We use cookies on this site to enhance your experience.
By selecting “Accept” and continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies.
The Centre for Indigegogy workshops are dedicated to fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of Indigenous knowledge and practices.
Explore our offerings:
- Custom Offerings
- Certificates
For more information on preparing to attend your module, see our "Workshop Preparation" page.
Custom Offerings
For organizations and businesses looking to invest in professional development, our centre delivers a collective learning experience steeped in Indigegogy and hosted in circle pedagogy.
Our professional development programming offers an Indigenous-centred, wholistic approach to critical topics such as:
- Colonial trauma
- Decolonizing/Indigenizing,
- Strategic planning,
- Land-based healing and education,
- Circle work (circle facilitation)
- Community development
Cost
Custom Workshops are priced at $5,500 +taxes (full day) and $2,750 (half day)*. Extra fees are associated with in-person workshops (i.e. travel, accommodations, travel fee etc.).
Want to know more? Schedule a consult with Katie McLellan at kmclellan@wlu.ca.
Indigegogy Certificates
Decolonizing Education Certificate
The Decolonizing Education Certificate (DEC) program is designed for Indigenous and non-Indigenous professionals who want to develop their understanding of historical and contemporary Indigenous perspectives. The DEC program covers an array of topics that will help participants understand and appreciate Indigenous perspectives in decolonizing education (first four modules) and strengthen one's position in solidarity with Indigenous peoples (last four modules).
You must complete a minimum of eighty-four (84) program hours to obtain the certificate.
This foundational module begins to establish the context of contact and colonization from the perspective of Indigenous peoples. Learners will be introduced to various cultural learning protocols, land protocols, and the concept of Indigegogy while examining the history of Canadian colonialism and Indigenous cultures.
This module builds upon knowledge of Indigenous perspectives by examining issues related to governance, policy, and land. It may cover topics such as treaties, the Indian Act, reserves, federal and provincial governance jurisdictions, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
This module offers a critical Indigenous perspective related to the policies of social control of Indigenous peoples in the late 1800 to 1900s. It may cover topics such as child welfare, foster care, residential schools, criminal justice, and intergenerational trauma. It continues to deepen one's understanding of specific social policies, their impacts, and challenges.
This module presents the actions of Indigenous peoples towards truth-telling, cultural activism, and healing movements. The module will also discuss national reports, such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirits (MMIWG2S) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action. Participants will build upon their understanding of decolonization, alliance-building, and reconciliation through the examination of resistance and solidarity movements such as Idle No More, Sisters in Spirit, and #NoDAPL.
This module begins to draw attention to one’s positionality in relationship with Indigenous people, creating space for self-reflection and personal engagement. It critically examines structural and systemic barriers as well as the presentations of institutional racism. Through the exploration of drivers toward change, this module helps to build an understanding of authentic solidarity and relationship with Indigenous peoples.
Through a critical examination of settler colonialism within social, political, and economic systems, this module explores the relationships between identity and race, power, and privilege. This module will help demonstrate how to meaningfully engage with and support decolonizing practices, actions, and knowledge.
This module will revisit the content of the Decolonizing Education Certificate’s earlier modules. Participants will further explore the process of decolonizing, what decolonizing means to them, their place in their journey, and what has transformed along the way. This module will strengthen participant learning bundles to create an action plan to move forward.
This module will help participants learn about their individual, familial, cultural, and professional position from the lands, waters, and climate within which they live and work. A series of teachings will be conducted in relation to different places that bring to our attention particular land, beings, and ancestral relations. Through interactive engagement and storytelling, participants will learn about the history of colonial relations, human responsibilities in creation, and how to hold ourselves in times of climatic changes.
Indigenous Practitioners' Certificate
The IPrC focuses on fostering the Spirit in helping work to support Indigenous practitioners’ wellbeing. This certificate centres ceremony in teaching and learning while simultaneously positioning teaching and learning as ceremony. The IPrC provides a learning environment for practitioners to engage in mutual support, share about their own knowledge and experiences, and teach each other through personal and cultural Creation stories.
The IPrC program is intended for an Indigenous audience.
This two-day module works to reignite practitioners’ Centre Fire, focusing on the self as central to one’s practice. This module will introduce participants to the core concepts of Indigegogy, centering Indigenous knowledge, principles, teachings, and identities. Participants will build a wholistic knowledge set for practice while strengthening their understanding of the relationship between identity and practice.
Over two full days of circle, this module initiates the process of decolonizing within the self by building conscious intention and strengthening critical thinking. Participants will discuss unpacking the internal and external colonial structures of practice, exploring what it means to decolonize as Indigenous peoples. This module braids wholistic healing and education together, offering further skill development within Indigegogy, circle work, centring, and grounding.
This module strengthens understanding of a wholistic knowledge bundle, including how to care for one’s bundle and the self. Participants will learn how to begin re-building their wholistic knowledge bundles through reconnecting with their internal selves, recovering their authentic gifts, and attuning to their own Creation stories. This two-day module introduces relationship-building with medicine helpers and bundle helpers in addition to engaging reciprocity with resources, land, water, medicines, and other humans to help participants build trust with their bundles.
In this two-day module, learners will explore the world of program development within Indigenous communities, including how to assess, identify, and understand cultural and community needs. This module will examine challenges, complications, and successes of navigating and advocating within Western colonial systems as Indigenous peoples. Participants will learn about how to develop programs, build community, and engaging kinship care. Understanding that relational accountability is at the heart of community- and program-building, this module will discuss the ethics of Indigegogy and Indigenous methodologies in practice.
This two-day module helps learners build their practical skillset for their work, particularly regarding Indigenous ethics and principles in record-keeping and documentation. This module will help participants bridge their learning to their practice, providing the tools to foster more culturally safe, respectful, and ethical documentation. Learners will explore the varied impacts of colonial ethics, policy, and legal systems on record-keeping, and through circle learning and discussion, how re-integrating Indigenous ethics and practices into case-noting, documentation, and observation can help them more respectfully honour the stories of Indigenous communities, kinship circles, and individuals.
As the final module of the Indigenous Practitioner’s Certificate, this circle will help learners ground the teachings they have received. Over two full days of circle, this module aims to help restore relationship with the land, emphasizing the principles of land-based practice including reciprocity and kinship. This module will guide participants in uncovering and rediscovering the gifts, medicines, and teachings offered by Shkaagamikwe (Mother Earth), thus developing an ability to build healing programs in relationship with the land.
Wholistic Healing Practices and Colonial Trauma Certificate
Designed with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous practitioners in mind, the Wholistic Healing Practices & Colonial Trauma (WHP) certificate helps participants build a decolonizing practice lens and a wholistic practice toolkit. This certificate was developed with the desire to give practitioners and helpers the knowledge and skills to decolonize their practice while also offering wholistic healing practices.
You must complete a minimum of eighty-four (84) program hours to obtain the certificate. Modules 1, 2 and 4 are mandatory to complete the certificate.
This one-day module will focus on unpacking internal and external displays of ongoing colonialism. This session sets a strong foundation for other modules at The Centre of Indigegogy, supporting participants in their application of a decolonizing lens. This module will examine, from a decolonizing perspective, how colonial policy has inflicted cultural genocide on Indigenous peoples, how colonization has impacted Indigenous people’s emotional, spiritual, mental and physical being, and the harm inflicted on Indigenous peoples by the systemic and structural presentations of colonialism. This module engages circle methodology to envision wholistic healing practices in the contexts of colonial trauma.
This module is mandatory to complete the certificate.
This two-day module will focus on generating an understanding of ways helpers create culturally safe and informed practices to assist individuals who have experienced colonial trauma. Utilizing a wholistic approach to teaching and learning, participants will enhance their current practice through this wholistic experience. This module will be experiential in nature, and each participant will have an opportunity to understand trauma from an Indigenous wholistic lens and bring their experiences to this session.
This module is mandatory to complete the certificate.
In this two-day workshop, participants will learn about methods of community engagement and how to build relationships with community based on trust. Capacity-building in communities is key to restoring children’s safety and wellbeing. This module will explore community-informed alternative care approaches to caring for our children by generating Indigenous-centred tools for assessment and care. Working with children in care is distinct and requires a wholistic lens. Unique approaches inclusive of cultural teachings, ceremony, and relationship-building guide wholistic practice with children, kinship structures, and communities.
This two-day module will focus on Indigenous ways of awakening and healing Spirit within. Participants will begin to learn about their own relationship to Spirit and how their Spirits inform their practice. This module, taught by an Anishinaabe Elder, will lift up the teachings of Spirit and engage participants through circle and ceremony. This module focuses on Anishinaabe knowledge and 8 Grandmother teachings to foster wholistic approaches to healing, especially in the realm of colonial trauma care.
This module is mandatory to complete the certificate.
It is well-established in the literature that colonialism, racism, sexism, and the over-policing of Indigenous peoples are linked to alarming rates of incarceration of Indigenous peoples. However, less attention is paid to the actual logics of carcerality, especially those which exist outside of the prison system. This two-day module will not only delve into the experiences of traumatic stress involved in the criminalization and incarceration of Indigenous people, but it will also discuss presentations of colonial and carceral logics within individuals, kinship structures, and communities. Participants will develop their wholistic lens to better identify – and respond to – carceral logics in their personal, interpersonal, and professional realms.
Developed from conversations with MMIWG2S survivors and loved ones of victims, this two-day module tackles colonization at the root of racism, sexism, poverty, and gender-based violence, especially against Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit peoples. In building an understanding of the unique and complex issues facing Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit peoples, this module offers pathways forward at the grassroots and systemic levels. Together in circle, participants will envision wholistic practices and approaches based on research data that is controlled and owned by Indigenous communities but supported by mainstream organizations and agencies.
This two-day module will explore how wholistic, community-based approaches can respond to family violence while considering issues of justice, healing, and relationships. This module will examine how community-based practices impact those who are harmed as well as those who have inflicted harm. Acknowledging the current contexts of colonial systems and attitudes, this module will offer pathways to better addressing the safety and wellbeing needs of Indigenous individuals, kin, and communities.
This two-day module will offer stories and experiences of working with incarcerated youth as well as children in care, providing a variety of examples of wholistic, colonial trauma-informed approaches to practice with young people. This module encourages participants to build and develop their wholistic practices in working with youth based on their strengths and resiliency. Together in circle, participants will share their own stories of supporting Indigenous children and youth, expanding their bundles of wholistic knowledge.
This two-day module will examine how the colonial imposition has impacted Indigenous nations in the areas of identity, gender, and sexuality, creating a myriad of challenges for those who do not ascribe to the Western belief of the binary spectrum of sexuality, gender, or sex. Colonization, along with its confounding factors embedded in our history, created damaging and lasting effects on Indigenous peoples across many nations, including nations across Canada. These confounding factors served to disrupt, destroy, and disconnect Indigenous peoples from their gender identities and expressions. This module will explore a wide variety of topics, including a history of Two Spirit people, the concept of naming and labeling, issues of identity, significant timeline events, decades of resurgence, and an approach to decolonizing gender. Knowledge spanning across North America will be the primary focus with a narrowed intent to look at a Canadian-specific context.
In this two-day module, the material will examine some of Canada's history as it pertains to Indigenous food systems. This content will include modern-day challenges, contemporary efforts to restore and regain sovereignty over Indigenous food systems, resurgence, and resistance. The module will also offer examples of best practices for helping professions with opportunities for circle participants to share their own ideas. Each day will feature a related activity for participants to engage in.
This two-day module will offer traditional land-based knowledge guided by an Elder. This module is rooted in the teachings of plants and medicines, engaging in reciprocal relationship with Shkagamik Kwe (Mother Earth). Through circle pedagogy, participants will discuss the role of medicines, ceremonies, and helpers that aid in the process of healing, especially healing from colonial trauma. Participants will have a wholistic land-based healing experience during this two-day module.
This two-day workshop will engage participants in a critical examination of Euro-western research and its challenges and limitations within the contexts of Indigenous peoples. In this introductory workshop, participants will gain foundational knowledge of the history of research on Indigenous peoples while exploring the continuum of research paradigms toward an Indigenous re-search paradigm. This module will offer a new perspective on the role and place of Indigenous knowledge in a research journey. Participants will leave with a deepened understanding of research and how one might engage in it.
This two-day module will delve into real experiences of university and community partnerships in re-search journeys. Through the sharing of real stories and experiences, participants will learn about the protocols and ethics of working with Indigenous communities as well as navigating research ethics review processes, both in mainstream systems and Indigenous community settings. For Indigenous peoples, this workshop will help you build confidence and tools for conducting re-search in your community. Non-Indigenous learners will strengthen their capacity to engage respectfully on their re-search journeys.
This two-day workshop is an overview of Indigenous research methodologies. It offers current examples of methods that Indigenous re-search projects are employing and how Indigenous research projects are restoring Indigenous knowledge, relationships, and healing. This workshop offers participants an opportunity to build their understanding of issues of representation (analysis, interpretation, and presentation of findings). Participants will gain insights into how they can support Indigenous research projects to be rooted in Indigenous worldviews. In this final session of the Indigenous Re-Search Series, participants will develop an increased capacity to conceptualize and potentially generate projects in alignment with Indigenous worldviews.
This two-day workshop covers introductory circle protocols, processes, and applications to working, teaching, and learning in circle. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their experience participating in and facilitating circle, in addition to experiences shared by the facilitator. Circle work offers wholistic ways of teaching, decision-making, governance, and group work. In this virtual real-time session, participants will learn about the principles and philosophy that inform circle work.
This advanced two-day workshop focuses on deepening knowledge and skills for circle facilitation. This module is ideal for learners who have already taken Wholistic Professional Development “Introduction to Circle Work” or who already have experience conducting circles. This training works to further build facilitator confidence, competence, and knowledge in circle work processes, as well as resolving conflicts and dealing with challenging situations in circle. This training will be tailored to participant experiences and contexts. The facilitator will guide participants deeper into circle work facilitation drawing from participant goals to deepen their capacity in circle work.
This two-day module helps set a strong foundation for decolonial work. This workshop supports participants in learning how to facilitate decolonizing curriculum, decolonizing education, and decolonial practices. An excellent complement to any Centre for Indigegogy module, this workshop offers practical tools for sharing the decolonizing knowledge attained through engaging with decolonial and wholistic education.