This report was prepared by Sister Circle Consulting for Kids Help Phone.

HERE’S HOW THE AUTHORS DESCRIBE THIS REPORT:

With guidance and direction from an Indigenous Advisory Council, Kids Help Phone set out to engage with Indigenous youth in schools across Canada. The broad goals of the engagements were to build relationships with diverse Indigenous communities and gain critical feedback to inform the actions outlined in Finding Hope, Kids Help Phone’s Action Plan for Supporting First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Young People, 2019-2022. Finding Hope outlines the steps Kids Help Phone is taking to ensure equitable and accessible Indigenous youth services from coast to coast to coast. To achieve this goal, Kids Help Phone needed the support of an Indigenous consultant and created a request for proposal for engagement sessions that would focus on previously identified areas of improvement. Kids Help Phone sought to receive input on brand resonance and inform the development of an Indigenous stream of the Counsellor in the Classroom program.

During early consultations with Kids Help Phone, we identified several other preliminary areas of inquiry that needed direct input from Indigenous youth. The scope of the engagements was expanded to include how Indigenous youth may want to access mental health services, what they are looking for from these supports, how they would feel if asked to identify as Indigenous, and if they want to receive Indigenous-centred and specific services and programming.

“The knowledge shared in this report is owned by the young people and their communities. They have agreed to allow Kids Help Phone, as stewards of this knowledge, to make this information accessible to all. It is our hope this knowledge will benefit Indigenous youth, communities, and all young people across Canada as we strive to ensure all young people have equitable access to resources that support their mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.” – Deanna Dunham, Manager, Indigenous Initiatives, Kids Help Phone.