Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The concept of "wellbeing" is culturally bound, therefore a variety of definitions exist within the literature. First Nations peoples often hold a more holistic view of wellbeing, which includes relationships with the spiritual and natural world, but also more mainstream indicators such as access to healthcare and coping skills. Differing views of health and wellbeing, along with a unique connection to the environment, objective indicators of wellbeing that are employed for use in majority culture are unlikely to adequately capture the construct of wellbeing for First Nations peoples in Canada. This presentation will review indicators of mental wellbeing for First Nations children as generated by community members. Further, these will be contrasted with more mainstream indicators. The major finding of this project is that community members highlighted the importance of traditional activities in more often than any other indicator of child mental wellbeing. This has important implications in the measurement of this construct.