Grant: Doctoral Research Award -PA: Research in First Nations, Métis &/or Inuit Health

The Wood Buffalo Healthy Families Program funded by the CIHR Indigenous Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative (I-HeLTI) is a novel, community-led partnership focused on strengths-based, multi-generational resilience research. Embedded within the wider I-HeLTI research program, this study will examine how culturally-rooted strategies improve developmental trajectories within five Cree, Dene and Mètis Nations of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, with a particular focus on longitudinal measures concerning mental wellness. Specifically, this project aims to: 1) support on-going community-driven study design, implementation and knowledge translation, but especially in the design and adaption of culturally appropriate and community-driven mental wellness measures; and 2)explore the impacts on mental wellness of two strategies: the Aunties within Reach and Elders Mentoring Programs. Using community-based participatory research principles, the study design includes a cross-sectional study of families and households and a prospective conception cohort study of child development, utilizing mixed methods to evaluate the effectiveness of these community strategies in promoting child development and mental wellness. Anticipated outcomes include community capacity building, empowering communities to design, implement and evaluate programs that effectively support families in providing healthy environments for children. Moreover, results will provide novel information on wise practices to optimize children's developmental trajectories, support wellness, and decrease risks that negatively impact mental wellness. It will ensure communities own, control, access, and possess data that is meaningful to them to inform self-determined health priorities and approaches. It will provide evidence of the efficacy of community-driven, culturally-grounded strategies to promote mental wellness and thus support efforts to acquire and direct resources towards bolstering these strategies.