restoring balance through cultural safety & the medicine wheel wnrcasn

WNRCASN

Feb 19-21, 2014

Winnipeg, MB

RESTORING BALANCE THROUGH CULTURAL SAFETY &THE MEDICINE WHEEL

To describe concepts related to the Medicine Wheel

To broaden the understanding of Cultural Safety from an Aboriginal perspective

To identify the unique challenges faced by Aboriginal peoples and the need for a balanced approach

Objectives

My perspective is that each of these four parts can be treated as its own body.

Each requires its own form of sustenance and exercise to be healthy

PHYSICAL MENTAL EMOTIONAL SPIRITUAL

DO WE PROVIDE HEALTH CARE OR SIMPLY TREAT DISEASES?

• Each area of the medicine wheel needs to be balanced for wholistic health for the client, where the client is the person, family, group, or community.

• Indigenous teachings support addressing all areas of the person to achieve balance.

• Imbalance creates illness

“We are like trees. Our roots are put down very deep. And we take things from the four directions and we take them into our lives. And if you pull us up by the roots, we are lost. We have to go back and find those roots, find those beginnings that are strong so that we can live a good life”.

Elder Betty McKenna, 2005.

• Cultural safety stresses the importance of reflection & acceptance of differences.

• We should not treat everyone the same.

• We do need to recognize and acknowledge our blind spots.

MEDICINE WHEEL

http://walkashamanspath.com/

MEDICINE WHEEL

http://walkashamanspath.com/

EAST

SOUTH

WEST

NORTH

SEVEN DIRECTIONS!

• East• South• West• North• Life Above the Earth• Life Below the Earth• Life on the Earth (and within ourselves)

THE CIRCLE

The Circle lies at the centre of First Nation's spirituality.

CULTURAL COMPETENCE

• Cultural Awareness

• Cultural Sensitivity

• Cultural Competence

• Cultural Humility

• Cultural Safety

• respect

An environment that is safe for people; where there is no assault, challenge or denial of their identity, of who they are and what they need. It is about shared respect, shared meaning, shared knowledge and experience, of learning, living and working together with dignity and truly listening.

(Health Q. F., 2012)

Cultural Safety

CULTURE IS A WORLD VIEW

• North American culture sees health as an individual problem, but we live in dynamic, intercultural communities.

• Culture can be a barrier to caring for our clients.

• We learn about disease models of health

• We need to focus on wellness and resilience models of health

• Health is multifaceted with issues related to mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical health.

IMBALANCE CREATES ILLNESS

Holistic approach to address issues and factors that impact illness targeting not just the disease, but also the social determinants of health and economic circumstances.

It is recognized that the whole family (broadly defined) is as impacted by disease and needs healing just as the individual who is ‘sick’ requires care, treatment and support.

• Do not look at health issues as a single category• Our clients/students are culturally diverse

Diversity is a factor in care

NURSES NEED TO ACCEPT & SUPPORT CLIENT DECISIONS

Aboriginal people can “either go the traditional route, the contemporary medicine route, or a combination of both.” Healthcare providers should support those choices.• Clients who attend traditional ceremonies and events like talking

circles, sweats, dances, etc, experience a gradual “healing” due to social support and cultural connections (“belonging”) and spiritual teachings (“moments of peace”)

IT IS IMPORTANT TO PROVIDE CHOICESDevelop processes of identifying priorities and ho work with your clients to make choices accordingly

“Culturally competent” health care providers inform, encourage and support choices – including access to and use of traditional wellness practices

Teach what you practice

Greg Riehl RN BScN MA

Aboriginal Nursing Student Advisor

Aboriginal Nursing Student Achievement Program

SIAST

Wascana Campus

Email: greg.riehl@siast.sk.ca

Email: gregriehl@sasktel.net

@griehl

CONTACT INFORMATION

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