Tag Archives: #indigenoussuccess #academics

M2 P5: BC Pre-health program for Indigenous student success

A large part of the reason for my research question is not only that more competent health professionals are required who understand Indigenous culture and how this contributes to well being in Indigenous communities, but also that there is a shortage of skilled health professionals on reserves and remote or rural Indigenous communities.
I’ve been involved in pre-health programs at BCIT – the polytechnic institute partnered with Burnaby School Board to provide a specialized program for grade 12 students interested in health sciences careers to attend a year long course at BCIT to not only gain exposure to education in their career interests, but also to ease the transition from high school into a professional program at the college level. A program like this, geared specifically for Indigenous students, would help remove barriers for Indigenous students and promote success. This article discusses just such a program as a partnership between the Secwepemc Cultural and Education Society, the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council and the University College of the Cariboo, who developed an Aboriginal pre-health program.

This article is from 2001, so part of my research for the final project will be to discover whether this program is still running and any other details I can find on it.

Holmes, V. (2001). Southcentral British Columbia Secwepemc cultural education society aboriginal pre-health education program. The Aboriginal Nurse, 16(1), 22. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/southcentral-birtish-columbia-secwepemc-cultural/docview/234988180/se-2?accountid=14656

M1 P4: Indigenous nursing students

I think it is important to have indigenous perspectives in curriculum development, so these can be incorporated early on in program development and support indigenous student success.

I was not aware that there is a First Nations University in Sask. that offers a wide range of programs for indigenous students. This would be a good place for me to look at for admission requirements and how there might be differences in program requirements and supports to help indigenous students access these programs.

https://www.fnuniv.ca/

These are some articles I was able to find to start examining this research topic of increasing access & removing barriers to indigenous students in nursing programs.

Janki Shankar, Eugene Ip & Nene Ernest Khalema (2020) Addressing academic aspirations, challenges, and barriers of indigenous and immigrant students in a postsecondary education setting, Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 29:5, 396- 420, DOI: 10.1080/15313204.2017.1409675

Curran, V. , Solberg, S. , LeFort, S. , Fleet, L. & Hollett, A. (2008). A Responsive Evaluation of an Aboriginal Nursing Education Access Program. Nurse Educator, 33(1), 13-17. doi:10.1097/01.NNE.0000299496.23119.68.

Anonson, J. M., Desjarlais, J., Nixon, J., Whiteman, L., & Bird, A. (2008). Strategies to support recruitment and retention of first nations youth in baccalaureate nursing programs in Saskatchewan, Canada. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 19(3), 274- 283. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043659608317095

Martin, D., & Seguire, M. (2013). Creating a path for indigenous student success in baccalaureate nursing education. The Journal of Nursing Education, 52(4), 205-209. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20130314-01

M.1-P.2 Burnaby School District Aboriginal Enhancement Agreement- Stronger Together

M.1 – P.2

Aboriginal Enhancement Agreement

This course has brought me back to the Stronger Together Enhancement Agreement that has been an ongoing and updated agreement created by the district and Indigenous communities within Burnaby.

https://burnabyschools.ca/indigenouseducation/wpcontent/uploads/sites/4/2017/01/AborignalAgreement2014_FINAL_low_res.pdf

This document led to the creation of the position I now hold as Indigenous Success Teacher. The overall goal is to provide our students with cultural development, social emotional development, and a focus on academic success.

The idea is that with these three components, students will be able to “walk confidently and competently in the modern, urbanized world in which Burnaby is situated” (Stronger Together, 2019). The second agreement, Stronger Together, is up for renewal as the 5 year timeline is up. I began thinking, what could be added or changed now that I have been in the role? If you look under the academic goal, the district monitored the core skills of early literacy and numeracy, the indicator for this would be performance standards. Academic success can include other indicators beside literacy and numeracy and I believe should connect curricular goals and course content, include case studies of groups of learners, and measure ‘academic success’ with the consultation and guide of an Indigenous framework, one that connects to the Principles of Learning. OR some other scale? Questions…

Above is a photo of Burnaby North’s Youth and Family coworker, Lorelei Lyons, and Mandy Alves (me, lol) at dinner party for our Grads.