empower
2025-2026 Grant Recipients
Completed
Walking Together: Indigenous Teachings for Family Physicians in Foundry Centres across British Columbia: Unceded traditional territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations (Vancouver, BC)
This project hosted a half-day Indigenous led gathering in Vancouver, bringing together family physicians and primary care providers from Foundry Centres, including those from rural and remote centres. Across BC, Foundry Centres provide integrated services for young people aged 12-24 and their families. Family physicians are central to these services, yet many seek deeper understanding of Indigenous perspectives to better support Indigenous young people and families. The planned gathering included a ceremony, circle dialogue and a medicine walk, all guided by Elders, Knowledge Keepers, Indigenous youth and an Indigenous physician. This event strengthened physician capacity for culturally safe, youth-centered care in a primary care setting, offered physicians with practical guidance for supporting Indigenous youth using an integrated Western and Indigenous approach, offering experiential learning and build relationships with Indigenous Elders, Knowledge Keepers, youth and physicians. This relational and experiential approach allowed participants to engage directly with Indigenous community members and learn through shared experience rather than solely through classroom-based education.
Revitalizing Connection of Urban Indigenous and Western Healthcare Clinic to Land-based Healing Practices and Traditional Medicine Teachings: Unceded traditional territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations (Vancouver, BC)
This project established a food sovereignty and traditional medicine garden at the Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society Clinic, an Indigenous-run primary care clinic serving Vancouver and the Downtown Eastside. In reciprocal partnership with xʷc̓ic̓əsəm (meaning ‘the place where we grow’ in hən̓ q̓ əmin̓ əm) at UBC (on the traditional, unceded territory of the Musqueam), Lu'ma Medical Clinic, and Hawk's Garden, clinic staff received teachings, seeds, and gardening expertise. Through a summer harvest, the team learned how to integrate and prioritize traditional medicines in the holistic care including attention to the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health of patients they serve and Indigenous patients appreciated having access to traditional medicines in the clinic. The garden provided more than 200 pounds of food to the community, and relationships built through the partnership led to two new hires, a cultural worker and a housing worker.
Walking Alongside: Unceded traditional territory of the Quw'utsun' people (Duncan, BC)
This project developed culturally safe, visually based end-of-life resources for Indigenous patients and families on the traditional, unceded territory of the Quw'utsun First Nations. Many First Nations patients in the community were dying in hospital, away from their families and communities, and few were supported to die at home. Existing resources for families caring for a dying loved one are built from a colonial lens and are not accessible. Drawing inspiration from visual resources developed in Australia to support Indigenous peoples to die "on country," the team consulted with Elders, Indigenous nurses, and counsellors at the Quw'utsun and Stz'uminus Elders' Centres. Those consulted agreed that visual resources help caregivers support their loved ones at home and also identified a need for dying patients to express their own physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, including the rituals and ceremonies that hold sacred space at the end of life. Two resources were co-developed with an Indigenous Elder, nurses, and counsellors. One, to allow a patient to identify their own physical, emotional and spiritual needs to help them feel safe in this vulnerable time. The other, a visual based resource which helps caregivers care for their loved ones at the end of their life.
Healing Our Spaces, Honouring Our Stories: Unceded traditional territory of the Haíɫzaqv People of the Heiltsuk Territory (Bella Bella, BC)
This project aimed to create a healthcare environment at ƛ̓uxválásu̓ilas Heiltsuk Hospital and Bella Bella Medical Clinic that more visibly reflects Heiltsuk identity, culture, language, and belonging, on the unceded territory of the Haíɫzaqv People of the Heiltsuk. The project began with relationship-building and conversations with community members and healthcare leadership about how cultural safety could be reflected in the physical environment. The project also respected local cultural practices by allowing the pace and timing of activities to be guided by community needs, including pausing consultation during periods of grief. A Heiltsuk artist was commissioned to create carvings for a public space in the hospital, potentially traditional masks representing health and wellness and/or totem poles. The project served to strengthen relationships, opened important conversations about cultural safety and belonging, and highlighted that creating culturally safe spaces requires time and that the work of cultural safety is relational - an ongoing process, that is non-linear, with success depending on community influence over both what happens and when.
In Progress
“Seeing Ourselves Well”: Honouring Tsleil-Waututh Cultural Knowledge & Ways of Knowing (hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ title to be added with Elder/Knowledge-Keeper guidance): Unceded traditional territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations (Vancouver, BC)
This project aims to create culturally grounded educational and visual materials that honour Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s thousands-of-years-long presence on these lands and bridge medical and traditional understandings of health and healing. Materials will be created through engagement with Tsleil-Waututh Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and the Language & Culture Department. This will include: a bilingual (English + hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓) “Seeing Ourselves well” booklet which will link common medical conditions to Tsleil-Waututh teaches on health and wellness, design and installation of a permanent visual display within the clinic, facilitation of circles guided by Elders and Knowledge Keepers to gather teachings, language and permissions rooted in community storytelling and lastly, a reflection tool for clinicians to embody Two-Eyed Seeing in daily practice. By pairing land-based imagery and traditional language with medical concepts, “Seeing Ourselves Well” intends to respect, recognition, and balance between clinical practice and Tsleil-Waututh teachings and culture.
Learning in Good Relation: Building Cultural Safety and the Good Relations Care Pathway at REACH: Unceded traditional territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations (Vancouver, BC)
This project aims to strengthen trust, cultural safety and healing relationships between Indigenous patients, physicians and the wider care team and REACH Community Health Centre through collective reflection, leaning and relationship-building. It will establish an ongoing Community of Practice (CoP), Learning in Good Relation, that provides physicians and staff with a structured, relational space to reflect on Indigenous-specific racism, colonial impacts on health, and culturally safe approaches to care and will be co-led by the REACH Indigenous Health Promoter and a staff ally. It will strengthen relationships through co-designing of the learning process by partnering with Elders, Knowledge Keepers, Indigenous leaders from Britannia Community Centre’s Indigenous Programs and Indigenous patients from the community. Through consultation with Indigenous patients, their health care team and the REACH Indigenous Health Promoter, there will be creation and implementation of the Good Relations Care Pathway which will centre cultural and relational safety, and strengthen engagement, trust, and dignity in care. Teachings, reflections and co-created resources will help to develop a facilitation toolkit which will sustain the CoP and support replication by other CHCs or teams. The impact of this project will be evaluated through pre/post surveys with participant physicians and staff, and reflections from Indigenous partners and patients will be gathered so that they can be shared with BCCFP and other community health partners.
Alert Bay (‘Yalis) Elders Fitness Pilot: unceded traditional territory of the ‘Namgis First Nation (Alert Bay, BC)
This project will create a safe and accessible exercise space with the primary goal of improving elders' mobility and supporting diabetes management in a manner that is culturally safe, community-driven, and holistic. This will create new ways of being and working with Indigenous patients in community, with the hope that it will create a tighter circle of care with and for patients. This pilot project aims to address the healthcare system's limitation in how to deliver high-quality care for Indigenous patients by being an example of how healthcare providers can adapt so that Indigenous patients can experience a new way their medical team can provide them with the support they need for their medical conditions.