2nd Annual OISE Indigenous Education Network’s Indigenizing Psychology Symposium: Call for Student Posters

2nd Annual OISE Indigenous Education Network’s Indigenizing Psychology Symposium: Call for Student Posters
Community Mental Health & Healing
May 31, 2012 Native Canadian Centre, Toronto, Ontario

This one-day symposium will cover a wide range of issues related to the Indigenous mental health and healing in the community. It is designed for students, practitioners, and researchers of all disciplines of applied psychology and Indigenous mental health who are interested in enhancing their understanding of community mental health practice, as well as knowledge and skills around Indigenous mental health. The symposium will include traditional healing demonstrations, as well as topics in advances in community mental health practice in the areas of Indigenous counselling, psychotherapy, healing, and assessment. In addition to the invited talks, there will be oral presentations, student research posters, and a cultural workshop presented by community youth.Within an Indigenous worldview of health, mental health is considered critical to healing and overall well-being rooted in a balance between the sacred aspects of the self (emotional, physical, spiritual, mental and social). This Indigenous paradigm of health has been successfully employed for thousands of years and currently, many communities are working to re-build social support systems to improve mental well-being among individuals, families and communities, in order to promote cultural identity and healing.

The 2nd Annual Indigenous Education Network’s Indigenizing Psychology Symposium is being organized in the spirit of honouring community-based mental health services that emphasize culture as the foundation of well-being among Indigenous community members. Specifically, the symposium will explore key topic areas via oral presentations, workshops presentations, and cultural workshops by leading Canadian Indigenous health and healing practitioners. These will include:

1. Traditional Healing in community mental health
2. Indigenous counselling and psychotherapy theory and community practice

Students may submit abstracts for poster presentations in any of the above key topic areas until April 30, 2012. Please email name, title, and abstracts to Steven.Vanloffeld[at]utoronto.ca

For more information or to register please contact the Conference Committee at Steven.Vanloffeld[at]utoronto.ca