Healthy Indigenous Communities and Families
Restoring & Supporting Healthy Family Systems
Healthy families are the building blocks of Indigenous communities, and are pivotal to the well-being and survival of communities. They are the cornerstone through which infants and children develop, learn, grow, and flourish, and the basis for well-being for people across the lifespan. Our team brings together partners from across research disciplines and Indigenous communities with the overall goal of supporting optimal health for diverse Indigenous populations through community-led and community-specific strategies that promote the best possible healthy life for families and children.
The Wood Buffalo Healthy Families Program was designed to reclaim traditional wahkotowin (kinship) support systems in Indigenous communities through culturally based mentorship from Elders, aunties and birthworkers who support families within a continuous circle of care. The program provides wrap-around support for Indigenous families in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo across the life cycle, addressing gaps in health and social care systems.
Auntie mentorship is being supported directly through Aunties within Reach, an on-demand, culturally safe resource offered by Indigenous birthworkers (who are also a team of aunties), which includes outreach and a hotline to access information, resources, advocacy and referrals related to: sexual and reproductive health; pregnancy options; prenatal, birth and postpartum support; and healthcare system navigation. Aunties within Reach is a collaboration between CARE and the ihkapaskwa Indigenous Wellness Collective.
Elder Mentoring includes land-based learning, gardening, traditional Indigenous cooking, cultural support and mentorship to women and community members, and grief and loss support during pregnancy and childbirth. Check out our community report on the Elders Mentoring strategy in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta to strengthen cultural connectedness among young mothers and pregnant women.
Our work is based on trust and respect through continuous relationship-building processes to implement and evaluate both the Aunties within Reach and Elders Mentoring strategies in the Wood Buffalo region.
Grandmothers’ Wisdom Network (GWN)
CARE supports the Grandmothers’ Wisdom Network (GWN), a provincial collective that brings together five Indigenous grandmothers from Treaty 6, 7, and 8 and the Métis Nation of Alberta, to support Indigenous families on and off-reserve and set priorities for future research, policy and practice on maternal, neonatal, child and youth health. The GWN is also supported in partnership with Alberta Health Services (AHS) Indigenous Wellness Core and the Maternal, Newborn, Child and Youth Strategic Clinical Network.
