Grant: Catalyst Grant: Healthy Youth - Indigenous Youth

The Bringing the Children Home project examines the experiences of Inuit youth from Nunavut's Kivalliq Region who must travel thousands of miles to give birth in southern Canada and the impact of this experience on their mental health, and physical, and cultural wellness. Inuit youth from the seven communities comprising Nunavut's Kivalliq Region are some of the youngest to give birth in Canada, hold the lowest level of education in the country, and have access to few, if any, perinatal supports, and services. Some Inuit youth receive no perinatal care prior to giving birth at all, and tend to have fearful, stressful, isolating, and adversarial encounters in both the Manitoba Healthcare system and Government of Nunavut's health centers. Exposed to anti-Inuit racism and discrimination, Inuit have some of the poorest health outcomes in Canada and yet there is a dearth of research concerning how to support Inuit youth. The Bringing the Children Home project, led by the Manitoba Inuit Association in Winnipeg, examines how and where access to culturally and linguistically relevant perinatal supports and services before, during and following childbirth, may improve child and youth health and health equity through health systems policy and practices, as well as uphold reproductive and sexual health rights of Inuit youth. Through interviews and focus groups with Inuit youth in Nunavut and Winnipeg, this study aims to advance the health and well-being of Inuit youth in Canada.