Healthcare Legacies: Native Child and Family Services Toronto
Native Child and Family Services Toronto
Participants on the “Healthcare Legacies” tour, Native Child and Family Services Toronto, July 24, 2022.
The medicine Wheel, 2022.
Rooftop Garden, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, May 29, 2011. Image courtesy of Jackman Chiu (cropped from original).
Indigenous Practices of Wellness
Long before Toronto or York opened its first hospital, Indigenous communities living in this area practiced centuries-old wellness systems and traditional medicines.
The Medicine Wheel is a distinctive symbol commonly seen in Anishinaabe and other First Nations cultures that has often come to represent a holistic approach to wellbeing and healthcare. The quadrants and colours of the wheel can signify the cycles of life, seasons of the year, aspects of life, or even ceremonial plants.
Taken together, the wheel can reflect the connection between one’s health and the surrounding natural world. Often, medicine wheels are believed to be a circle of individual awareness and knowledge, reflecting the values of self-determination in Indigenous healthcare.
Preserving Practices and Healing Community
The Native Child and Family Services of Toronto was established in 1986 by Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, grassroots leaders, and community members. The centre offers youth programs as well as healing services, with holistic treatment and services at the forefront of their mandate. The centre’s logo is the same colours as those used in the medicine wheel symbol.
Elders and Healers are important community leaders when it comes to traditional knowledge, health, and well-being. At the NCFST, elders and workers provide culture-based services, preserving traditional practices and respecting Native values and their right to self-determination. Historically, knowledge of the traditional medicines was more widespread in Indigenous communities, but it has dwindled due to the effects of colonialism on Indigenous peoples’ rights to practice their culture. Many illnesses affecting Indigenous communities today include arthritis, diabetes, and tuberculosis.
Conscious architecture and sustainable healthcare
The Native Child and Family Services centre was originally an office building. The centre was redesigned in 2010 by Levitt Goodman Architects to better incorporate the principles of Indigenous healing and First Nations’ cultures. Indigenous traditional medicines guided the interpretation of the building’s architecture during the renovations: the building used materials such as yellow birch heartwood, eastern white cedar, Eramosa limestone, river rock, and red slate. A healing lodge was also added based on the concept of a sweat lodge, which various First Nations from across North America use as a purification ceremony for both spiritual and physical health.
Today, Indigenous health and wellness services are available through various organisations throughout the province led by elders and healers working to preserve indigenous medical practices and knowledge systems.