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, Alberta. Her work is grounded in Blackfoot values and teachings.

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 Health Transformation Project Manager with the Anishinabek Nation.John is President of White Rock Consulting, and has decades of experience in finance and management in the health sector, with a particular focus with First Nations.They are helping lead the health transformation that has been ongoing in the Anishinabek Nation since 2016, with the aim to gain greater control over their health and wellness, consistent with the inherent right to self-determination. For more on the work of Thunderbird Partnership Foundation, please visit our website at www.thunderbirdpf.orgYou can find us on social media by searching for ThunderbirdPF  Mino Bimaadiziwin is produced by the Thunderbird Partnership Foundation and David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions.  Our theme music is by Courtney Riley, Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.

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. In her work, Dr. Sereda focuses on caring for people who use drugs, people deprived of housing, women in the survival sex trade, as well as medical street outreach and care in non-traditional settings such as shelters and jails.Her program, Safer Opioid Supply, is a Health Canada recognized and funded, Substance Use and Addiction Program.It is considered a pillar of the Federal government’s approach to the overdose crisis.To learn more about safer supply, please visit the National Safer Supply Community of Practice website at https://www.nss-aps.ca/For more on the work of Thunderbird Partnership Foundation, please visit our website at www.thunderbirdpf.org You can find us on social media by searching for ThunderbirdPF  Mino Bimaadiziwin is produced by the Thunderbird Partnership Foundation and David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions.  Our theme music is by Courtney Riley, Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.