IYR’s Engagement Approach
IYR has a wide range of experience running successful engagements. Guided by our Engagement Framework, our focus is on running effective and meaningful sessions that provided space for Indigenous youth to express their voices and feel heard.
IYR’s commitment to active, ethical engagement with Indigenous youth is expressed in our Engagement Framework and is built upon several key guiding principles, outlined below. As an organization that exists as a platform for amplifying the voices of Indigenous youth, we set these same standards for partners looking to engage with Indigenous youth through IYR:
Respect & Reciprocity
Ensuring all relationships built are reciprocal in nature with the best interest of Indigenous youth in mind, IYR centers reciprocity in engagement as a practice that denotes respect and responsibility in our relationships. In building respectful, reciprocal relationships with Indigenous youth, our team does rigorous pre-engagement research; respects the time and capacity of youth; commits to ongoing communication before, after, and during the engagement; remains flexible and fluid about engagement structure and process; and seeks to always be accountable to the communities we serve by being open and responsive to feedback on our work.
Cultural Safety
IYR understands cultural safety to be a form of harm reduction focused on creating spaces that are cognizant and respectful of individual and community traditions, protocols, and contexts. This means that we prioritize the cultural, emotional, and physical safety of Indigenous youth by ensuring all our work is distinctions-based, culturally relevant, and embedded with anti-oppressive and harm reduction practices. This can take many forms but often includes ensuring Elders and support workers are present for our conversations with youth, observing proper local protocols, creating smudging spaces in buildings, and reflecting on what the land we’re working on means to us through land acknowledgements.
Data Sovereignty
With an awareness of historical and contemporary ways that Indigenous knowledge has been extracted and misrepresented, protecting the knowledge and wisdom of Indigenous youth and their communities is crucial to how IYR approaches engagement. Following OCAP principles, we work to ensure that Indigenous youth are always the primary beneficiaries and owners of their knowledge and information.
IYR’s Approach to Data Ownership
Indigenous Youth Roots is committed to Indigenous data sovereignty. We recognize that Indigenous communities are the owners of their data, and conduct our research engagements in a respectful, reciprocal manner. We aim to build meaningful relationships with Indigenous youth and communities in our engagements.
In the Indigenous Youth Reconciliation Barometer 2024, we ensured that participants were informed of how their data would be stored and what it would be used for. We let participants know that they were able to remove themselves from the data at any point during the project.
If you have any questions about how we conduct our research engagements and our approach to data, please reach out to the Centre for Indigenous Policy and Research at: Centre@indigenousyouthroots.ca
Firelight’s Approach to Data Ownership
Firelight seeks every opportunity to support and advocate for self-determination and data sovereignty for Indigenous communities and organizations. This includes ensuring Indigenous principles of ownership, access, control, and possession with respect to data collection processes are upheld. Notwithstanding any other statement in this proposal, the information collected, and reports produced through the proposed Study will be considered the sole property of IYR. In addition, Firelight uses a number of practices to ensure the security of client data including:
- Ensuring project managers and leads are all university-trained researchers who have a background in protocols with, and management of, sensitive personal data.
- Requiring all staff abide by a confidentiality policy and code of conduct; and,
- Utilizing a secure file-sharing platform called Sharefile where files are password protected and use of uploaded information is logged. Through dialogue with the client, details outlining the conditions of access to, privacy, and/or ownership of project and/or community information will be clearly outlined at the earliest stage possible.