The Indigenous Patient Led (IPL) CPD Program offers tailored education for health professionals to build skills, acquire practical knowledge around trauma-sensitive practice and to co-create community-driven Indigenous cultural safety and education with patients.

Nawh Whu’nus’en: We See in Two Worlds - Trauma-Sensitive Practice Curriculum 

Trauma-sensitive practices are an important part of culturally safe and respectful health services for Indigenous patients, as colonization has brought about a legacy of intergenerational trauma that impacts people’s present-day realities. Everyone who provides health care for Indigenous patients must understand the impacts of trauma and the options for building relationships with people who live with individual and intergenerational trauma.  

Indigenous Patient Led (IPL) CPD offers education for health professionals in rural BC to build skills and acquire practical knowledge around trauma-sensitive practice. Nawh Whu’nus’en – We See in Two Worlds longitudinal trauma and resilience-informed curriculum for rural health professionals weaves together Indigenous ways of knowing with Western trauma theory and neuroscience.  

The curriculum is delivered in two progressive levels. Level one and Level two are online workshops available for physicians and other health professionals who serve or practice in rural BC, including nurse practitioners, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals.

• Level 1: Online introductory session (three hours)  
  • context for why this work is important — past and present forms of oppression that caused Indigenous Peoples’ collective, individual and intergenerational trauma
  • definitions of trauma and how trauma shows up in medical settings
  • foundational concepts in land-based healing, neurodecolonization and polyvagal theory
  • implications of polyvagal theory for health-care providers, patients and communities through case examples and demonstrations
  • the power of co-regulation through Indigenous and trauma-sensitive practices
  • space for discussion and questions.
• Level 2: Online in-depth series (three successive two and a half-hour sessions)  
  • deeper dive into trauma, trauma-sensitive care and somatic practice
  • cultivation of skills for creating neuroception of safety and optimizing relational availability  
  • colonized mindsets and the impact on providers/patients
  • shame resilience
  • working with flight, fight, freeze and fawn survival physiologies
  • case studies and demonstrations of working with various survival physiology responses  
  • practice of trauma-sensitive practice skills and self-regulation.

The Indigenous Patient Led (IPL) Program is committed to supporting physicians in building relationships with First Nations through community-specific teachings. If you have questions about existing opportunities in-community or how to establish a connection with the First Nation on whose lands you live and work, please reach out.  

Learning objectives

At the end of the course, participants will be able to:  

• embody and employ tangible trauma-sensitive practices for offering health care rooted in cultural understanding and safety for Indigenous Peoples  
• strengthen an understanding of ancestral land-based healing modalities that have supported trauma release for millennia
• identify polyvagal theory and its implications for supporting trauma recovery with Indigenous patients  
• deepen empathy and co-regulatory skills as a way of dismantling racism in the health-care system and contributing to collective healing.  

Register for Nawh whu’nus’en - We see in two worlds workshops

Level 1

Mar. 27, 2025 (Thu) 5:30–8:30 p.m. PT | Virtual workshop | 2.75 Mainpro+/MOC Section 1 credits

Level 2

Feb. 4, Feb. 11, Feb. 18, 2025 (3 x Tue) 6:00–8:30 p.m. PT| Virtual workshop series | 6.75 Mainpro+ credits

May 8, May 15, May 22, 2025 (3 x Thu) 6:00–8:30 p.m. PT | Virtual workshop series 

*Please note that completion of Level 1 is a prerequisite for enrolling in Level 2 of this curriculum