Mushquash, Christopher J

Published purpose

The specific objectives of the network component of this funding opportunity are to: • Build a broader pan-Canadian network that can help advocate for and support a sustainable system of mental health and wellness services across Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) communities that are culturally-anchored and contextually relevant. • Apply traditional knowledge, use Indigenous culturally relevant frameworks and research protocols, and promote cultural safety within and across the network. • Expand the LHS concept, adapted for Indigenous contexts, across the broader network by integrating a wider range of existing Indigenous community organizations and programs, and helping develop new ones. • Co-develop with youth the next-generation capacity and workforce training for sustaining services within and across Indigenous communities. • Support the development of youth- and community-led priorities for ensuring services are effective in improving outcomes for Indigenous youth. • Continue to build and strengthen research and knowledge mobilization capacity within and across Indigenous community organizations and programs. • Catalyze collaborations and knowledge sharing within and across communities to facilitate access to culturally adapted evidence-informed best and wise practices in youth mental health, using diverse research methods such as those based in Indigenous ways of knowing and engagement of youth and caregivers/families. The specific objectives of the data component of this funding opportunity are to: • Develop the necessary expertise and resources to meaningfully collect, integrate, manage, analyze, and govern IYS data within the Indigenous network, to strengthen the network’s LHS. • Establish youth and community priorities in data analysis and use, along with researchers, decisions-makers and other key stakeholders within the network’s LHS. • Contribute IYS data from the Indigenous LHS network to the federated pan-Canadian IYS data platform. • Work with the federated pan-Canadian IYS data platform to reliably extract knowledge from data, under the governance of Indigenous communities, that will ultimately allow stakeholders to have more timely, accurate, comprehensive and diverse information on Indigenous youth mental health and substance use.