Michelle Peters, a PhD in Education student at StFX and a Mi’kmaw clinical therapist with a private practice, is on a journey to lead change. And she is both excited and aware of the responsibility of her PhD research focusing on how Mi’kmaw ways of knowing and being may inform clinical social work practice with Indigenous clients in Mi’kma’ki.
Ms. Peters, of Pictou Landing First Nation, NS, says her own experience as a social worker (her area of specialty is Indigenous mental health, trauma, crisis, and education) and a desire to help confront colonial structures, oppression, and racism from a holistic Indigenous perspective in social work led her back to the classroom.
“I noticed a real serious gap in knowledge and practice,” she says.
Most social workers when they graduate are unprepared in skill set and comfort level to work with Indigenous peoples, says Ms. Peters who holds both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in social work from Dalhousie University as well as a BBA from StFX.
She became a registered social worker in 2018, and worked in the non-profit, federal and provincial sectors before going into private practice in 2022 (the first Mi’kmaw social worker to be registered with the Nova Scotia College of Social Workers in private practice.) Over the years, she noticed not only a knowledge gap, but a western framework that doesn’t lend itself well to culturally responsive social work.
“It’s often not intentional,” she says, “but harm continues to be perpetuated onto our people because of that. The evidence is well documented.”
Ms. Peters started her PhD to focus on exploring Mi’kmaw ways of knowing and to better understand what is needed for good mental health and wellness in Indigenous communities.
Through her research, she is working closely with Indigenous communities, to listen and learn, and to ensure she is guided by the community in hopes to share this learning so there is something to spark interest and bring a more culturally responsive lens to the work.
Her research also focuses on creating an understanding that Etuaptmumk (a two-eyed way of seeing) is a valid way of being in the world, that ceremonies, culture and connections, are fundamental things people need to be well and balanced.
“The PhD will be a healing journey for me, and a knowledge journey,” she says.
Ms. Peters says even as an Indigenous person herself, she has been colonized and she hopes this journey will help bring decolonization through ceremony, learning from Elders and Knowledge Keepers, culture and language.
She is also hoping the work will start a dialogue that social workers can refer back to, and that it might too attract more Indigenous social workers to take up clinical work, a side of social work that focuses on counselling and crisis support.
It’s hard for Indigenous social workers, Ms. Peters says, as they often have to work with their own communities and bear witness to stories, which can be similar to personal stories, which can retraumatize them. Yet, the work is needed.
“Having that training, skills, and support are very necessary. I’m trying to start the conversation around what that might look like.”
“I’m definitely excited about it,” she says.
“I understand it comes with a lot of responsibility. It’s serious. I know there is a responsibility there to reciprocate, that I continue to share those teachings so that they continue.”
Ms. Peters brings an extensive background to her work. She regularly facilitates workshops and consultation around decolonization and cultural safety and inclusiveness. She is frequently called out for trauma informed care sessions and as part of crisis teams. She is also a direct descendant of Indian Residential School Survivors.
She is also a part-time faculty instructor in the StFX Master of Education program where she has taught trauma informed practice. She does public speaking and shares her gift for singing, bringing the medicine in the song to the people.
On her business card, Etli Npisimkek, the name of her counselling business, translates to ‘where i go to heal.’ “That can look different for everybody,” she says. “That could be Western frameworks of therapy, or it could require rooting a client back into holistic Indigenous ways of well-being."
MESSAGE OF HOPE
Through it all, Ms. Peters brings a message of hope—that people are more than their trauma.
Her mother, her grandmother, and many family members attended residential school.
“My mom’s such a beautiful example,” she says. “She endured all of that, but she wanted to be a great example for us. She taught herself how to read and write English, she attended Nova Scotia Teachers’ College…She’s a strong matriarch and she set such a great example for me. She really championed that even though the trauma is there, you have to stand up and do something different for your kids. My dad has also always supported my dreams and encouraged me."
Ms. Peters says she too has been through much in life and is living testimony you are not just your trauma.
“Despite what happened, you are the narrator of your story, and it doesn’t have to end that way.”
Mentors helped guide her and their support made all the difference in getting her to where she is today, she says. It’s critical that we support one another and lift each other up so that every person’s potential can flourish, she says, and that we create a society where everyone is included, everyone is valued, and everyone is able to contribute.
Events such as Mi’kmaw History Month are important.
“We want to challenge these stereotypes and highlight the amazing things happening in our community. So many amazing people are doing great things. We don’t hear enough about that. We want to celebrate all those stories.”
Ms. Peters says what she would like is for people to take a moment to reflect on and understand how other forms on knowledge and being are valid. Each of us bears a responsibility to educate ourselves on history and to take the time to understand issues.
“The only person we can decolonize is ourselves.”
