Cultural Program

Cultural Healing Services

Many of the young people at Marymound are First Nations or Métis. We believe that cultural awareness and identity are key components to healing. A strong, positive cultural identity can instill feelings of pride and give youth a sense of community and their place in the world. We honour the healing journey of the youth we support by offering cultural healing services.

The program is developed and delivered by the program manager, elder-in-residence, cultural healing coordinators, cultural mentors and traditional healers from local First Nations and Métis communities, and supported by the Indigenous Advisory Circle.

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Youth can develop a sense of self-worth, self-understanding, and patience and learn to respect and honour life. Marymound’s cultural healing services program provides a place for youth to find their inner voice, and inner strength through the teachings so they can one day become strong leaders.

To build on our land-based framework, Marymound is exploring how to employ a dual-lens clinical treatment framework with a focus on cultural renewal, land-based healing and Western therapeutic interventions. This is what is known as a Two-Eyed Seeing approach and it addresses a need in the community that has largely gone unmet.

Marymound’s Cultural Healing Services Programming Includes:

  • Ceremonies such as naming ceremonies, full moon ceremony, pipe ceremony and feasts
  • Medicine growing and picking
  • First Nations and Métis history
  • Pow wow opportunities
  • Drumming
  • Sacred Teachings such as Medicine Wheel Teachings and Seven Teachings
  • Regalia making
  • Sweat Lodge
  • Beading
  • Sharing/talking circles
  • Storytelling

“We have a sacred responsibility to ensure that all children, regardless of their heritage, are able to think about four key questions: where do I come from, where am I going, why am I here and, most importantly, who am I?”

Justice Murray Sinclair