Grant: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

Research and health services tend to exclude the voices and cultures of Indigenous peoples or fail to represent them in a respectful way. xacqanal itkinil (Many Ways of Working on the Same Thing) is a long-term working relationship between Ktunaxa First Nation, Interior Health Authority, University of Victoria and University of British Columbia- Okanagan. The goal of the partnership is to do research in a better way and improve relationships between health systems and Indigenous peoples. By improving these relationships, health systems and the people they serve can respectfully and appropriately benefit from Indigenous knowledge and expertise to improve the quality of healthcare for everyone. Over the last three years, the xacqanal itkinil team has worked with Ktunaxa Elders to develop and test a new approach to research that is led by Ktunaxa peoples and reflects Ktunaxa culture. Ktunaxa Elders named this approach xacqanal itkinil. We tested the xacqanal itkinil approach in Ktunaxa communities by hosting a series of gatherings, ceremonies and land-based activities. During this process, community members shared their vision for a healthy community; we then worked with three Ktunaxa artists to create artwork that captures this vision. The xacqanal itkinil team recently received a 5-year CIHR Project Grant to build off the first phase of the partnership to work towards Ktunaxa Nation's vision for a healthy community. We will work with community partners to co-design and implement interventions (i.e. programs, policies, practices), with the aim of transforming the culture of the health system to better serve Indigenous peoples and the wider population. This fellowship will directly contribute to monitoring and evaluating the interventions and their implementation to understand what is working well, what challenges are encountered along the way and how they are addressed, as well as how this work can be carried forward into the future.