Takohpinawasowin: Knowledge Keepers’ Stories of Traditional Birthing and Child-Rearing Practices

PI: Brenda Green PhD

4-Year CIHR Project Research Grant $512,552

Our Takohpinawasowin is intended to provide a culturally safe, place-based supportive environment where community members can story and re-story their experience and understanding of birth and child rearing practices. In this way, Takohpinawasowin invites the community of Touchwood Agency Tribal Council (TATC) to experience a renewed relationship with the land, build community capacity for traditional family bonding and reflect on the strength of their customary practices. It is through these ceremonies that life is bound to land and people to each other. Collectively, Takohpinawasowin means

wrapping around to support each other where life-giving and child rearing is a community responsibility and wholistic activity.

Purpose and Objectives: The literature supports the overall research goal of exploring how traditional birthing lessons and child rearing practices can support and enhance culture cohesiveness in the community.

Our objectives are to:

1. Explore the maternal-child experiences of Indigenous women;
2. Connect traditional childbirth and child rearing practices to the maternal-child experiences of Indigenous women;
3. Develop a traditional child birthing and child rearing framework to build the health and social capacity of families in TATC; and;
4. Develop traditional teaching material that can be used by midwives, physicians, schools, and other health and social programs to support to families in TATC.