Indigenous Perspectives:
Affirming an Ethic of Care by Responding Wholistically in Healthcare
October 6, 2017
NEW LOCATION: Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, 209 Victoria Street, Toronto, Room 240, 241
Responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s “Calls to Action,” the 2017 Centre for Clinical Ethics conference will explore ethical issues related to Indigenous healthcare needs through the lens of an Indigenous wholistic worldview. Our speakers work in a variety of Indigenous contexts. Addressing concrete issues directly relevant to front-line healthcare workers, they will explore the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual dimensions of health.
Program
| 8:00 a.m. | Registration and Refreshments |
| 8:45 a.m. | Opening Smudging Ceremony and Welcome |
| 9:15 a.m. | Health isn’t just about health: A wholistic perspective Kathleen Absolon, BA, MSW, PhD and Hilton King, BSW, MSW |
| 10:15 a.m. | Question and Answer Period |
| 10:30 a.m. | Refreshment Break |
| 10:45 a.m. | From Intention to Impact: Understanding and Addressing Barriers to Achieving Indigenous Social Value in Health Services Dr. Janet Smylie, MD, FCFP, MPH |
| 11:45 a.m. | Question and Answer Period |
| 12:00 p.m. | Lunch Break |
| 1:00 p.m. | Advocacy in Healthcare: Collaboration and Collision Teyohate Brant |
| 2:00 p.m. | Question and Answer Period |
| 2:15 p.m. | Refreshment Break |
| 2:30 p.m. | Indigenous Wholistic Healthcare: Exploring the Spiritual Dimension Banakonda Kennedy-Kish Bell |
| 3:30 p.m. | Question and Answer Period |
| 3:45 p.m. | Closing words and song with drums |
Presenters
Kathleen Absolon, BA, MSW, PhD
Anishinaabe kwe from Flying Post First Nation, who teaches in the Indigenous Field of Study in the Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University. Kathy has a background in therapy, community and wholistic healing practices and Indigenous wholistic thought at Wilfrid Laurier University.
Health isn’t just about health: A wholistic perspective
In this presentation Kathy and Hilton will provide an overview to Indigenous wholistic perspectives. They will share aspects of their knowledge bundle with participants while providing personal stories. Both Kathy and Hilton are survivors of the Indian Residential School and Child Welfare era’s and they both have stories of restoring and sustaining health through their cultural practices and knowledge. They hope to highlight reasons why having wholistic approaches, perspectives and lens to healthcare can help improve the continuum of care. They also hope to foster an understanding that leads to an appreciation of the role of Indigenous knowledge and wholistic approaches in providing health care.
Teyohate Brant
Teyohate is Mohawk from the community of Tyendinaga. As past chair of the SickKids Hospital Children’s council, she has been involved in advancing the perspectives of patients and Indigenous peoples within the healthcare system. She is also an avid canoeist, having traveled 1200 km from Stony Rapids, Saskatchewan to Baker Lake, Nunavut this past summer. Teyohate is currently pursuing a degree in Art and Health Science at St. Francis Xavier University and hopes to become a medical doctor.
Advocacy in Healthcare: Collaboration and Collision
Positive health outcomes correlate with the development of collaborative relationships between health care professionals, patients and their families. It is broadly recognized, however, that Indigenous people can face inequity within the health care system, resulting in poorer health outcomes than the general population. In these instances, collaboration is elusive. Examining specific and tragic instances of conflict in patient/health team relationships, I argue that, where Indigenous patients are concerned, collisions are not only common, but that they are often misdiagnosed and misunderstood. I explore why this is and what can be done to alter this unfortunate trajectory.
Banakonda Kennedy-Kish Bell
Elder-in-Residence with the Faculty of Social Work, Aboriginal Field of Study at Wilfrid Laurier University, is an Indigenous cultural advisor and Traditional Practitioner.
Wholistic Healthcare: An Indigenous Perspective of the Spiritual Aspect of and in Wholisim
Wholistic approaches to health, include beliefs about what health is, how it is seen and reached for, how that is within relationship with self, and other, family and community is essentially central to the perspective of the Spiritual. Spirit informs Behaviour, knowing, understanding, experience and expression. Spirit is believed to be a determining force in the Whole of one’s life. As such, affirming the ethics of care brings the Spiritual to the fore front.
Hilton King, BSW, MSW
Anishinaabe from Wasauksing First Nation, who also teaches Indigenous perspectives in social work, mental health and addictions. Hilton has a background working in Native mental health, addictions, justice and child welfare.
Health isn’t just about health: A wholistic perspective
In this presentation Kathy and Hilton will provide an overview to Indigenous wholistic perspectives. They will share aspects of their knowledge bundle with participants while providing personal stories. Both Kathy and Hilton are survivors of the Indian Residential School and Child Welfare era’s and they both have stories of restoring and sustaining health through their cultural practices and knowledge. They hope to highlight reasons why having wholistic approaches, perspectives and lens to healthcare can help improve the continuum of care. They also hope to foster an understanding that leads to an appreciation of the role of Indigenous knowledge and wholistic approaches in providing health care.
Janet Smylie, MD, FCFP, MPH
Dr. Janet Smylie, Co-Principle Investigator, is a family physician and public health researcher. She currently works as a research scientist at St. Michael’s hospital, Centre for Research on Inner City Health (CRICH), where she holds a CIHR Applied Public Health Research Chair in Indigenous Health Knowledge and Information and directs the Well Living House Applied Research Centre for Indigenous Infant, Child and Family Health. Her primary academic appointment is as an Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She maintains a part-time clinical practice at Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto. Her research interests are focused in the area of addressing the health inequities that challenge Indigenous infants, children and their families through applied health services research. Dr. Smylie is mother to six children and grandmother to two grandchildren. As a Métis woman, she acknowledges her family, traditional teachers, and ceremonial lodge.
From Intention to Impact: Understanding and Addressing Barriers to Achieving Indigenous Social Value in Health Services
In this presentation, Dr. Smylie will identify several key dilemmas that interfere with the provision of socially valuable health services in Indigenous communities. These include attitudinal and systemic racism; the external imposition of non-Indigenous health models and practices; and individual and collective reluctance to engage in the transformative change required by the TRC. Examples of how these dilemmas can be overcome will be discussed. Participants will be challenged to identify follow-up actions at the individual and systems level.
Registration Information
Registration Fee:
(Includes Lunch and Refreshment Breaks)
Regular: early bird rate $150, regular rate $300
CCE Affiliates: early bird rate $75, regular rate $150
Senior/Student: early bird rate $75, regular rate $150
(Centre for Clinical Ethics Affiliates include: Providence Healthcare, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital, Pembroke Regional Hospital, Rouge Valley Health System, Runnymede Healthcare Centre, St. Joseph’s Health System Hamilton, Toronto Grace Health Centre, Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care and West Park Healthcare Centre)
To take advantage of the Early Bird rate please register by Thursday, September 28, 2017. After this date the fees will increase as noted above. Registration ends Wednesday, October 4, 2017.
For more information please contact:
Lynda Sullivan, Centre for Clinical Ethics
Telephone: (416) 530-6750
Fax: (416) 530-6621
E-mail: lsullivan@stjoestoronto.ca