One of our Indigenous Initiatives highlights is the Iiyika’kimaat Program. At a glance, they provide Indigenous youth ages 12 to 21 with cultural connection and encourage their physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing.

What makes this program what it is can be answered by Gabriel Taylor, who has worked as an Iiyika’kimaat programmer for over two years.

In Gabriel’s words, here are 5 things to know about our Iiyika’kimaat Program:

1. Their weekly programs are modeled after the Circle of Courage

“The Circle of Courage model by Dr. Martin Brokenleg concentrates on four pieces: generosity, mastery, independence, and belonging. Those are the pieces that we really focus on when we're trying to create our programming. Program runs four days a week, Monday through Thursday. On Mondays, we do sacred teachings. Tuesday is our life skills and education day. Wednesdays are wellness, and Thursdays are medicine wheel teachings.”

2. There’s a balance between traditional and western perspectives

“We support youth through creating a strong sense of cultural identity so that we don't lose that piece. We’ll go to ceremony together and bring in elders to do cultural teachings, but we also balance that out with what that looks like in the world that we walk in today and how as Indigenous people, we can incorporate these teachings into the society that we live in. That looks like teaching skills like communication styles and love languages, how to cook a meal, doing taxes, etc.”

3. Staff empower youth through voice and choice

“Voice and choice is ingrained in everything that we do. I have had a handful of kids that are quite high needs behaviorally, and they've just experienced an immense amount of trauma. They're often put into these situations where they aren't respected, so we see a lot of apprehension around opening up and showing emotion, particularly from the kids that are in group care.

But in our program, the way that we approach things is very much from a balanced perspective of asking them what they need. We’ll ask things like, ‘Tell me what you're feeling. Where are these feelings coming from? Let's talk about that. If you're not ready to talk about it that's okay. Why don't you go for a walk and have some water? Do you need a hug?’

And so we encourage and empower them to have that voice in what they need in that moment and to articulate themselves when they're ready to do so.

Our program leads very much from behind in that we are here to support and catch you if you fall, but you take those steps forward. If you need me to hold your hand and walk next to you for the first couple of steps, I'm more than willing to do that. But I'm going to take a step back at some point unless you do this on your own, because that's how you learn and grow.”

4. Youth have responsibility in the program (and they’re doing a pretty good job!)

“We've allowed our young people to take charge of program, and we expect a certain level of leadership from them. This is their program and if there are things they want to see happen, they need to create that space. We’ll support in that, but ultimately, the responsibility is theirs.

We had a young person come out to us the other day during our virtual call. This young person doesn't ever have his camera on and only types in the chat. Before staff could even respond, all of the kids in the program jumped on it and were like, ‘Thank you for coming out to us. Thanks for trusting us with that. That's so important that you feel safe here, and we're really happy that you were able to share that with us.’

And it was such a huge moment for our young people to support each other and uplift each other. Those moments happen all the time, and we're so lucky to be witness to that.

Oftentimes, there's a stereotype that teens are difficult to deal with. But our young people who come to program are such incredible human beings and have so much love and compassion for each other.”

5. Relationships come first

“One of the things that I love most about our program is how much of a family and community we are. Yes, we have activities. Yes, we have expectations. But at the end of the day, relationship, particularly with the Indigenous community, is the most important.

There are so many stories of abuse and toxicity and broken trust. But what we don't talk about is how interconnected we are and how we have this incredible ability to bring people in and make our family systems huge. How we used to function traditionally was very communal and support-based.

In our program, we do family dinner once a month where we encourage all of our kids to bring their families and friends. We provide a meal for everybody, and we’ll sit together and we'll do activities. During COVID, we dropped meals off at everybody's houses. Then, we’d all hop on Zoom and do family dinner that way.

It's been really nice for our families to come back together and just connect. For some kids in care, these dinners are the only time they have contact with some of their family. The excitement and the joy they feel is such a beautiful thing to watch.

It's just another way that we incorporate that familial piece into our programming because it's not just the young people that we're serving, but it's their entire family unit. When we create healthy relationships, we can then as a team support a young person better than they we could on own. When we come together as a community, we help each other up. We're just that much stronger.”

To learn more or join the Iiyika’kimaat Program, contact 403-620-4103 or check them out on Instagram @iiyikakimaatyouthgroup