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This article describes the work undertaken by participants in a virtual community, who came together online over a 15-month period to improve supports for First Nations, Métis and Inuit women with substance use problems at risk of having a child affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The project exemplifies a collaborative process, inclusive of people from various geographical locations, cultures and professional sectors, affording participants the opportunity to weave together research, practice wisdom, policy expertise, and Indigenous Knowledge(s) in a voluntary, nonhierarchical context. Such virtual processes have the potential to support the development of nuanced recommendations reflective of the complexities of FASD prevention in Indigenous contexts taking into account multiple influences on women’s substance use, and a continuum of treatment responses. The article includes participants’ recommendations for improving Canada’s substance use system of care to address the treatment and support needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit women.

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Poor outcomes associated with youth aging out of care are well documented. In recent years creative permanency planning projects have been heralded as promising alternatives to transition to adulthood programs with the aim of addressing this concern. In order to make permanency possible for youth the concept must be defined in a way that reflects the needs of those within this developmental stage. Researchers and youth have collaborated to create such definitions. However, few have considered a cultural element and none speak to specific populations, such as Aboriginal youth. There are significant differences between Western and Aboriginal worldviews, which, in turn, influence the permanency, need for children and youth. In Alberta, Canada, Aboriginal children and youth are vastly overrepresented in out-of-home care. Addressing the needs of Aboriginal youth in a culturally appropriate manner is critical. Cultural considerations include ideals of collectivism versus individualism, identity formation, and community healing. Yet, there is a deficit of literature related to the specific permanency needs of Aboriginal youth in out-of-home care. The Ecological theory informed by the Anishinabe medicine wheel framework provides a structure from which to discuss permanency planning for this population group. Further research exploring the views of Aboriginal youth in care on permanency and the utility of these models on this population is necessary.

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Statistically, Aboriginal peoples in Canada are over represented in prisons throughout the country (Hayman, 2006; Perreault, 2009; Rymhs, 2008; Waldram, 1997). While representatives from the Canadian government recognize that the Aboriginal incarceration rates are an issue (CBC, 2013; Perreault, 2009), they have failed to find a solution. A link has been found to demonstrate how an erosion of Aboriginal culture through the legacy of residential schools has contributed to the current inflated Aboriginal incarceration statistics (Waldram, 1997). As such, cultural healing in prisons may be a crucial factor to Aboriginal inmates’ rehabilitation. Cultural healing can be implemented in prisons by: providing inmates with access to Elders, allowing Elders to perform ceremonies, providing inmates with access to sacred medicines, and increasing the number of healing lodges and sacred circles.

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Relying on an Indigenous methodology and the methods of a literature analysis, personal experience, and critical introspection this article addresses Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada’s 1985 unstated paternity policy in regard to the Indian status provisions of the Indian Act. Through Canada’s unstated paternity policy, with its inherent assumption where the Registrar of Aboriginal Affairs interprets all applicants’ birth certificates that lack a father’s signature as being a non-Indian man, many Indigenous women and their children continue to be denied the right to live free from sex discrimination. Disturbingly, this unstated paternity policy applies in situations of sexual violence such as incest, rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, and prostitution where young mothers of Indigenous Nations are particularly vulnerable. Thus, despite Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the two remedial legislations that took place in 1985 and 2011 purportedly to eliminate the sex discrimination in the Indian Act, in Canada’s continued need to eliminate treaty responsibilities to Indigenous nations, the nation state is directly targeting Indigenous babies. While policy remedies are discussed, the author also argues that despite the decades of advocacy and litigation work by Indigenous women, Canada has manipulated the remedial legislative process as an opportunity to create new forms of sex discrimination rather than eliminate it. In this way Canada acts in bad faith and in a way that is counter to the Charter.

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Aboriginal women across Canada have waited far too patiently for wrongs to be righted and senseless historic and contemporary pain to cease. Today, through narratives like this one, we are undertaking a heroic journey, a journey that begins with truth; in fact, it is a journey that begins with the laying down of seven profound Indigenous values, values that are stepping stones to an ancestral home some of us have never visited in our entire lives. This means the gathering up of a collective courage, a willingness to begin, to step out and into what we know to be true and waiting for release. So, this is my story, a story that begins like many others…once upon a time

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This narrative recounts four experiences of an Indigenous social work academic employed at a mainstream university in Canada. These experiences include: (1) valuing community-based practice and spiritual experiences prior to entering the academy; (2) learning in an Indigenous doctoral cohort; (3) using Indigenous knowledge during the hiring process into a tenure-track faculty position in a mainstream university; and, (4) including Indigenous knowledge to secure academic research grant applications, and to meet teaching, scholarly, and service expectations. Finally, this narrative identifies systemic academic issues from the perspectives of four other Indigenous and women academics of colour, and teachings that may assist new Indigenous faculty entering mainstream university employment.