*A recording of the webinar is available here.

Join us on Monday, February 24 from 9-10am PST for a knowledge exchange webinar “tSCI and Indigenous Populations: Using an Indigenous Lens.”

Drs. Melanie Jeffrey and Sandra Juutilainen’s mixed-methods pilot study “Indigenous populations and traumatic spinal cord injury: using an Indigenous lens to establish meaningful data” is guided by the epistemologies of Anishinaabe/Cree and Haudenosaunee peoples in Ontario: The Medicine Wheel and Two Row Wampum respectively. The medicine wheel has many teachings, but for our study, the wheel represents Indigenous perspectives of wholistic health: An equal balance of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. The philosophical principles of alliance building embedded in the Two Row Wampum inform how we rebuild trust and cooperation to re-establish healthy and productive research relationships.

Participants will learn how we take this approach as an exemplar for the design of a pilot-study bridging Indigenous epistemology to research to develop a strengths-based narrative about First Nations persons living with a TSCI, which could inform health care practices and policies.