Building Reconciliation Together: Transformative Intergenerational Mentorship

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action highlight the importance of Canadian post-secondary institutions in increasing the number of Indigenous health professionals and scholars. While several calls urge our institutions to provide culturally appropriate academic mentorship, existing models have not engaged Indigenous partners to any extent. Accordingly, the purpose of the Indigenous Mentorship Network Program (IMNP) is to develop an Indigenous academic mentorship model, with substantive input from Indigenous graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, newer faculty and mid-senior career faculty in the health research domain. Our mixed methodology approach includes the development and circulation of an Indigenous Academic Mentorship Survey, and subsequent semi-structured interviews with a smaller sample of survey respondents. Results will reveal new Indigenous mentorship principles, to be integrated into existing health research mentorship programs across partner universities. Specific knowledge translation avenues will include: annual presentations at a national graduate student and new investigator gathering, development of a graduate e-module seminar series, integration into existing teaching/learning effectiveness and academic mentorship programs, development of a handbook on essentials of Indigenous academic mentorship, and various web-based mentoring activities. The end result will be an expanding cohort of Indigenous scholars with leading edge mentorship experience, appropriate work-life balance, and the capacity to lead future Indigenous health research and other professional initiatives.