Building on Our Strengths: Aboriginal Youth Wellness in Canada’s North

Building on Our Strengths: Aboriginal Youth Wellness in Canada’s North delivers new insights into the design and implementation of successful Aboriginal youth wellness strategies in Canada’s North. It reviews systemic challenges to contemporary Aboriginal youth wellness, identifying persistent gaps and measures to close them. Yet, rather than emphasize negative outcomes, the report focuses on the inherent strengths of Canada’s Northern Aboriginal communities, to understand how and why strength-based approaches work to promote Northern Aboriginal youth wellness.

Three contemporary Aboriginal youth wellness initiatives from across Canada’s North are highlighted to reflect the diversity of potential strength-based Aboriginal youth wellness strategies, including examples of wellness through sport, cultural awareness, and living on the land. Lessons are drawn from the case study analysis to support recommendations for the development and implementation of Northern Aboriginal youth wellness programs.