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Because your voice matters.

Patient Speaker, First Nations Residential School Survivor – Coast Mountain College

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Open to Northern Region, Patient partners in the Northern region

Last updated

You have a story to tell. Your story can help create understanding of the impact of residential schools on you, and your family’s health and well-being. Coast Mountain College is asking you to help shape the future of nursing towards compassionate, culturally sensitive care by sharing your story with nursing students at the Terrace Campus.

Open to: Patient partners in the Northern region

Lead Organization or Department

Nursing Faculty, Coast Mountain College Terrace Campus

Aim

To provide nursing students with an understanding of how the residential school system has impacted the health and well-being of not only those who survived residential school but, also, how this lived experienced impacts their families and future generations. Telling of a patient’s own experience and story will help the students to better understand how past traumas have impacted the survivor and their families, how nurses can be more culturally sensitive and provide nursing care that is culturally safe, and to apply this knowledge to their future nursing practice when working with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

Level of Engagement

This opportunity is at the level of consult on the spectrum of engagement. The promise to you is that the health care partner will listen to and acknowledge your ideas and concerns, and provide feedback on how your input affected the decision.

Eligibility

A patient or a family member of someone who has attended First Nations Residential School Comfortable sharing your story Patients should have previously attended a PVN orientation session.  If you have not attended an orientation but are interested please contact Cathy Almost directly to see if accommodations may be possible.

Logistics

Vacancies: 1-2 patient speakers Mondays, class is scheduled from 9 a.m. to noon. Some flexibility with date and time. Speaking for approximately 30-45 minutes. (Please consider bringing a support person or family member with you) Coast Mountain College, Terrace Campus

Reimbursement

Preapproved mileage will be reimbursed. Lunch provided.

Background

We are attempting to help the students make a connection between the historical traumas experienced by Indigenous Peoples and how this has contributed to some of the poorer health outcomes they may experience. The class is made up of 22 second-year nursing students currently taking an introductory course on First Nations Health. Potential risks may result from the sensitive nature of this discussion and the potential for it to trigger past memories related to the initial trauma(s).

Health Care Partner Contact Information

Cathy Almost
Engagement Leader, Patient and Public Engagement | Northern BC
250.615.9932
calmost@bcpsqc.ca

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