Crooks and Cywink following their workshop presentation at the 2018 Banff International Conference on Behavioural Science, March 18-21, 2018.
Crooks and Cywink weigh in on promoting well-being in Indigenous youth
By:
Nicole Bullock
Monday, March 26, 2018
Teachers, service workers, mental health professionals, school administrators. This was the audience Dr. Claire Crooks and Mike Cywink led through their workshop at the 2018 Banff International Conferences on Behavioural Science on Tuesday, March 20. With a topic of choice of promoting well-being among Indigenous youth through strengths-based culturally relevant mentoring, participants had a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the research and programming related to the Uniting Our Nations group-based mentoring program for elementary students and peer-mentoring program for secondary students.
The mentoring programs, as described, include a combination of social and emotional learning development with a focus on healthy relationships skills, but embedded within a cultural framework. With a decade of development to support the programs, evaluation shows that there is an overall increase in positive mental health and cultural connectedness for youth participants.
In addition to the theoretical and research backgrounds presented, workshop participants had the opportunity to engage in experiential activities drawn directly from the programs.
2018 marks 50 years of The Banff International Conferences on Behavioural Science. By honouring the 50 years of learning and exploring, the conference took on a similar theme to that of 50 years ago - ideal mental health services for children and youth. “Where will we be in the next 50 years?” was the number one question on conference participant’s minds.
To learn more about the Fourth R Uniting Our Nations program, click here.
To learn more about the Banff International Conferences on Behavioural Science, click here.
