[News] When caregiving is 'a sacred responsibility'

Grant Bruno said he was taught that traditionally in Cree culture if a child had some sort of disability, that child would be taken care of by the entire community.

“All children would have been, but there would have been extra accommodations for that one child and to help that family and ease that burden,” said the assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta who is also a member of Nipisihkopahk (Samson Cree Nation) in Alberta.

“On top of that, we view disability quite differently than western models,” Bruno said. “Our cultural Cree model says people with disabilities are sacred, they are actually here to teach us, and they are actually more connected to the Creator than anyone else. I thought that was a really powerful way of thinking about it.”

With the support of the Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence — supported by The Azrieli Foundation — Bruno has received funding for the Indigenous Caregiving Collective, a project which aims to address the unique needs and challenges faced by Indigenous caregivers and their communities.

While the goal is to build a larger network to support indigenous caregivers, the project is starting in Bruno’s home community of Maskwacîs, Alta., and is focused on neurodevelopment disabilities. It is something Bruno said he understands. A father of five, he has two sons who are on the autism spectrum.

We recently spoke to Bruno about his work and the Indigenous Caregiving Collective.

What is the Indigenous Caregiving Collective?

What I am learning about the caregiving space is two things. The first one is that most Indigenous people would see caregiving as a sacred responsibility. And what that means is that it goes beyond just the physical. With caregiving, what I see, especially when I go back to my home community, is that there are emotional, spiritual and mental aspects of caregiving, and caregiving is often underappreciated.

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