Grant: Project Grant

Every year, thousands of Inuit from Nunavut (NU) come to Manitoba (MB) to access healthcare, education and other services. Some stay only to attend appointments, others longer to access services not offered in NU. Some do not return home for multiple reasons, including personal choice, constraints or because of on-going needs (e.g. long-term care). Our Qanuinngitsiarutiksait.1 (Q.1, tools for the wellness and safety of Inuit) study documented patterns of service utilization, including important mental health care needs that remain unmet. Objectives: Q.2 will focus on Inuit concepts of wellness, to answer: 1. How did Inuit address issues of trauma and community/interpersonal tensions in the past? 2. How was/is family/community cohesion maintained in Inuit culture? And 3. How can this knowledge be used to create a continuum of healing programs reflecting Inuit values? We will undertake an Isumataiit Sivuliuqtii[Elders]-driven participatory study, involving aajiiqatigiingniq, an Inuit consensus methodology, which has also been used as the foundation of an Inuit wellness framework. This work will guide the development of a series of interventions implemented and continuously improved in the course of the study, including 1. the creation and trialing of an Inuit-centric healing program to be offered in Winnipeg; 2. An adapted version of the program tailored to the needs of Inuit women and girls recruited into and exiting human trafficking; and 3. An adapted version of the program tailored to the needs of Inuit families whose children are involved with Child and Family Services (CFS) system, to facilitate reunification when appropriate. This knowledge will be used to develop Inuit wellness programming to be implemented in different sites in Winnipeg. This proposal addresses priorities identified by the Isumataiit Sivuliuqtii, and will produce knowledge that will be directly applied to programming to improve Inuit wellness.