Cultural Safety – A Foundation of PCN
The outcome of cultural safety is for patients to determine when they feel safe when accessing equitable care. Practicing in a culturally safe way requires us to approach our relationships and interactions with a willingness to meet people where they are. It isn’t just on the shoulders of Indigenous people to do the work of cultural safety – we all have roles and responsibilities.
Cultural safety isn’t just about learning. We can’t know everything about a person and their culture, and we may not always understand or agree with another person’s culture, health, or wellness beliefs. Rather, practicing cultural safety requires openness and creating space for ways of being and culture to happen, allowing people to bring their knowledge and ways of being into the healthcare system. Cultural safety asks us to be open to learning and to listen to each other with our hearts.
Cultural safety requires us to work from a place of cultural humility. Cultural humility is an ongoing process of becoming comfortable with our own selves in order to be comfortable in our relationships and interactions with others. This requires us to understand our own beliefs and think critically about them and be open to learning from others. Practicing in a culturally safe way means acknowledging everyone has stereotypes and negative beliefs and teaches us to shift our way of thinking. Cultural safety also asks us to think critically and understand our own power and privilege, an ongoing and lifelong process. Cultural safety is an action call for us to use our power and privilege to stand up to culturally unsafe acts.
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It Starts With Me
The provision of culturally safe care is one of eight attributes of the delivery of care through the Primary Care Network, and PCNs present an opportunity to effect change, build relationships founded in the practice of cultural humility, and support the development and implementation of mechanisms to promote the advancement of culturally safe care.
“Teachings come from everywhere when you open yourself to them. That’s the trick of it really, to open yourself to everything and everything opens itself to you.”
Why Focus on Indigenous People?
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples thrived in present-day Canada, enjoying good health and wellness on their lands and territories. However, the arrival of Europeans around 500 years ago changed that, and marked the start of a colonial agenda to control Indigenous lands and assimilate them.
The impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people persist today as poor health outcomes, cultural and linguistic loss, dislocation, and marginalization. This has also led to the systemic exclusion of Indigenous philosophies and practices of health and wellness. Today, we all share a responsibility for healing relationships and acknowledging this history as part of Canada.
Creating an environment of cultural safety in health care settings is one step toward healing these relationships.
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Your Learning Journey
Be a life-long learner in Cultural Safety. Your path starts here.