This Indigenous-led research directly addresses all four funding objectives through a tripartite co-leadership model examining the four PHS building blocks — governance, workforce, service delivery, and data practices — within three community-based Indigenous health organizations. We generate actionable evidence with the community sector that will produce system-level evidence on how Indigenous Knowledge Systems can be embedded within PHS building blocks through three community-sector cases:
1) Tsawout First Nation community health centre hub, addressing governance authority and traditional medicine integration;
2) Rainbow Medicine Society, a community-based collective of traditional practitioners examining workforce recognition and data sovereignty challenges where traditional healing intersects with public health infrastructure; and
3) Shakes the Dust Hope Consulting, who address system-level challenges in embedding Indigenous-governed approaches within child and family wellness services.
Our partner community-based organizations serve as living laboratories for testing how Indigenous jurisdiction can be structurally embedded within public health systems while remaining accountable to Nation-specific priorities. Through iterative Knowledge Holder–Learner mentorship collaboration, we test public systems-level solutions by co-developing and testing governance templates, workforce role descriptions, service-delivery pathway revisions, and Nation-governed data protocols that operationalize Indigenous jurisdiction within public health systems.
Our intergenerational mentorship model builds collaborative research capacity among Indigenous Knowledge Holders, youth learners, nurses, public health decision-makers, and researchers across 60–90 circle encounters, with structured training for graduate interns in Indigenous research methodologies and systems analysis. This iterative knowledge mobilization research enhances translation that occurs iteratively through quarterly mentorship circles and biannual whole-group gatherings, and culminates in community-cleared multimedia resources, policy directives for partners CNA, NCCIH, and NCCDH, and UVic faculty working on curriculum alignment workshops — directly closing research-policy-practice gaps. Our equity-focused design centres Indigenous rights and governance throughout: rights-holder decision-making authority, OCAP/CARE-aligned data sovereignty, systems-thinking through context mechanism outcome analysis, and interdisciplinary, intersectoral collaboration.