
Dr. Wanda Phillips-Beck Hollow Water First Nation, Treaty 5 Territory, Manitoba, Canada
RN, PhD
First Nations Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba / University of Manitoba, Canada
Advancing Truth and Reconciliation in Nursing Education: A Framework for Indigenizing Curriculum and Addressing Anti-Indigenous Racism
Phillips-Beck, W., Negash, B.
15-minute oral presentation
Wednesday 11 December, 11:15am
Purpose: First Nations and Indigenous Peoples in Canada continue to experience systemic racism and significant barriers within colonial healthcare systems. This persists despite the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's (TRC) clear directives for change. TRC Calls to Action #23 and #24 specifically address the need to combat racism in healthcare and education. However, the implementation of these calls has been slow and inconsistent, particularly within institutions that train nursing professionals. Indigenous students often face considerable challenges in navigating Western-based programs and curricula, further exacerbating the inequalities in their educational experiences.
Methods: Using a rights-based and equity-informed lens, an Indigenous researcher led a comprehensive review of the literature to critically examine nursing programs in Canada regarding the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action. Combined with the authors 30+ years experiences in nursing practice, policy and research, we propose a guiding framework for nursing institutions to map or evaluate their progress toward the implementation of the TRC Calls to Action. We center Indigenous values, knowledge, protocols, and context to inform the findings through the formation of meaningful partnerships with Indigenous Knowledge Keepers and university-based academics. This ensured we utilized robust methods to synthesize the data while prioritizing community needs, insights, and aspirations.
Results: Building on a previous scoping review examining what methods and strategies Canadian Schools of Nursing in Canada to educate nursing students about Indigenous people, the review period included publications from the years 2015-2023 from nursing and other health related professions. We included salient publications beyond Canada and identified 22 papers and 3 documents from the grey literature to inform the development of the framework. Key elements of the framework include the following themes: 1. Accountability: individual, organizational 2. Connecting: relational factors/building relationships 2. Transformation: structural and system level factors. Interestingly, these categories all together spell out: ACT.
Conclusion: We underscore the transformative potential of the nursing profession and schools of nursing to self-monitor their progress toward reconciliation as a powerful mechanism to invoke individual and system level transformation toward addressing racism in our health and educational systems.