Volume 13, Number 3, 2022

EN:

Effective early childhood development interventions require a thorough understanding parental roles in supporting their infants’ health. Yet, the role of Indigenous fathers is not well illustrated within the literature. This scoping study synthesizes the roles that Indigenous fathers have in promoting the health and development of their infants, using an international perspective. Findings support future research to develop effective early childhood parenting interventions that address the unique needs of Indigenous fathers.

Methods

Scoping methodology was undertaken with inclusion criteria stipulating infants less than two years of age, and describing the role of Indigenous fathers (or father figures) in meeting the health and/or developmental needs of their infants. Descriptive and pattern coding were used during data extraction and synthesis. Collaboration with Indigenous community partners, including First Nations fathers, promoted ethical research conduct and findings framed within Indigenous ways of knowing.

Results

Findings highlight a journey to becoming a father, beginning with assuming a new identity as a father, establishing their fathering role, and supporting one another throughout the journey. This process has significant implications for a child’s development and wellbeing and related health policy.

Conclusions

This review synthesizes the experiences of Indigenous fathers across the globe, and while the journey is not fully understood, these initial findings are helpful to support future research and health policy. It is in the best interests of children if men are proactively supported in their transition to fatherhood as early as possible to promote a positive impact on their children’s development and future wellbeing.

EN:

In 2014, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) senior administration established reforms to the Open Suite of Programs and Peer Review processes (OSP), implementing changes that it claimed would improve its funding and peer review structures. The purpose of the research reported in this paper was to investigate how CIHR reforms to the OSP were poised to negatively affect Indigenous health research. We found that the reforms were guided by a governmental and institutional trajectory of methodological conservatism that (a) privileged commercial research over projects that focus on social determinants of health and community relations, and (b) created a peer review system re-designed in ways that reduce inclusiveness. Interventions by the CIHR Institute of Indigenous Peoples Health' Advisory Board and an ad-hoc Indigenous Health Research Steering Committee (kahwa:tsire) were urgently organized and mobilized to reverse the CIHR decisions that were being made under the guise of so-called 'consultation.’

EN:

Collaborative water governance in Indigenous territories requires the building of a nation-to-nation relationship where different water worldviews and knowledges are acknowledged, valued, and included in water governance. This article presents the Mistawasis Nêhiyawak Honour the Water Governance Framework, an alternative collaborative water governance approach in Saskatchewan, Canada. The Nêhiyawak principles, identity, knowledge, and self-determination are its foundation. Equitable dialogue is the central axis. The framework represents an alternative water governance structure to the current Canadian system that may more effectively respond to the water challenges of this First Nation. This framework supports the appeal from Mistawasis First Nation and other Nations, for the de-construction of hegemonic colonial water governance systems towards the co-construction of shared processes of water participation, decision-making, and responsibility.

EN:

This article identifies five predominant approaches to Indigenizing the curriculum occurring within Canadian universities today. Examining these approaches in relation to theories of change articulated by Gaudry and Lorenz (2018) and Stein (2020), the article considers the possibilities and limits of each approach as well as the degree to which they challenge the colonial and Eurocentric edifices of Canadian universities. While many of the current approaches to curricular change involve minor reforms that focus on individual transformation rather than substantive structural shifts, the authors also identify promising initiatives that push toward greater Indigenous intellectual sovereignty and institutional autonomy. The article concludes by calling on academic institutions to better center Indigenous Peoples, lands and knowledges in curricular change, and more specifically, to embrace structural revision that ensures Indigenous leadership and autonomy.

EN:

Integration of cultural knowledges and healing practices with Western medical approaches to alcohol care has been reported for residential and community settings. However, there is little evidence on how culture features in alcohol care in primary health settings. We analysed data from semi-structured interviews (from a broader study) with 17 First Nations Australian staff (n=8 men, n=9 women) from 11 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Health Services. We used grounded theory and the 8-ways Aboriginal pedagogy in analysis. We describe three key themes: 1) interpersonal processes; 2) a both-ways approach to healing and alcohol care; and 3) service-wide strategies to achieving both-ways healing. We discuss policy implications of facilitating bicultural alcohol care in primary health settings.

EN:

The Green Energy and Green Economy Act was quickly passed in 2009. Due to the breadth of the Act, it should have received a rigorous legislative review-and-consultation process, but did not due to green-labeling. Ontario did not meet their ethical fiduciary responsibility to consult with Indigenous peoples. With the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, 2020, there were no public hearings even though changes to the Environmental Assessment Act would allow for the exemption or streamlining of projects from the process. If a project was exempted, there would be no environmental assessment, and no legal fiduciary responsibility to consult with Indigenous peoples; the legal duty to consult would not be triggered even though Indigenous peoples would potentially be impacted. Rather than noting an improvement in the legislative consultative process since 2009, there has been a regression.

EN:

Analysis of policies relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples could help improve health outcomes—a critical challenge in Australia. While there are many health policy analysis frameworks, we did not find one which supported decolonising approaches across stages of the policy cycle. Generic frameworks were not based on decolonising approaches, and so risk perpetuating structural inequalities underpinning health disparities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specific frameworks articulated ways of working rather than addressing policy stages. We devised a new policy analysis framework by drawing upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specific and other policy analysis frameworks. The new framework can help critically analyse existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health policy and guide future policy making.