{"id":719,"date":"2018-09-18T15:45:53","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T22:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/?p=719"},"modified":"2018-11-09T19:55:17","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T03:55:17","slug":"ufv-health-researchers-collaborate-with-community-on-metis-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/ufv-health-researchers-collaborate-with-community-on-metis-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"UFV health researchers collaborate with community on M\u00e9tis camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published to UFV Today (Sept 5, 2018)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A chance meeting at UFV\u2019s National Indigenous People\u2019s Day celebration at the Abbotsford campus in June led to the creation of a week-long day camp for M\u00e9tis children in the Fraser Valley.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dr. Elizabeth Cooper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Elizabeth Cooper<\/a>, a post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Health Sciences ay UFV, struck up a conversation with Lisa Hendry, a representative of the\u00a0Fraser Valley M\u00e9tis Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found out that the association had some funding for a camp focus on health and culture, so I volunteered help to plan, organize, and run it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the reason for organizing the camps was to encourage the M\u00e9tis children, some of whom live in foster homes, to become more aware of and rooted in their Metis culture, and to encourage socialization and community integration.<\/p>\n

\u201cA study from the McCreary Centre (a not-for-profit organization committed to improving the health of BC youth) indicates that if children have three or more friends and are connected to their community and culture they are significantly less likely to commit suicide,\u201d Cooper notes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to encourage that sense of pride and cultural awareness. It was a good week all around. The children got to travel to Fort Langley to find out more about the long history of the M\u00e9tis in B.C., they learned more about their culture and what it means to be M\u00e9tis, they made new friends, they did crafts and music activities relevant to their M\u00e9tis heritage, and they learned new strategies about how to stay safe and healthy!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cooper even used her violin skills to act as accompanying fiddler for the M\u00e9tis jigger (an arts student from UFV) who visited the camp.<\/p>\n

The camp also presented a research opportunity for Cooper and provided community research experience for a senior UFV Social Work student and a third-year Arts student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to train the two research assistants how to do research in a community setting,\u201d Cooper notes. \u201cWe were conducting a needs assessment, looking at what the children knew about culture and health before going into the camp and seeing how the camp changed that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some students from UFV\u2019s\u00a0M\u00e9tis Community Support Worker program<\/a>\u00a0also volunteered at the camp.<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s research examines the connection between historical trauma and the mental health experience of First Nations and M\u00e9tis parents and youth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>She specializes in community-based research that empowers participants, often by using methods that allow community partners to share in decision making to better meet the needs of the community.<\/p>\n

Cooper works with and reports to Dr. Cindy Jardine,\u00a0UFV\u2019s Canada Research Chair in Health and Community<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published to UFV Today (Sept 5, 2018) A chance meeting at UFV\u2019s National Indigenous People\u2019s Day celebration at the Abbotsford campus in June led to the creation of a week-long day camp for M\u00e9tis children in the Fraser Valley. Dr. Elizabeth Cooper, a post-doctoral fellow in the Faculty of Health Sciences ay UFV, struck … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":796,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions\/796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}