Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The proposed research project aims to respond to the ever-so present health services gap faced by Indigenous people across Canada. Systematic oppression has been the driving force of most, if not all, inequalities faced today. Cultural safety is paramount in the delivery of health services and can be supported by training and competency guidelines. Recommendations from a group of Urban Northeastern Ontario Indigenous people through the findings of my recent Master's thesis project, health care providers must engage in understanding local beliefs, values, and perceptions of dementia through connecting with the people they serve. The recommendations brought forward informs an Indigenous-based model to explore how health materials such as fact sheets can draw from Indigenous and Western knowledge in order to provide culturally safe messages about dementia. This proposed model is transferable to the context of relationship development, which will be evident through a collaborative partnership with the Société Alzheimer Society Sudbury-Manitoulin North Bay & Districts to further develop a PhD thesis project that will include three phases: development of a culturally-safe intervention based on the model, implementation of cultural safety training within a team of nurses and personal support workers, and evaluation of this intervention.