Conference brings First Nation helpers together to share healing and wellness strategies

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY — Biigtigong Nishnaabeg’s Nicole Richmond and Pays Plat First Nation’s Andrea Landry focused on healing and wellness strategies during the Healing our Families, Building our Nations conference on October 27-29 at the DaVinci Centre in Thunder Bay.

The conference was hosted by Boozhoo Law and Indigenous Motherhood.

“This is an opportunity for First Nations people who are working in child well-being, social services, and just general helpers within First Nations to come together and share best practices in healing and Anishinaabe values and how we integrate that into our workplaces through policies, procedures, and wellness practices,” says Richmond, a Lawyer, Wellness Consultant, and Educator who recently started up her own law firm, Boozhoo Law.

Richmond says they had participants from several communities across northwestern Ontario, including from Anishinabek Nation, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, and Treaty #3.

“What’s really incredible is they all share a lot of the same goals and values and also challenges within their communities, so it’s been really a good time for people to collaborate and share their hopes and dreams and best practices,” Richmond says. “This morning I’m presenting about the need for policies and how we integrate Anishinaabe values into our policy frameworks, which will provide people processes where they can see their own values reflected in a policy framework which is applied consistently, fairly, reduces arbitrariness, [and] gives people a way to know what they expect. We are having a lot of feedback from people who this is really resonating with, the need to develop more policies that reflect our own value system.”

Landry, a Life Skills Coach through Red Echo Associates, University Instructor, Freelance Writer, and Author of Rez Kid who lives in Poundmaker Cree Nation, says she shared some of the tools they have built around healing for families, communities, and nations.

“A lot of the work that we focus on is disrupting the toxicities that colonialism has attempted to embed within our families, communities, and nations,” Landry says. “So, we were looking at tools, mechanisms, and our behaviours in disrupting that and how can we break cycles from the lens of practical tools to put into action right away.”

Landry says she also did a presentation on epigenetics during the conference.

“It really looks at diving into the traumas and the stressors that have been passed down inter-generationally and what can we do today as a collective to disrupt that, to lead to more regulation and problem solving within our family systems versus what we’re seeing a lot in relation to our communities with the high stress and the challenges around even poverty, housing crises, and getting our basic needs met,” Landry says. “So, it’s like looking at the issues and the challenges, looking at how those stresses have been passed down inter-generationally and what can we do today to disrupt that right in the moment when the stresses begin to happen.”

Biigtigong Nishnaabeg’s Donald Michano, a Knowledge Keeper who supported the conference, says there was a lot of interaction during the conference.

“There was a lot of people talking about some of the needs within our First Nation communities to explore process and creating policies,” Michano says. “The understanding of who we are is important, the need to go back to your roots to live your life in a good way, to be humble, and just to be as unique and individual as you are, to be you. [Landry] talked a lot about healing, talked a lot about an understanding of our old ways, talked a lot about the understanding of who we are, how to raise our kids, and in general just living in a good way.”