Well-Living House, ON

mitigation and downstream approaches to prevention, without significant attention to upstream and midstream contexts of prevention. In addition to the challenges associated with the high frequency of these deaths within some Indigenous communities, there is the added challenge of limited mental health service infrastructure to support downstream interventions and crisis response (Oosterveer & Young, 2015). While some infrastructure does exist, during the COVID19 pandemic, these systems are facing immense and unprecedented challenges including conduction virtual risk assessments, as well as implementing community-based crisis response measures aligned with pandemic related health guidelines. Goals and Research Aims: We aim to conduct research which addresses what training and supports are needed to sustain the vital work of mental health systems infrastructure (i.e., wellness teams, crisis responders) during this pandemic, including an assessment of the health and potential for burnout of these vital teams. Averting such outcomes for crisis teams will be critical for the navigating ongoing mental health emergencies in Indigenous communities. We aim to conduct research on suicide risk assessment occurring in these contexts challenging for several reasons, including the virtual nature of assessment and the sociocultural context. Research is needed to understand the diverse practice-based knowledge of Indigenous wellness team approaches to risk assessment. We aim to conduct knowledge exchange at the intersection of midstream and upstream approaches to suicide prevention in Indigenous communities.

Methods, Approaches, and Expertise:

1. A scoping review on mental health service frameworks for complex crisis response relevant to rural, remote, northern, and Indigenous contexts. 2. A brief needs and psychosocial assessment for Indigenous wellness and crisis response teams in order to identify skills and training needs as well as to assess risk for burnout. 3. Focus groups on practice-based knowledge of wellness and crisis response team approaches to risk assessment, including any tools, policies, inventories, and cultural knowledge. 4. Case studies on Indigenous communities that have experienced a crisis related to complex deaths. As this is a strengths-based approach, we will work with communities that have experienced these crises, recovered, and enacted prevention approaches (from down-midupstream) which have had positive impacts.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes:

1. The findings of the scoping review will be published in an open-access academic publication and will be useful in policy development and advocating for training needs of crisis response and wellness teams across Canada and promoting the alignment of mental health service provision with evidence-based frameworks. The findings will inform the creation of a brief needs and psychosocial assessment tool. 2. The findings of a brief needs and psychosocial assessment tool will be published in an open-access academic publication, as well as made available to partnering organizations in a plain-text report. Results of this survey will be useful in both providing useful direction to FNMWC in terms of training needs, but also can help to provide a clearer picture of the risk that skills-gaps and burnout pose to critical health service delivery in Indigenous communities throughout Canada. 3. The findings of the focus groups will be published in an open-access academic publication, as well graphic recording will be made available to partnering organizations. A repository of assessment tools, policies, inventories, and data will be maintained at the Critical Health and Social Action Labs at OISE, with open access to members of the NEIHR and