Meagan has been a faculty member in Eyēʔ Sqȃ’lewen for five years, and she began our conversation by introducing herself. “I am a Mi’kmaq woman on my father’s side. He is M’ikmaq Acadian and Irish, and his family comes from the Eastern Woodland territories, which is now known as Nova Scotia, on the south shore: Acadia, Bear River, Digby and Yarmouth. My mom’s ancestors come from Norway Scotland Germany and England, and my family name is Saulnier. I was born in Treaty One territory in Winnipeg, and I’ve been out on Salish territory as a welcomed guest on and off for about 37 years, first in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and now in lək̓ ʷəŋən territory. I want to start off in a good way by acknowledging my gratitude and recognizing that me being here as a mixed Indigenous and settler woman comes at a cost to the lək̓ ʷəŋən people. I’m so grateful for my relationships that I’ve built and all of the teachings and graciousness from the people of these lands. I also introduce myself as a mother and introduce my daughter, Nakoa.”
Before coming to Camosun, Meagan worked as a counselor at an elementary school and at Surrounded by Cedar Child & Family Services as a cultural continuity worker. She began at Camosun by teaching Health 111, Indigenous people’s Health, then moved to Indigenous Education and Community Connections (IECC) teaching in the Indigenous Studies program. She also teaches with our community partner, W̱ SÁNEĆ College, formerly Saanich Adult Education Center, where she leads the Indigenous Community Wellness (ICW) Certificate program and the Indigenous Studies Diploma program.
I wanted to know more about the ICW program and what it means to Meagan to teach in relationships. “I love that I have had the privilege of teaching both non-Indigenous and Indigenous students. While how you present information is different, what I find rewarding is that I can help people gain more awareness about what has happened in the past and how they can walk in a good way and work in community moving forward. It’s not like teaching math; it’s big healing work, which can be tiring. But when I’m working with and teaching Indigenous students, I feel honored that I get to walk alongside them on their healing journey. I’ve been told by students that they feel comfortable and safe in my classroom, which is important to me, because we need to remember that educational spaces have been harmful and still can be harmful.”
Meagan shared with me some of the history behind the ICW program and the collaborative nature of its development. “Before the program became ICW, it was the Indigenous Family Support (IFS) Certificate, and before that, it was the Native Teachers Assistant program, which came from seeing and knowing that our kids need to be supported in schools. So, this program has always come from the community and what our communities and our children need. But we realized we needed more than child and family support – we needed community wellness on a larger scale. So, there was consultation with the local Indigenous communities and the urban Indigenous organizations that informed how this program, ICW, came to be. Feedback told us that the program needed Indigenous curriculum developers, Indigenous instructors, more land-based curriculum, and more knowledge keepers coming in. It also needed to provide more hands-on skill building because some students want to get a certificate and go into the workforce, so it was important to build in training around mental health first aid and non-violent crisis communication. And finally, we received feedback that when the curriculum included classes from other departments, like a psychology class, we should make those courses ours.”
What I found wonderful were the names of the courses in the program. “We have Sharing Voice, which is a communications course, Good Relations, which is about how we are good relatives to ourselves, to our family, to the community, to the four legs, and to the land and the resources around us. We have Sharing Hands, which is about how we give back to community and which leads into students’ capstone projects. We also have a class called Cultural Teachings which is about the journey to understanding our identity. This course is divided into three parts and runs through the whole year: the first part is about learning our protocols, the second is about doing, and the third is about applying and integrating.” And it is within this class that many of the land-based activities in the program take place. As the program supports Indigenous students to explore their identity, Meagan says it also looks at wellness from both a western and Indigenous lens. “It’s about empowering Indigenous people to have a voice and to articulate why we do what we do. For example, if you are working at an organization and a youth is struggling, you might suggest they get brushed off with cedar which is a wellness approach on the west coast. A teaching for when we are grieving is to leave it at the water so we can continue on with our day and not carry those heavy feelings – the western therapy term for this is ‘containment’. And smudging has been scientifically proven to reduce cortisol, thereby helping to relieve stress.”
And Meagan says another piece of feedback was around practicum work, which can ask a lot of students who are often being pulled in many different directions. “Because capstone is relational, respectful, relevant, and relational, and should honour our agencies and communities that are always called upon to contribute, for their capstones, students work for seven weeks, seven hours a week, with and giving back to a community agency or a local nation on a project. We also made the employment goals of the program more diverse meaning students can move into social services, the health communities, education, or they can go on into the Community, Family, and Child Studies (CFCS) Diploma program and then go on to UVic.”
The ICW program itself is currently for Indigenous students only, and within last year’s cohort there were students from age 18 to 61. “It’s incredible to have that intergenerational knowledge within the classroom, and with the cohort model, people become like a family and are supporting one another”. Students have commented to Meagan that they don’t need to provide their CAL accommodation to her because of the way she facilitates her classes. Classes always starts in circle and student work is assessed in multiple ways. “An important piece of this program is how we look at knowledge, wisdom, and assessment, and how we highlight all of our different gifts. Our courses include oral presentations, small group work because we are learning how to work with one another, and often a classroom activity where we host an event like an Elder’s tea.”
Meagan calls the ICW program a healing journey. “When we talk about community wellness in the program, we also talk about impacts on our own wellness, and each person will engage in a personal healing journey. So, I ask them what their support plan is, and whether they have Elders or counselors to make sure they have support.” Meagan also asks students what they are interested in as they begin the program. “Some students are passionate about advocating for and supporting Indigenous children, others about supporting elders, and some students don’t even know why they’re there, but then the program unfolds and transforms them, which is powerful. Students say that this program helped them to be better humans and to learn how to walk in the world, how to heal, how to support family and communities. It’s an important program for everyone, whether you’re going to be a wellness worker or not.”
I wondered what kinds of capstones students have engaged in through the ICW program. “There has been quite a range of projects, which I think shows how important our community connections are. One student worked with School District 61 Indigenous Education, helping with the Indigenous graduation ceremony. One student worked with the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness. Another student worked with QomQem Coastal Connections, which is led by a woman who received her certificate in IFS and offers harm reduction for Indigenous sex workers and street-entrenched and unhoused relatives, on their cultural nights where they bring in traditional food, have drumming, and hand out harm reduction kits. Another worked with their own nation, the Pauquachin Nation, working with children and planning their spring break and summer camps. A Métis woman worked on a project with Island Métis and Island Health, informing the health system on important things that they needed to hear around indigenous people in our health system. A student worked at Hulitan Family and Community Services Society, on their cultural preschool, Journeys of the Heart.” And one student worked at W̱ SÁNEĆ College and ended up getting employed there afterwards. “I really value the importance of being a student in community. Out at
W̱ SÁNEĆ College, they have a hot lunch program, and they have elders in residence, but while W̱ SÁNEĆ College students are also Camosun students, there is still a disconnect with being a Camosun student on campus. So, whenever I can, I bring together the IST and ICW students. This year, for example, we had a pit cook out at TIXEN which is a spot at Tsawout on the beach, and we collaborated to build relationships and highlight that you could also be a student at the college. I do this as well for the Indigenous College Preparation program students who can work with the ICW students, because there’s a lot of fear around education, or feelings of not being good enough or smart enough.” Meagan says, however, that there is still work to be done to connect these programs to the college as a whole. “There’s sometimes a disconnect, for example, when proving the validity and transferability of our courses to other programs and explaining the amount of work and knowledge they provide.” The on-the-land work students do alone, Meagan says, can be tied to “traditional” programs, for example to business and economics or to environmental science. We just need to think more outside of our traditional post-secondary boxes.
I was curious about those on-the-land activities that are so important in the ICW program. “Last year Indigenous stewards tasked with helping the salmon stock remain strong taught us how to fertilize salmon eggs, putting them under the sand like the salmon do. We then brought fish to a local community’s smokehouse, took turns over four days checking on the fish, then were able to gift it to Elders in the community. Another day we went down to a beach in Tsartlip where we learned all about clam digging and the local clams. We brought the clams back to W̱ SÁNEĆ College, cooked them on the beach, and brought our surplus back to feed the rest of the students at the college.” And of course they did the pit cook Meagan had already mentioned, but she added, “I have to say that while the pit cook at Camosun is incredible, it’s not a place for you if you’re an Indigenous person who’s disconnected, which many of us are. Sometimes we don’t know how to do certain things, and it’s important to provide a space for us to re-learn and reclaim. So having our own pit cook was something special.” Another land-based activity students participated in was paddling. “Camosun has a canoe, and we were able to take her out. Because many of the students are W̱ SÁNEĆ, they’re saltwater people, meaning paddling is an important part of their life and culture. We were taught how to take care of the canoe in collaboration with Indigenous Trades and Technology. We took the canoe out and we gave her a traditional bath and brushed her off. An instructor from Pipe Trades helped us tow the canoe out, so we invited him out on the canoe, and then one of the students gifted him an eagle feather. He was so deeply touched by it, he still talks about it to this day.” Meagan says this is really what its all about – about giving back and coming together. “Those teachable moments transcend, educate, and heal multiple people. That’s what our practices and ceremonies do. They also emphasize the importance of the land and how it can heal us all.”
As we came to the end of our conversation, Meagan told me that the ICW program is like a living entity, and they work to ensure the program continues to meet the needs of the community. “We constantly check-in with W̱ SÁNEĆ College and our other community partners to see if there are things that need to change, because they’re hosting us in their territory, and we want to do things in a good way. For example, we discovered that afternoon classes are hard for a lot of our students because they have children and family responsibilities. So, I changed the courses to morning courses meaning students can work a bit in the afternoons on whatever they need to get done and then go pick up their kids. And then we noticed that some of the courses are heavier, for example an indigenous social work course, so we put it in the middle of the week and ended the week with Cultural Teachings. There’s always room for growth and change to meet the needs of our students, which role-models exactly what we’re teaching: being responsive.”