Onajigawin Indigenous Services Diploma (Confederation College, Ontario, Canada)

I completed the two-year Onajigawin Indigenous Services program, grounded in Indigenous Knowledge, pedagogy, and cultural safety. Onajigawin is an Anishinaabemowin word meaning being prepared for the work of helping. The program centres prevention, well-being, relational accountability, and decolonized approaches to supporting Indigenous children, families, and communities.

My studies focused on understanding the historic, intergenerational, and systemic impacts of colonization, while learning to work in ways that honour Indigenous self-determination, cultural continuity, and community-led healing.

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​​Areas of Study

• A Sacred Family Circle

• Colonizing and Decolonizing Issues of Violence in Indigenous Communities

• Cultural Continuity

• Cultural Safety and Humility for Helpers

• Cultural Specific Helping with Indigenous Peoples

• Developmental Psychology

• Indigenous Wellness and Addictions Prevention

• Intergenerational Examination of Indigenous Health and Wellbeing

• Prepared Helper

• Social Aspects of Aging

• Social Welfare

• Sociology

• The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Helping

• Wellness for Life

Field Education:

• Field Placement I & II (620+ hours total) – completed with Decolonize Together, where I developed decolonized curriculum, public education resources, and community learning offerings centred on cultural consciousness, settler responsibility, and embodied reconciliation.

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Professional Orientation

The Onajigawin Indigenous Services program provided training aligned with culturally responsive, relational, and accountable helping practices, particularly in contexts involving Indigenous children, youth, and families. The curriculum also meets the educational requirements commonly associated with institutional pathways, including eligibility for registration with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW).

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This training shaped my skills and understanding. It did not determine how I would practice.

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How this informs my work

Completing the Onajigawin Indigenous Services program was a powerful and formative experience. Learning through an Indigenous lens in Thunder Bay—within a college serving a large Indigenous population, alongside Indigenous classmates—was deeply informing. The knowledge shared through lived experience shaped my understanding in ways formal curriculum alone could not.

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At the same time, studying Indigenous frameworks within a colonial institution made its limits visible. While the program centred Indigenous Knowledge, most instructors were white, and I often had to question what it means to call education “decolonized” inside systems built through colonization. I received strong support from staff overall, and I hold that with gratitude—but the experience was a wake-up call. Decolonization is not a label or outcome; it is ongoing, incomplete, and requires honesty from settlers.

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This clarified my role. As a settler, my responsibility is not to help Indigenous peoples or communities outside my own. My work belongs within settler communities—unlearning colonial conditioning, challenging harmful systems, and organizing for accountability—so Indigenous resurgence is not burdened by settler harm.

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For the same reasons, I choose not to register with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers or similar bodies. While registration is required for many institutional roles, it would place my work back inside colonial systems of authority, credentialing, and control. My work is not clinical or institutional; it is relational, educational, and rooted in settler responsibility. I am accountable to community, not to regulatory institutions.

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This is how I carry social work forward through Lokah—not as a profession, but as a way of life grounded in responsibility, relational accountability, and commitment to Indigenous-led futures.