare
• Training of community members and caregivers for post-treatment

Enhances community healing and wellness programs through family violence education and prevention

• Promotes awareness of the risks associated with family violence
• Strives to reduce tolerance and occurrences of family violence
• Develops and implements community activities
• Participates in the annual Traditional Pow Wow

• Promotes healthy lifestyles through culturally based programs and healing
• Addresses and aims to reduce family and community violence
• Provides advocacy between individual and organizations and agencies
• Hosts traditional gatherings including traditional teachings and feasts
• Provides referrals to needed community supports and services

Activities and services can include:

• Back to school supplies
• Children's and Elder's Christmas gifts
• Community Christmas party
• Community Tubing event
• Family Fun Days
• Father's and Mother's Day gifts
• Halloween party
• Traditional Pow Wow participation

Anishinabek Nation/Union of Ontario Indians (UOI) initiative to assist each Indigenous community to design and deliver their own holistic, prevention-focused services/programs and cultural supports to promote a healthy community and support families as needed in the community

• Focus is on improving the overall health and well-being of community members and to empower families to build healthy relationships
• Works to eliminate family violence, the number of youth involved in the justice system and the number of children in care

Activities and programs provided can include but are not limited to the following:

• Activities that revitalize Native language
• Alcohol and drug abuse prevention and intervention
• Community events such as feasts
• Family circles, counselling and child/youth support groups
• Referrals to other programs and services
• School programs
• Traditional land-based healing events

• Provides education and support to individuals with addiction issues
• Offers both individual and group services

Services include:

• Individual counselling
• Assessments and aftercare
• Education, prevention, and wellness
• Referrals for treatment and other healing services
• Ability to incorporate harm reduction approach

• Delivers child care and protection services, and family support services to community members
• Administers protection services in collaboration with Dilico Anishinabek Family Care, a mandated Native Child Welfare Agency in Thunder Bay
• Partners with community police officers and local nursing staff to identify and support troubled families

Family support services include:

• Intake
• Referrals
• Assessments
• Planning
• Advocacy
• Support

Prevention Services

• Teaches parenting skills and assisting children through difficult times
• Develops and administers healthy social and recreational programs for families
• Hosts community forums to address issues such as youth drug abuse, inadequate housing, schooling problems and after school activities
• Organizes elders meetings that address traditional child rearing methods
• Provides information sessions about understanding substance dependency and resulting family violence, and overcoming oppression by understanding cultural realities

• Promotes healthy individuals, families and communities
• Focus is for building a healing strategy beginning with leadership and extending to each community member

Healing Strategy components can include the following:

• Administers a voluntary drug-testing program for community members in leadership roles and posts results on website
• Works to address the root causes of substance use/addiction and the harms associated with it
• Provides information on family violence, strategies to stop it and healthy relationships
• Facilitates group talking circles
• Offers individual peer counselling
• Provides advocacy between individual and organizations and agencies
• Hosts traditional gatherings including traditional teachings and feasts
• Provides referrals to needed community supports and services

• Promotes Anishinaabe identity, language, history, and customs and values
• Seeks to revitalize more of the traditional way of life for Fort William First Nation members
• Collaborating currently with the Anemki Mountain Corp to build the Ojibway Interpretive Centre on Mount MacKay to promote own culture to members and visitors

Cultural programs and services include but are not limited to:

• Conversational Ojibwe language classes
• Drum groups such as Men's Drum Group and Women's Hand Drum Group
• Drum making workshops and drum socials
• Elder's groups
• Pow Wows
• Regalia making
• Sweat lodges
• Trapping, hunting and fishing
• Young Leaders youth program

• Provides cultural awareness, teachings, values and traditions with all individuals accessing Dilico services
• Focus is to connect individuals and families to holistic healing with spiritual guidance, traditional teachings and language through Elders and cultural resources
• Hosts an annual Dilico powwow

Services include but are not limited to:

• Home visits by an Elder and cultural staff
• Sacred healing circles
• Traditional healing/counselling
• Regalia making
• Spirit Naming ceremonies
• Traditional parenting education based on Anishinabek teachings

Medical care team focused on family and community health

• Provides primary care medical clinic
• Provides access to other health care professionals
• Provides tuberculosis (TB) skin testing for employment or academic placement requirements
• Offers clinics in the following areas: footcare, diabetes, lifestyle, COPD, smoking cessation, chronic pain management, well-baby and annual breast screening

Offers an interdisciplinary team of physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, a social worker, a traditional healer and a diabetes educator who work together to provide patients with primary health care including:

• Health promotion
• Health education
• Illness prevention
• Disease diagnosis
• Management and rehabilitation

Walk-in medical clinic

• Provides immediate care for non-emergency and uncomplicated situations, with a range of services similar to those provided by a primary care physician's office
• Provides tuberculosis (TB) skin testing for employment or academic placement requirements

• Delivers child care and protection services and family support services to community members
• Collaborates with Child Welfare agencies such as Dilico
• Partners with community police officers and local nursing staff to identify and support troubled families

Services offered include:

• Prevention including support, advocacy and programs to prevent predictable issues
• Social repatriation efforts to establish relationships with children in care and their families
• Jordan's Principle workers to assist families to access available services and support
• Band representation to advocate for families with children in care
• Elders' committee to provide guidance, support and direction to families

Supports reduction and prevention of family and community violence

• Provides victim service referrals and emergency support for family violence
• Works one-on-one with families experiencing family violence to develop a plan of action for identified concerns
• Provides referrals to counselling, legal services, and treatment centres
• Offers Indigenous culture-based healing, self-help processes for anger management, and positive self-image development; alternative discipline methods and positive relationships
• Organizes and facilitates community events in schools, powwows, and health fairs to promote a healthy lifestyle and prevention of family violence
• Hosts monthly programs, workshops, promotions, and prevention education campaigns dealing with family-based violence awareness

Offers a healing program for residential school survivors or their descendants and extended families in a wilderness setting near Wawakapewin community

• Offers counselling and teaches traditional values and lifestyles as healing tools
• Targets individuals affected by residential school abuse and its intergenerational impacts
• Delivers services through a holistic approach
• Provides 4 intakes per year
• Provides services in a wilderness setting for individual families, groups and communities

Services offered can include:

• Counselling by Elders and/or traditional healers
• Cultural ceremonies, teachings and dialogue
• Transportation, when required