Your project was cute

In Quebec, the majority of remote and northern Indigenous clients who need specialized medical treatment are flown to Montreal. The healthcare professionals at the receiving end in Montreal usually have one thought while treating the new client in front of them: “could have this been prevented?” The assumptions and countless discussions of what ‘needs’ to be done or what ‘should have been done’ to prevent the medical emergency has led to the development and implementation of multiple projects in the Indigenous communities. Often these projects fall through, or the lessons and experiences are not shared with the communities. 

The objective of this article in narrative format is to share the experiences and lessons learned of a skilled and specialized nurse with the best of intentions working on a Master of Public Health Practicum in a secluded northern Indigenous community, determined to make a positive difference.

Setting:  The project took place in a small, remote northern Indigenous community.

Intervention: An injury prevention program that encouraged children to wear helmets on off-highway vehicles to prevent severe head traumas. 

Outcomes: The real successes of this project from an academic standpoint had everything to do with coming to understand health priorities in, and building trusted relationships with, the Indigenous community, and in learning what value academic benchmarks do and do not have. A secondary success was for the community, as some children took ownership of the helmet project and won a national award in the process.

Implications: Despite my good intentions going in, the project idea was not a good fit for the community, it ignored community priorities and used an approach that was culturally unsafe. These are frequent complaints of Northern communities about the projects that well-intentioned researchers bring.  The paper discusses where a conventional Public Health approach succeeded, where it went wrong, and why a focus on relationship-building rather than problem-fixing is more appropriate. 

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Highlight: Indigenous community; cultural safety and competence; 

Canadian Journal of Public Health 

Submission to ‘Innovations in Policy and Practice’ “Your project was cute:” A Public Heath Grad Student Project in a Remote and Indigenous Community 

Acknowledgements: Paul Linton, Lucy Trapper, George Diamond, the CBHSSJB Research Committee , Debbie Friedman, Dr. Johanne Morel