Webinar description
This webinar will engage participants in anti-bias training using anticolonial arts-based learning tools available from the H.E.A.L. Healthcare website – HEALhealthcare.ca. H.E.A.L. Healthcare, a project completed in collaboration with the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health, was created in response to gaps identified in healthcare education. The website hosts over 30 individual curricula that address personal biases in healthcare, and were created by artists, Indigenous storytellers, and people with lived experience. In the webinar, the facilitators will introduce the project and website, then work through two of the curricula with participants. Through an anticolonial lens, participants will be invited to engage in active listening, write poetry, and reflect on their own personal biases.
Learning objectives
- Explore resources on the H.E.A.L. Healthcare website.
- Understand arts-based learning as an effective way of decolonizing practice.
- Identify personal biases and reflect on transformation through arts-based exercises.
Speaker bios
Dr. Sarah de Leeuw, a creative writer and human geographer, is a Professor and Canada Research Chair (Humanities and Health Inequities) with the University of Northern British Columbia’s (UNBC) Northern Medical Program (NMP), the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Between 2012 and 2020, she held a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Career Investigator Scholar with the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH) where she has been a Research Associate for more than a decade. Her academic research—funded by CIHR, SSHRC, and MSFHR, focuses on health inequalities, creative arts and critical humanities, marginalized geographies, colonial violence, and Indigenous peoples. Her research appears in more that 140 scholarly and creative publications. Author or co-editor of eleven books, including creative works nominated for Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Prize (Where it Hurts) and awarded the Dorthey Livesay BC Book Award (Geographies of a Lover). De Leeuw is also a two time recipient of a CBC Literary Prize for non-fiction and holds a Western Magazine Gold Award. In recognition of her outstanding interdisciplinary contributions across the country and beyond, de Leeuw was appointed in 2017 to The Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. She grew up on Haida Gwaii, completed high school on Ts’msyen lands in Terrace, and now divides her time between Lheidli T’enneh/Dakelh Territory (Prince George) and Syilx Territory (Okanagan Centre), in so called British Columbia.
X’staam Hana’ax (Nicole Halbauer) is a dedicated member of the Ts’msyen community, Kitsumkalum, and belongs to the Ganhada p’teex (clan) of the Waap (House) of K’oom. With over a decade of advocacy work in northern British Columbia, Nicole has been a strong advocate for decolonized governance in community organizations. She has held significant leadership roles, including Chair of the Board of Governors at Coast Mountain College, Vice Chair of BC Assessment, and various other provincial and community positions. Beyond her professional endeavors, Nicole is deeply committed to her family, raising six children and cherishing her four grandchildren. Her personal experiences shape her work, with a strong belief that reconciliation is essential to the health and well-being of a community.
Michelle Roberge lives with her family tucked away in the trees on a beautiful west facing hill within the traditional territories of Saik’uz Whut’en, in north-central British Columbia, Canada. Here, when not working her day job(s), she grows food with her husband and children on their off-grid farm. Inspired by her childhood of catching (trying to catch) fish on the ocean and lakes of Vancouver Island, Michelle pursued a Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Environmental Biology at UBC and immediately followed it with a Master of Science degree in Zoology. Although Michelle started her working life as a fisheries biologist, her life and career has led her down many different and intersecting paths and experiences working in graphic design, health, education, agriculture, and anti-racism awareness. Michelle joined the HARC team to support the HEALhealthcare.ca project as the digital archivist and designer.
Learning with this webinar
This webinar will include working through two resources from the HEALhealthcare.ca website. To prepare for the webinar, participants are asked to:
- Have blank paper, pen, colouring pens/pencils/markers on hand
- Review the following resources before watching the webinar:
Webinar resources