Welcome to the Institute for International Indigenous Health and Child Welfare Research

The purpose of the Institute for International Indigenous Health and Child Welfare Research (IIIHCWR) is to provide a national and international health (inclusive of physical, mental, and spiritual, environmental) and child welfare research center to examine the global and local impact of colonization on Indigenous tribal, community, family, and individual health and family/community functioning.

One of our primary aims is to develop culturally relevant theory and models for research and then translate and test these models through community-based and indigenous programs. Identifying the structural, communal, and interpersonal mechanisms by which colonial processes are reinforced and perpetuated as they relate to health and child welfare disparities is another primary aim of the Institute.

The Institute will directly link with the International Network of Indigenous Health Knowledge and Development collaborative (INIHKD) to share resources, knowledge, practice, and research developments.

The Institute will foster practice, research, and curriculum development in three key areas:

1. Indigenous health and child welfare services (e.g., barriers to care, cultural standards of care, cultural safety in practice settings, etc.)
2. Education, training, and workforce development of practitioners working in indigenous communities
3. Indigenous Health and Child Welfare practice and policy research --with a particular emphasis on theoretical development and methodological developments (e.g., testing the indigenist stress-coping model)

Institute work will be pursued within a perspective, which promotes the following core values:

• to conduct work within an interdisciplinary, multi-level, and multi-theoretical perspective;
• to foster collaborative and empowering relationships and exchanges between researchers, students, and communities;
• to promote social justice in practice, research, education and intervention;
• to integrate research, intervention and social policy in as seamless a manner as possible;
• to seek social transformation through research and teaching; and

to promote the values of multiculturalism, empowerment, and social justice in research, policy, and intervention.