Understanding the circle of care: Indigenous service providers’ perspectives on health and well-being

There is a need for broadening understandings of health and well-being to fill the critical and persistent gap in culturally safe health and social service provision for Indigenous populations. While the importance of Indigenous cultural interventions in healthcare is increasingly recognized and the perspective of Indigenous patients increasingly sought, there has been little research on the views of Indigenous service providers themselves. Our study explores the views of Indigenous service providers and how they conceptualize and deliver health and social services, including how these services link to the principles of harm reduction. We conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews and socio-demographic questionnaires with eight Indigenous emergency service providers from Thunder Bay, Ontario, in the Fall of 2021. The results reveal broad conceptions of health and well-being with a particular focus on harm reduction principles in delivering a wide range of services that address physical, mental, and spiritual health needs.