INSIGHTS ON CULTURAL SAFETY IN PRACTICE

I remember back in 2014 when I started working in Coast Salish communities. Distinctly I remember being told the language of the people here: Hulquiminum. It was so foreign to my brain and my tongue, I wondered how I would ever remember it. The same thing happened when I met my friend Qwustenuxun. And then Wholwolet'za. At first it seemed so complicated, but now I don't think twice about any of it. It can be intimidating at first. And then one day, it's second nature. When Ge

Two weeks ago, George and I spent an afternoon in the Feast House on Grouse Mountain, presenting to a group of health regulators. We talked about cultural safety, complaints pathways, board recruitment, licensing, all the quiet machinery that decides whether Indigenous Peoples trust a system or not—aspects of healthcare often ignored in abstract policy talk. We discussed the granular questions of who gets to define safety, and who has been carrying generations of justified he

A teaching from Stuart Pagaduan, Coast Salish artist Stuart Pagaduan opens with a greeting in his language: 'Uy' skweyul. Good day. He is a Coast Salish artist, and at the Longhouse Experiential Workshop, he sat with us to share something we have never explained publicly in quite this way: the teaching behind the Culturally Committed logo. Most of us see the logo every day. The heart. The figure at the centre. The birds surrounding it. But Stuart's explanation of what each el

LISTEN TO THIS TEACHING HERE: Uy skweyul, everyone🧡 I'm Rebecca Harris and I am stepping in again for Kim today. A while back, George wrote about the microaggressions he carries and what it's like to move through the world as himself, every day. I remember what it took for him share that. It's one thing to carry something quietly. Its another thing entirely to put it into words and hand it to hundreds of people you may never meet. That's not a small thing to do, and I don't

Uy skweyul, friends 🧡 A few weeks ago, George was sitting in a meeting about a land acknowledgement when a staff member asked him a simple question: did he prefer to be called by his Traditional name, or his English one? He told us how much that question meant to him. Not because it was polite, but because of what it showed: someone paying attention, someone willing to ask instead of assume. That question opens up into something bigger for this week's Teachings Tuesday. Geor

In April, at our longhouse event, we finally sat Stuart Pagaduan down in front of a camera. It had taken five years to get there. Five years of coordinating schedules, of knowing this conversation needed to happen but never quite finding the moment. That day, it did. The story actually starts back in the spring of 2021. I was searching for a Coast Salish artist to create the Culturally Committed logo, and I wanted to get it right. I remember talking it over with my friend Jen

A conversation with Len Pierre (Pelikul), Coast Salish, Katzie & Musqueam First Nations Len Pierre's ancestral name is Pelikul. He is Coast Salish, from Katzie First Nation on his father's side and Musqueam First Nation on his mother's side, and he is the CEO of Len Pierre Consulting. He has been a mentor, advocate, and steady presence in the Culturally Committed community for years. In a recent conversation recorded at the Longhouse Experiential Workshop, Len said something

A guest in one of our recent community calls said something that's been sitting with me for the past couple weeks. They'd just come through their first circle with Culturally Committed, and the experience had been impactful. They were considering how their team might benefit from participating in the work, but were concerned that some might not be quite ready yet. I want to sit with that for a moment, because it's not a small thing to say, and it's not always wrong. Some peop

The words we use carry the weight of history. Learn what decolonizing language means, which terms to rethink, and how to shift your communication with Indigenous communities.

Indigenous resurgence is more than a movement. It's a reclaiming of land, language, culture, and self-determination. Explore what it means and how allies can support it.

Cultural safety and cultural humility are often used interchangeably, but they're not the same thing. Understand the key differences and why both are essential.

Cultural safety goes beyond awareness. Learn what it means to create spaces where people feel respected, safe, and free to be themselves.

Happy Teachings Tuesday, everyone. Today's message is shared with us by our dear friend and Mentor, Wholwholet'za, and is centered around time. In the context of modern agenda's, and contrasted against how cultural time unfolds. We hope you find it helpful. Since the early years of Culturally Committed, we have been asked the same question time and time again: How do you work with Indigenous People in a good way? And every single time I hear it, I feel the weight and the beau

Hello everyone. This week Kim is away, celebrating her parents' 50th wedding anniversary out in Manitoba. I'm stepping in for her today, and thankfully for me, our Teachings Tuesday comes from Wholwolet'za, George Harris Jr, my husband. By now he is a well-known Mentors in this circle, and being married to him means I get an inside line on these teachings long before they ever reach the page. Once again, George has taken something many of us probably scrolled right past, a vi

Summer has a way of pulling us outward. Road trips. Beach days. That itch to find somewhere new, somewhere quiet, somewhere that feels far from everything. George has been watching this play out on his Nation's lands — bikes rolling past homes, cameras out on the beach, people calling it a hidden gem. It's a familiar season. And it's exactly why this teaching matters right now. Because the places we're drawn to this summer aren't empty, and they were never really hidden. They

Last month I did something that made me deeply uncomfortable. I saw a post on social media from someone I've known my whole life. A person woven into the fabric of my family's story. She shared a video she recorded while driving past a First Nations community I grew up close to, showing clutter in the yards, and captioning it with something about Elders being ashamed. The comments that followed were quick and unkind. I sat with it for a bit. I am really not someone who embrac

Senator Murray Sinclair said it on the final day of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: "Education got us into this mess and education will get us out of it." He passed away last November. His words are still moving forward without him. This year's graduating class in BC is the first in provincial history required to complete Indigenous-focused coursework as a condition of earning their diploma. Not optional. Required. Every student walking across that stage this June ha

George has told me this more than once: culturally, the most important thing you can do for someone navigating a hard time is to show up. Stand there. Be seen. You don't have to do anything more than that. I think about that teaching constantly, especially when people ask me how to get more involved in this work. We tend to make it complicated in our heads, worrying about saying the wrong thing, not knowing enough, doing it right. George's answer cuts straight through all of

There are people in this community who show up so fully, so consistently, that you stop noticing how much they're carrying — until they write something like this and you realize how much they've been quietly holding. Katy Carson is Métis, and she is one of the people I trust most in this work. She's been part of this community long enough that I sometimes forget not everyone knows her story the way I do. And this week, she reminded me that that forgetting — however well-meani

This past winter, I had the chance to connect with Deana Gill in the days leading up to Indigenous Fashion Week. She was candid with me about the challenges they were navigating in real time — the barriers, the scramble, the sheer will it was taking to get the collection across the finish line. And then the night arrived, and the Supernaturals Models stepped onto the runway, and you would never have known. What I witnessed was art moving into the world with grace and power an