NOTE: Brock University announced the creation of its Indigenous Research Grant in 2021. This is one in a series of articles profiling the research of the latest recipients of this yearly internal award. Read more on the series on The Brock News.

Lisa Rutherford came to Brock to learn how best to support her two neurodivergent children by pursuing a degree in Psychology and a minor in Child and Youth Studies.

The fourth-year student Educational Assistant gained knowledge and skills in the areas of education and advocacy, but says she was still searching for resources in her Métis community.

Rutherford read about a report published following a 2023 gathering co-led by Brock University and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) that discussed supports for Indigenous Peoples with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDDs) and mental health challenges. The gathering was supported by a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), which is funded by the Government of Canada.

“I went to the 2023 Gathering on Indigeneity, Neurodevelopmental Disabilities and Mental Health in Ontario website, and I digested everything that was there,” she recalls. “And I thought, ‘I need to be involved.’”

Rutherford is now a Research Assistant on a team co-led by Associate Professor of Applied Disability Studies Kendra Thomson and Louis Busch at CAMH’s Shkaabe Makwa Centre for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Wellness, who also co-led last year’s gathering.

Supporting their project, Expanding the Circle: Building a Network with Indigenous Peoples with Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, is a Brock University Indigenous Research Grant.

The new project aims to implement the report’s three key recommendations: set up a national network in Indigeneity, NDDs and mental health; organize knowledge mobilization events and support community-led programs; and organize a follow-up gathering next year to identify calls to action.

Thomson says participants at the 2023 gathering expressed the great need for culturally relevant, appropriate resources on the topic.

“A lot of research on Indigenous Peoples who are labeled with NDDs is being done by white settler scholars versus having Indigenous-led research; therefore, we are committed to this work being guided by community or led by Indigenous Peoples with lived experience,” says Thomson.

“Also, there seems to be an overrepresentation of research on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which is connected to systemic racism, biases and lack of proper diagnosis,” she says, adding there’s not as much information on other diagnoses such as autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Central to the project is creating and gathering resources in which NDDs and mental health challenges are addressed within the context of Indigenous cultures, says Busch.

As an example, he refers to differences between Western and Indigenous models of development.

“Indigenous perspectives of development focus less on when specific cognitive or adaptive milestones should occur and instead focus more intensely on critical relationships at each stage of life, such as the role of grandparents during childhood or aunties and uncles during adolescence,” he says.

Busch says challenges faced by those with neurodevelopmental differences are layered on top of cultural identity struggles experienced by Indigenous Peoples as a result of colonial processes.

Rutherford says that, as a mother and support person to neurodivergent children, she notices the social disconnection that can occur when children “are not getting the same quality of relationships that their typically developing peers experience.”

“Indigenous teachings and culture tie into recognizing these children and allowing the children to recognize themselves as people with gifts who are absolutely, 100 per cent just as important and valuable to society as anybody else,” says Rutherford. “In the circle, there is no person behind you or above you or below you. Everyone is just equal.”