Gathering Our Medicine
OUR APPROACH
A Relational-Emotional
Ethical Approach
Gathering Our Medicine is a relational-emotional ethical approach to caregiving that facilitates a return to our indigenous communities and ancestral place-based knowledge systems.
WE BELIEVE …
Traditional healing practices are distinct and culturally specific to the people who are practicing them, and look to the family, community, and ecology as being most naturally equipped to provide care in the context of relationship.
RELATIONSHIPS | COMMUNITY | LAND | FAMILY
- Kinship circles have access to innate ancestral ways of knowing and being that simply needs to be remembered
- Relationships include the human and more than human-world providing a sense of togetherness and continuity that transcends death
- Our indigenous communities and knowledge systems are most naturally equipped to provide what our youth need to flourish and we are committed to supporting this important work
- Becoming a parent is a sacred Rite of Passage for which preparation and support has traditionally been provided for throughout the life cycle
- A kinship circle’s role is to provide the conditions necessary for the child’s true spirit to emerge spontaneously
- Youth thrive when their kinship circle welcomes all kinds of expression through the rituals that make up the youth’s culture
- Development unfolds in stages not dictated by age but by readiness on the part of the youth. Each of these stages must be led by the kinship circle until the youth is fully developed
- When a youth is struggling, we look to the kinship circle, the land, the animals and the ancestors as the best, most natural medicine
Our families and communities today are bombarded with fragmented information, contrasting views and a myriad of approaches regarding children and development that can feel overwhelming and disempowering. The majority of professionals serving Indigenous families, whether they are educators, mental health workers, or other helping professionals have been trained in predominantly Western world views where behavioural and medical approaches underpin and guide their practice. These approaches, while useful in some cases, focus on measuring and treating symptoms and fixing problems.
Root causes of developmentally and emotionally rooted problems where the solution may lie within the kinship circle’s sphere of influence in their relationship to the child can easily be overlooked. These approaches also fail to include a child’s spiritual and cultural development in the context of being an Indigenous person living in a community with a long lineage of sacred teachings and life ways.
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Have questions? We invite you to send us a message to learn more about Gathering our Medicine: