Mino Bimaadiziwin - Conversations on Addictions and Mental Wellness

Carol Hopkins sits down with Shontelle Prokipcak, a social worker, psychotherapist, and registered addiction specialist with Mental Health and Addiction Services Ottawa. Shontelle shares powerful insights into the deep connection between trauma and addiction, explaining how healing means addressing the root causes beneath behavior.

Theresa Crow Spreading His Wings is the founder of Gathering Our Bundles, a leadership and healing platform rooted in love, truth, and cultural safety. A survivor of the Sixties scoop, Theresa specializes in trauma-informed care, decolonizing leadership, and system navigation for Indigenous communities. She is a Blackfoot First Nations woman from the Blood Tribe in Treaty 7 Territory in Standoff,...

Koral Hamilton is a program manager with Feathers of Hope, an Indigenous youth advocacy nonprofit organization, based in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Koral is a proud Metis woman with roots in the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation. She is our guest on Mino Bimaadiziwin for an important conversation about bridging the gap between detox and long term addiction recovery treatment.

Dr. Butt is a retired Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. He served for 24 years as a consultant in Addiction Medicine in the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

How the Talking Stick program is helping to fill crucial gaps by allowing quick and anonymous access to a safe place, providing emotional support, while empowering Indigenous voices, and creating jobs for Indigenous people.

Barbara Ann Horner back to Mino Bimaadiziwin for an important conversation about methamphetamines, crystal meth, what they are, their effects and strategies to address the meth crisis. Barbara Ann is Thunderbird’s regional mental wellness Coordinator for British Columbia.

"There are reports of nine and ten year olds doing crystal meth on purpose. This has been going on quite a while now."

Barbara Ann Horner is Thunderbird’s regional mental wellness Coordinator for British Columbia.

"If we took control of our own health, and if we took control of our programs, our services, our funding and redistributed the way we see fit and works with our people, our health outcomes for our people would be much better." Carol Hopkins is thrilled to be joined on this important episode on First Nations health transformation by two experts, Loretta Nootchai and John Scherebnyj. Loretta is a He...

Dr Andrea Sereda is Carol Hopkin's guest discussing safer opioid supply, addiction and recovery on this episode of Mino Bimaadiziwin. Dr Sereda is the lead physician at the London, Ontario Intercommunity Health Centre’s Health Outreach program and she is the founding physician for Safer Opioid Supply, which provides pharmaceutical grade opioids to people dependent on unregulated street fentanyl. I...

Carol is thrilled to be joined by Gilbert Whiteduck and Jamie Carle for another in our series of discussions about successful Indigenous Treatment Centres and what lessons they provide. Gilbert and Jamie are the Program and Services Team Lead and Nurse, respectively, delivering harm reduction programing at Wanaki Centre, located in the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community next to the town of Maniwak...

What role does Virtual Treatment play in drug and alcohol addiction rehabilitation? A fire four-and-a-half years ago at the Native Horizons Treatment Centre in the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation meant they had to find that out well before COVID made virtual care a widespread reality. Their Executive Director, Wanda Smith, joins host Carol Hopkins for a discussion on what she and her team...

Host Carol Hopkins is very happy to be joined by Theresa Crow-Spreading-His-Wings and Sandra Malcolm from the Native Addictions Council of Manitoba, for a lively and fascinating discussion about the addictions workforce, specifically the certification in addictions core competencies and the investment their organization is making in their workforce. They also talk about the role of treatment cente...

Host Carol Hopkins is thrilled to be joined by Deb Dell and Karen Main in a conversation highlighting the quality of addictions services for First Nations youth, how they know there is quality, what that looks like and their processes for facilitating continuous improvements. Karen and Deb both work with YSAC, a network of 10 First Nation Youth Residential Treatment Centres across Canada, offering...

We're thrilled to have Dawna Prosper on the podcast. She is Executive Director of the Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse and Counseling Association and a proud member of the Eskasoni First Nation of Cape Breton. Since 1971 NACADA has run addiction prevention and treatment programs in First Nations communities across Atlantic Canada. It has been accredited for the last thirteen years. In this conversati...

"In our communities we need to do more ceremony. Those ones that are lost, they can come to the ceremony, the doorway is not closed to anyone. If they need that help from ceremony, they are welcome."  Elder Hector Copegog, spiritual teacher, ceremonial chief and healer is our guest in this second conversation on managing grief through ceremony. In this powerful talk, Carol and Hector discuss how c...

"Whatever you are suffering with, don't give up. Hang in there. There's a lot of people who've suffered. Just look back at the history of our peoples, the things we've survived and come through. Don't give up. There is help and you will find your way." We're thrilled to have Wes Whetung on the podcast for this episode on the importance of ceremony and culture to manage grief, loss and many other c...

"When they come in they are broken, they are so broken. That's why we use so much compassion at work and with what we do every day. And we tell them we're proud of them every single day. And that's when they start to regain that hope, is when we tell them 'You're one day sober and I'm proud of you.'" We're thrilled to have Barbara Michel-Ballantyne on the podcast, talking about a successful land b...

As we continue our series on harm reduction, we are thrilled to be joined by three guests who are leading an incredible effort in drug harm reduction with their organization, "Fire with Fire," a response in eight First Nations communities in Treaty 1 territory in southeastern Manitoba to substance misuse causing harm and overdose. "Fire with Fire" responds to individual needs of community members...

We're thrilled to be joined today by Audra Stonefish for this smart, thoughtful conversation about the importance of harm reduction with Thunderbird Partnership Foundation CEO, Carol Hopkins. Audra is the Cultural Harm Reduction Outreach Supervisor for Chippewas of the Thames First Nation located in southwestern Ontario. Audra's program is in its fifth year. It focuses on meeting the relatives whe...

Guest host Dr Brenda Restoule is joined by one of her Indigenous mental health mentors, Danny Manitowabi, for a fascinating conversation about the lessons learned from his long and impressive career in First Nations mental health. Almost fifty years ago, Danny set up the first mental health clinic in a First Nation. He worked with the community to address a suicide epidemic and later also supporte...

On today’s episode, we’re going to explore life promotion & suicide prevention. Indigenous people in Canada die by suicide at a rate three times the national rate. The rate of suicide among young First Nations is six times higher. Thunderbird has been working with youth to develop a response to suicide, mental wellness and substance use in Indigenous communities. The result is a new resource,...

Today’s episode is all about language – its connection to our mental, emotional, spiritual & physical wellness. In fact, just look at the First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum, on our website, ThunderbirdPF.org and you’ll see that language is considered to be one of the Indigenous social determinants of health. It’s considered as vital to our wellness as access to health care, housing &...

"I hope that people can integrate harvesting from the land into the healing process. Instead of just being in a building focusing on why you have an addiction, maybe you can get on the land and let some of these plant nations heal you too." We're thrilled to have Metis Chef Jenni Lessard on the podcast to discuss the nourishing power of Indigenous cooking and harvesting from the land. One of Canad...

"(Harm reduction) is not just giving people safer equipment to keep using drugs, it's also to develop relationships and develop that trust. And eventually some people choose to get off, not all. Sometimes the success of harm reduction is the quality of life of that person went up and they were connected to community." We're so happy to have harm reduction expert Trevor Stratton on the program, tal...