This comparative analysis of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal families uses a 1998Canadian study of child maltreatment cases to identify important differences: Aboriginal families face worse socioeconomic conditions, are more often investigated because of neglect, less often reported for physical or sexual abuse, and report higher rates of substance abuse. At every decision point in the cases, Aboriginal children are overrepresented: investigations are more likely to be substantiated, cases are more likely to be kept open for ongoing services, and children are more likely to be placed in out-of-home care. Findings suggest the development of neglect intervention programs that include poverty reduction and substance misuse components.

This paper reviews Participatory Action Research as a methodology. It maps the origins of Participatory Action Research (PAR) and discusses the benefits and challenges that have been identified by other researchers in utilizing PAR approaches in conducting research.

When research is conducted from a Western paradigm alone, the findings and resultant policies often ignore Indigenous peoples’ health practices and fail to align with their health care priorities. There is a need for decolonized approaches within qualitative health research to collaboratively identify intersecting reasons behind troubling health inequities and to integrate Indigenous knowledge into current health care services. We engaged with First Nations women to explore to what extent digital storytelling could be a feasible, acceptable, and meaningful research method to inform culturally safe health care services. This novel approach created a culturally safe and ethical space for authentic patient engagement. Our conversations were profound and provided deep insights into First Nations women’s experiences with breast cancer and guidance for our future qualitative study. We found that the digital storytelling workshop facilitated a Debwewin journey, which is an ancient Anishinabe way of knowing that connects one’s heart knowledge and mind knowledge.

Background There is a complicated and exploitative history of research with Indigenous peoples and accompanying calls to meaningfully and respectfully include Indigenous knowledge in healthcare. Storytelling approaches that privilege Indigenous voices can be a useful tool to break the hold that Western worldviews have within the research. Our collaborative team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers, and Indigenous patients, Elders, healthcare providers, and administrators, will conduct a critical participatory, scoping review to identify and examine how storytelling has been used as a method in Indigenous health research. Methods Guided by two-eyed seeing, we will use Bassett and McGibbon’s adaption of Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review methodology. Relevant articles will be identified through a systematic search of the gray literature, core Indigenous health journals, and online databases including Scopus, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, AgeLine, Academic Search Complete, Bibliography of Native North Americans, Canadian Reference Centre, and PsycINFO. Qualitative and mixed-methods research articles will be included if the researchers involved Indigenous participants or their healthcare professionals living in Turtle Island (i.e., Canada and the USA), Australia, or Aotearoa (New Zealand); use storytelling as a research method; focus on healthcare phenomena; and are written in English. Two reviewers will independently screen titles/abstracts and full-text articles. We will extract data, identify the array of storytelling approaches, and critically examine how storytelling was valued and used. An intensive collaboration will be woven throughout all review stages as academic researchers co-create this work with Indigenous patients, Elders, healthcare professionals, and administrators. Participatory strategies will include four relational gatherings throughout the project. Based on our findings, we will co-create a framework to guide the respectful use of storytelling as a method in Indigenous health research involving Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Discussion This work will enable us to elucidate the extent, range, and nature of storytelling within Indigenous health research, to critically reflect on how it has been and could be used, and to develop guidance for the respectful use of this method within research that involves Indigenous peoples and settlers. Our findings will enable the advancement of storytelling methods which meaningfully include Indigenous perspectives, practices, and priorities to benefit the health and wellbeing of Indigenous communities. Systematic review protocol registration Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/rvf7q)

This article provides an overview of the experiences of Aboriginal mothers involved with child welfare in Manitoba. Jumping through hoops was a prominent perspective evident in stories and reflections that Aboriginal mothers shared about their experiences with child welfare and legal systems. The research drew upon interviews and talking circles conducted with Aboriginal women, and included interviews conducted with community advocates and lawyers in the spring and summer of 2007.