63 Appendix F Ontario Network Environments for Indigenous Health Research and Indigenous Mentorship Network of Ontario’s Spring Gathering 2021: Summary and Event Evaluation Suzanne Stewart, Adriana Gonzalez, Jenna Wilson, & Jay Liu University of Toronto 01 June 2021
Event Summary The Ontario Network Environments for Indigenous Health Research (ON NEIHR) and the Indigenous Mentorship Network of Ontario (IMN-ON) hosted a two-part four-hour virtual Spring Gathering entitled Navigating this Time: Holistic Wellness for Indigenous Scholars in April and May 2021. Since its incipience, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented substantial impacts toward mental health service accessibility and delivery within Indigenous communities, limited opportunities for traditional in-person engagement, and generated challenges to establishing personal and community well-being. In response to these mental wellness challenges for students, leaders of the IMN-ON and ON NEIHR collaborated to deliver a virtual sharing space that was restorative and culturally safe and offered an opportunity for Indigenous students and scholars to share their encounters with healing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The leaders of the two partnering networks created this event, titled Spring Gathering, and invited Indigenous researchers, students, Elders, and community members from across Turtle Island to share their perspectives on maintaining their wellness during this health crisis within and outside academia. The first part of the Spring Gathering focused on Indigenous graduate students presenting their experiences and knowledges about protecting and promoting holistic health during the pandemic. The second part of the event focused on Indigenous academics and professionals, giving them confidential culturally safe and culturally based space to share their experiences, hopes, and challenges of working during a pandemic. In the spirit of accessible and reciprocal knowledge sharing, both parts of the event hosted Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers to lead an open discussion on holistic healing during and beyond such a health crisis for all presenters and attendees. Event Format As a result of the public health guidelines to maintain physical and social distancing, the twopart 2021 Spring Gathering was held virtually over the video communications platform Zoom. The virtual framework of the Spring Gathering allowed for live participation from broad geographic locations across Turtle Island. Due to the nature of the event, prior registration was required to access the Zoom sessions, and the presentations and moderated discussions were not recorded nor shared on a public platform.
