Storytelling at ONECA conference – Wawatay News

Storytelling at ONECA conference

Thursday June 7, 2012
Rick Garrick — Wawatay News

Brenda Mason’s stories about working with students with mental illness were a hit during the Ontario Native Education Counsellors Association’s 28th Annual Conference.

“Her format was storytelling and the oral traditions that she brought from her childhood that she heard from her grandparents and so on,” said Roger Chum, an Aboriginal learning unit counsellor at Canadore College and Moose Cree band member. “And applying that to the four models of the medicine wheel, the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional.”

Chum said Mason’s presentation on Strategies for Supporting Students with Mental Illness was “so touching because it was so simple.”

“It’s the way our people work with each other; we look at it in a holistic sense,” Chum said.

Read more: http://www.wawataynews.ca/archive/all/2012/6/7/storytelling-oneca-conference_22915