Photovoice aims to bring healing to participants

By Colin Graf

AAMJIWNAANG FIRST NATION—While a picture may not always be better than a thousand words, staff at the Aamjiwnaang Community Health Centre hope taking photos will help community members with worries, anxieties, or depressive thoughts to talk about their experiences with just as many words as they need.

A new project called Photovoice aims to give residents a chance to take photos to “showcase things that have helped them deal with those issues, bringing out their strengths and resilience,” says Aamjiwnaang’s Health Director Sara Plain.

According to Tracey George, mental wellness supervisor at the Centre, participants will be given their own cameras not to illustrate the negative experiences that have caused suffering, but “to flip the coin and look at the other side, what was good, what brought you strength, what brings you joy, what keeps you going.”

“Photos could be of anything that has helped members feel strong, such as family, the sound of the river, a special spot in the community, possibly the health centre where services offered hope or healing, the local community centre, a trail in the bush where someone might take walks, or many other ideas,” says George.

“The photos will be the first step in helping participants discuss their healing process, and maybe help redesign mental health services at Aamjiwnaang,” says Plain.

“Explaining their photos will help the photographers tell their own healing stories,” says Melody Morton-Ninomiya, project scientist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Later this year, she will be helping Aamjiwnaang staff record those stories and use them to help support community members dealing with mental or emotional difficulties.

“We’re using photos as a means to gather data that is way more interesting than filling out a survey or answering questions in an interview, and quite accessible for people who might not be very excited about giving written responses or comfortable about talking at length about something that we might ask in an interview,” Morton-Ninomiya explains.

“It’s a really nice way to be able to convey information in a way that speaks to people not just through voice, narrative or text, but you also have the imagery,” adds George.

“Having the photograph as an anchor to help speak about healing helps participants focus on what exactly they want to discuss,” says Morton-Ninomiya.

A lot of thinking goes into picking what to photograph, “ruminating as you go about your everyday life,” she adds.

Morton-Ninomiya says that whittling down the number of photos to present to a researcher also requires further consideration.

“Ultimately you have to pick just a few to share and discuss with someone,” says Morton-Ninomiya.

Plain says that the photos and the follow-up interviews will also help Aamjiwnaang better direct mental health supports.

“We have lots of services and programs in place,” she says, but getting participants to explain what helps them could “potentially change the way we are delivering” those programs.

Plain remembers how research from 2013 showed many Aamjiwnaang citizens were feeling a sense of loss and grief over the death of friends or family, so she and her staff introduced trauma and grief counselling to the First Nation.

The response “has taken off more than we ever expected it too,” she says.

While the Photovoice project may be new in Aamjiwnaang, Morton-Ninomiya says the technique has been used before with great success in several First Nations, including Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point.

“People feel good about participating, they own the photos that highlight their strengths. It builds capacity and a greater sense of engagement,” she says. The photographer-participants “become a very core part of the research.”

Harnessing the power of images should make the telling of personal stories a little easier, the researchers agree.  Tracey George remembers a photo from one First Nation representing intimate partner violence, showing just a beer bottle, and another of a house where the participant grew up where there was violence.  The photographs “were just so powerful, I couldn’t believe how the images just spoke.”

George hopes that same power can be used to show the positive way in which Aamjiwnaang’s people are working to improve their lives, to “bring people together even more, to feel closer and connected, especially when talking about what helped them and gave them strength.”

“Using the photos to tell personal stories is also a way of reaching back into the ancient practice of storytelling that is so much a part of First Nations’ culture,” adds Sara Plain.

Aamjiwnaang is being encouraged to participate through posters, social media, and at presentations to the men’s and women’s wellness groups this month.

George practices her pitch to citizens where she will say that “we have this great opportunity for you to talk about your resilience, what helped you to feel healthy, and you can do this using photographs, and you get a digital camera too.”

Researchers hope the photographs will be presented and interviews completed by the end of 2018.

“Aamjiwnaang members experience higher levels of stress, depression, and anxiety compared to the general population,” Plain says, citing research surveys conducted with over 200 adults in 2013— a finding that has motivated the Photovoice project.

Plain adds that substance abuse was also found to play a part in mental health concerns, particularly alcohol abuse, though other “devastating” drugs are a problem too.