Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

We aim to explore conceptualizations of community resilience and identify local knowledge and resources that can be harnessed to nurture mobilization efforts for wholistic health and wellbeing in three First Nations communities in Manitoba, Canada. We used an adaptation of Kane and Trochim's (2007) participatory concept mapping approach to guide our partner communities (C1-C3) in exploring their strengths and resources. In all phases of the research, an open invitation to participate was extended to community members interested in promoting well-being in their community. Community resilience talking circles were held in C1, C2, and C3, involving five, nine, and six participants, respectively. Discussions were recorded, transcribed, and cleaned to extract community resilience statements, yielding 101, 81, and 72 statements for C1, C2, and C3, respectively. During subsequent visits, community members (C1=13, C2=15, C3=7) individually hand-sorted the statements into themes and ranked each statement based on its importance and practicality for promotion and/or implementation in the community. In each community, distinct conceptualizations of resilience emerged from the talking circles. Common overarching themes included connection to culture, relationality to land and all living things, intergenerational knowledge transmission, wholistic wellness, dedication to healing, child and youth support, and food sovereignty. Participants highlighted the high practicality and importance of revitalizing cultural and spiritual values and practices, supporting children and youth in the community, and focusing on community healing. Our research strengthens the understanding of resilience within Indigenous communities, creating pathways to guide mobilization efforts that draw on local community resources and knowledge to promote wholistic health and wellbeing in communities across Canada.