Carol Hopkins

The University of Western Ontario | UWO · Faculty of Social Science

Two years ago, Toombs and colleagues (2020) completed a systematic review examining electronic mental health (e-MH) interventions for Indigenous youth with mental health concerns. Since this paper was published, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in both the number of studies examining e-MH interventions and the need for these interventions d...

Electronic health interventions involve health services delivered using the Internet and related technologies. These services can be particularly relevant for Indigenous populations who often have differential access to health-care services compared to general populations, especially within rural and remote areas. As the popularity of electronic he...

Binge drinking among American Indians and Alaskan Natives is an acute health issue in the United States. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University convened a one-day meeting with North American experts to identify key elements for developing research methodologies to measure treatment outcomes founded in Indigenous cultural w...

Binge drinking among American Indians and Alaskan Natives is an acute health issue in the United States. The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University convened a one-day meeting with North American experts to identify key elements for developing research methodologies to measure treatment outcomes founded in Indigenous cultural w...

There is a need for Indigenous-centered research to appraise culture’s role in wellness. Researchers described the development and validity of the Native Wellness Assessment (NWATM). The NWA has culture-as-intervention at its apex. Wellness, culture, and cultural intervention practices (CIPs) are explored from an Indigenous perspective. Indigenous...

A key priority of the mental health strategy for Canada is to establish a coordinated continuum of mental wellness (mental health and substance use) services for and by First Nations, which include traditional, cultural, and mainstream approaches. This paper describes developments critical to informing the strategy and helping to create foundations...

There has been recent interest in Canada exploring the benefits of equine assisted interventions in the treatment of First Nations youth who misuse volatile substances. Using the richness of an exploratory case study involving the White Buffalo Youth Inhalant Treatment Centre and the Cartier Equine Learning Center, our community-based study examine...

This paper describes the methods, strategies and insights gained from a scoping study using a "Two-Eyed Seeing" approach. An evolving technique, Two-Eyed Seeing respects and integrates the strengths of Indigenous knowledge and Western sciences, often "weaving back and forth" between the two worldviews. The scoping study was used to inform a tool fo...

There has been recent interest in Canada exploring the benefits of equine assisted interventions in the treatment of First Nations youth who misuse volatile substances. Using the richness of an exploratory case study involving the White Buffalo Youth Inhalant Treatment Centre and the Cartier Equine Learning Center, our community-based study examine...

This article explores the application of two-eyed seeing in the first year of a three-year study about the effectiveness of cultural interventions in First Nations alcohol and drug treatment in Canada. Two-eyed seeing is recognized by Canada’s major health research funder as a starting point for bringing together the strengths of Indigenous and Wes...

Background Cultural interventions offer the hope and promise of healing from addictions for Indigenous people.a However, there are few published studies specifically examining the type and impact of these interventions. Positioned within the Honouring Our Strengths: Culture as Intervention project, a scoping study was conducted to describe what is...

Drawing on three culturally specific research projects, this paper examines how community-based knowledge brokers' engagement in brokering knowledge shaped the projects' processes. Informed by Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) conceptualization of the "rhizome," we discuss how community knowledge brokers' engagement in open research-creation practices...

The intentional misuse of psychotropic drugs is recognized as a significant public health concern in Canada, although there is a lack of empirical research detailing this. Even less research has been documented on the misuse of prescription drugs among First Nations in Canada. In the past, Western biomedical and individual-based approaches to resea...

The Nimkee NupiGawagan Healing Centre (NNHC) in Muncey, ON provides residential treatment to First Nations and Inuit youth who abuse solvents. As a complement to its culture-based programming, in 2008 the centre began offering weekly equine-assisted learning (EAL) curriculum to its clients in partnership with the Keystone Equine Centre and the Lamb...

The Youth Solvent Addiction Program (YSAP) was established in 1996 in response to the misuse of volatile substances among First Nations and Inuit youth in Canada. This article outlines the role of Indigenous culture and its intersection with Western approaches to recovery in YSAP's operation of nine residential treatment centers for youth. Treatmen...

First Nations and Inuit youth who abuse solvents are one of the most highly stigmatized substance-abusing groups in Canada. Drawing on a residential treatment response that is grounded in a culture-based model of resiliency, this article discusses the cultural implications for psychiatry's individualized approach to treating mental disorders. A sys...

Our research identifies key skills and traits for service providers working with Aboriginal women that assists them with re-claiming their cultural identity. The "Turtle Finding Fact Sheet: The Role of the Treatment Provider in Aboriginal Women's Healing from Illicit Drug Abuse" was created to disseminate and commence discussion on this initial fin...

Indigenous populations and communities around the world confront historical, cultural, socioeconomic and forced geographic limitations that have profound impacts on mental wellness. The impacts of colonialism and, for some indigenous populations, forced residential schooling and the resulting loss of culture and family ties, have contributed to hig...

In Canada, a major and innovative national response to inhalant abuse among First Nations youth has been the establishment of residential treatment centres through the federally funded National Native Youth Solvent Addiction program (NNYSA). This paper focuses on the role of a holistic conception of resiliency in inhalant abuse treatment in the NNY...