ANTI-OPPRESSIVE PRACTICE

INDIGENOUS EPISTIMOLOGY

• "Sacred teachings", "A way of life".
• Our ways of knowing and being, our governing structures, our culture, our tradition, our language, our sacred bathing holes, hunting, fishing and gathering rights, our family, our community and our relationship with Mother Earth and Father Sky (Strega, Esquao, 2009).
• Inwardness/ inner-space conciousness -- Aboriginal epistemology is grounded in the self, the spirit, the unknown (Ermine, 1995).
• Learning, education, self-awareness & holism.
• We are relational people (Wilson, 2008).

ANTI-OPPRESSIVE PRACTICE

• To understand the break up of communities & families, & destruction of nationhood; the sense of powerlessness & the legacy handed down to the colonized people.
• Strong sense of self and role you play in relationship.
• Intimate understanding of Colonial history of Canada & linking it to the present & the future.
• Understanding the impacts policies have had & continue to have on indigenous children and families.
• We cannot decide when or when not to practice in a good way; it must be about living -- anti-oppressive living (Strega, Esquao, 2009).

BECOMING AN ALLY/ WALKING THIS PATH TOGETHER

• Sense of connection with all other people.
• Their grasp of the concepts of social structures & collective responsibility.
• Their grasp of power-with opposed to power-over.
• Honesty, openness, lack of shame about own limitations.
• Actions against oppression.
• Knowledge of own roots (Bishop, 2002).

BECOMING AN ALLY

• We can either perpetuate a society based on competition, where some win and some lose, or we can work toward a society based on cooperation, where winning and losing become irrelevant (Bishop, 2002).

HEALTH & WELLNESS

• Our health and wellness is based on balance. Balance of self (example: practicing the medicine wheel). Spiritual, emotional, physical & mental aspects of health.
• Our health and wellness (healing) is grounded in our connection to the land, education and regaining and practice of our cultures.

PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY/ STRENGTHS

• The client has resourcefulness and capacity to resolving life's problems.
• Emphasizes the clients resources for becoming self-aware and resolving blocks to personal growth.
• The client is central to the therapy.
• By participating in the therapeutic relationship, clients' self-healing capacities are activated and they become empowered. Clients actualize their potential for growth, wholeness, spontaneity, and inner-directedness (Corey, 2009).

STRENGTHS CONT

• Creation of a climate of safety & trust.
• Maximizes active listening & hearing, empathetic understanding, presence, reflection of feelings, & clarification.
• Multicultural perspective: counsellors convey a deep respect for all forms of diversity; they value understanding the clients phenomenological world in an interested, accepting, and open way (Corey, 2009).

Limitations & CHALLENGES

• The core conditions are more centred in the therapists attitudes & values, rather than their skills.
• With this attitude or way of being, mere application of skills is not likely to be effective.
• The approach has limited use with nonverbal clients (Corey, 2009).

SUMMARY

• Indigenous epistemology vs. Western ideology.
• Importance of anti-oppressive practice/walking this path together.
• Indigenous health & wellness.
• Person-centred therapy strengths & challenges.
• What we know about working with indigenous peoples.

QUESTION?

QUESTION?