Healthier communities: Nurturing physical and mental wellness
Innovation Issue 39: Spring 2024
Braiding together mental health approaches to support Indigenous youth
In Our Community
Braiding together mental health approaches to support Indigenous youth
Photo courtesy of Finding Our Power Together.
The programming of Finding Our Power Together, a national Indigenous-led non-profit aiming to empower youth, is informed by the research of Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) professor Nicole Ineese-Nash.
Professor Ineese-Nash is cross-appointed at the Faculty of Community Services to both the School of Early Childhood Studies and the School of Child and Youth Care. She founded Finding Our Power Together, which is a non-profit offering a number of culturally based, in-person and virtual therapeutic programs and services across Canada. Finding Our Power Together’s programming ranges from one-on-one mentorship to group youth events to an online psychoeducation program.
The research and relationships that led to the founding of Finding Our Power Together began when she was a TMU graduate student supervised by professor Judy Finlay. She established connections with the youth of the northern fly-in community of Nibinamik First Nation, who were concerned about high suicide rates amongst their peers. That relationship led to the non-profit being guided by a combination of academic research and community input.
Research-based programs
Building Our Bundle is one research-based program offered by Finding Our Power Together. It began as a six-week pilot project in 2020 to build mental health skills for youth coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the program has transitioned to an online program offered multiple times a year.
The program is designed to help Indigenous youth aged 14-29 develop resiliency tools and provide resources, with participants engaging with mental health workers and a mentor. This online, eight-week program has an integrated approach to delivering mental health supports and resources to Indigenous youth, as developed by professor Ineese-Nash and her collaborators’ research.
The research that led to the creation of Building Our Bundle included interviewing mental health providers and a substantial review of different therapeutic models before launching the pilot program. The research team’s findings recommended an integrated – or braided – approach that includes Indigenous healing models, child and youth care approaches and dialectical behaviour therapy practices to provide culturally safe care supported by other well-researched methods.
Professor Ineese-Nash explains that this project also addressed how non-Indigenous mental health providers could participate effectively. “We’ve been able to really find a blend where we’re able to train our team in ways that really centre the relationships they have with young people in being authentic no matter what culture they come from,” she said. Since the 2020 launch, the Building Our Bundle program has run three times a year, with 12 cohorts of participants to date.
Academic research informs programming at Finding Our Power Together, but feedback from the community in turn influences the topics or approaches of the research, explains professor Ineese-Nash. In the future, she sees the potential for her research into Indigenous experiences of disability to assist in expanding Finding Our Power Together to include disability supports. The non-profit organization is also moving toward initiating its own research projects.
The organization’s team includes mental health, cultural and peer counsellors and researchers.
The research team’s findings recommended an integrated – or braided – approach that includes Indigenous healing models, child and youth care approaches and dialectical behaviour therapy practices to provide culturally safe care supported by other well-researched methods.
