Grant: Project Grant

Intimate partner violence (IPV) and the exposure of children to IPV are serious societal concerns. Notably, Indigenous women in Canada are four times more likely to experience IPV than non-Indigenous women. These inequities among Indigenous women and children need to be understood within a broad context of Canadian colonization and the intergenerational effects of the collective traumas experienced by previous generations of families and communities. The negative impacts of IPV for women and their children have been well documented. Women survivors of IPV are at elevated risk for a variety of physical and psychological problems which may also impact their parenting. Children exposed to IPV are 5 to 7 times more likely to experience a wide variety of emotional and behavioral problems in the short term and over their lifetime, compared to unexposed children. They are also at greater risk of continuing the cycle of violence later in adulthood than children who have not been exposed. Effective interventions are urgently needed; unfortunately, many existing programs were not designed to meet the needs of Indigenous mothers and their children. When used without the proper cultural contexts and adaptations, interventions can inadvertently exacerbate existing traumas and continue the histories of Canadian colonialism and health inequity among Indigenous populations. Our team combines the necessary expertise of Indigenous knowledge keepers and experienced researchers to address this problem. Our goal is to conduct a feasibility study of an evidence-based intervention designed specifically to meet the needs of Indigenous mothers and their children who have experienced IPV using a two-eyed seeing approach. To our knowledge, we will be the first team to do so in Canada. Our findings will significantly improve the lives of Indigenous mothers and children by providing counsellors and social workers with more effective tools specifically designed to help Indigenous families.