🦅 Welcome to Our Blog: Stories Rooted in Land, Language, and Kinship
At Wahkohtowin Wellness Services Association, we believe in the power of story, spirit, and community voice. This blog is a space to uplift Indigenous wisdom, challenge colonial systems, and share teachings from our journey in wellness, healing, and cultural resurgence. Whether we’re reflecting on mental health, land-based practice, or the strength of our communities, each post is rooted in kinship, ceremony, and the values that guide us as Cree people.
We write to reclaim space—space for voices too often left out of the conversation around mental health and wellness. We write to honour the lived experience, ancestral knowledge, and cultural teachings carried by Indigenous helpers and healers. In a field too often shaped by colonial standards, we offer another way—one grounded in relationship, humility, and deep respect for land, language, and spirit.
We invite you to read, reflect, and walk alongside us in good ways.
Posted July 16, 2025 | Wahkohtowin Wellness Services Association
At Wahkohtowin Wellness, we believe that community healing is rooted in relationship, storytelling, and Indigenous knowledge—wisdom that cannot be confined to a piece of paper or a university degree. For First Nation, Inuit, and Métis peoples, wellness is inseparable from history, land, language, and lived experience.
Too often, colonial clinical standards—such as those upheld by the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC)—are positioned as the “gold standard” for mental health practice. These standards typically require Registered Clinical Counsellors (RCCs) to hold master’s degrees from colonial academic institutions. But this narrow framework leaves out the voices, gifts, and cultural expertise of Indigenous healers, helpers, and professional counsellors—many of whom walk in two worlds and carry deep relational knowledge grounded in survival, ceremony, and kinship.
ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ (Nehiyawêwin / Cree) reminds us:
“ᓂᐱᑯᐱᐏᐣ ᑭᓇᐊᐧᐠ ᑲᓇᒋᑐᔭᐣ”
“Wisdom is not just found in books, but through living and experience.”
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Colonial Standards ≠ What’s Best for Everyone
There is a persistent and harmful narrative—often perpetuated by regulatory bodies like BCACC—that a master’s degree automatically means “most qualified.” Left unchallenged, this assumption disregards the skills and knowledge of other professional counsellors regulated through organizations like the Canadian Professional Counsellors Association (CPCA).
CPCA-regulated counsellors (RPCs, MPCCs) undergo rigorous supervision, clinical training, ongoing education, and must demonstrate real-world competence—though not always through colonial institutions.
“We must make room for Indigenous knowledge systems in mental health practice. Western qualifications can’t replace the relationship to land, family, or spirit that many helpers hold in their own communities.”
— Dr. Margo Greenwood, Determinants of Indigenous Peoples’ Health in Canada
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Healing Is Relational, Not Just Academic
For many Indigenous clients, healing is not about credentials—it’s about connection. It’s about feeling seen and known by a helper who understands where you come from.
True clinical skill grows through:
• Years of experience serving Indigenous communities
• Language fluency and traditional teachings
(ᐊᓂᑐᓂᐢᑯᑌᐠ anitominihkotêk – “in our ways”)
• Deep respect for ceremony, community protocol, and collective healing
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A Call to Counsellors and Mental Health Leaders
It’s time for the field of mental health and wellness in BC to reckon with the colonial roots of formal education systems. We call on professional leaders, regulators, and helpers to recognize and value diverse ways of knowing—balancing education, lived experience, cultural knowledge, and community connection.
True qualification is not just about academic achievement.
It’s about commitment, competence, humility, and the ability to honour the people we serve.
At Wahkohtowin Wellness, we believe in creating space for all helpers whose roots run deep—those who carry ancestral wisdom, and those who walk alongside communities in good ways.