About

Ensuring the health, wellness and cultural safety of Indigenous children in British Columbia (BC) needs to be a policy priority given the harmful legacies of colonialism. This research report aimed to identify effective universal maternal and early child health programs developed and implemented by and within Indigenous communities. The goal of the report was to help ensure Indigenous children, families and communities can access effective and culturally safe and sensitive programs in BC.

To contribute to public conversations about Indigenous early childhood programming, we used systematic review methods and identified eight relevant reviews of prenatal, postnatal, maternal and early childhood health programs developed and implemented by and within Indigenous communities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. All eight reviews spoke to the need to honour Indigenous voices through ensuring meaningful community leadership in choosing all aspects of the planning, development, implementation and evaluation of programs.

The report makes four recommendations for public policy:

• Make Indigenous children a leading public policy priority for BC and for Canada.
• Commit sufficient and sustained public resources to ensure high-quality programming.
• Ensure that all prenatal and early child health programming is led by Indigenous communities.
• Recognize that Indigenous children deserve public investments in programs with proven benefits, with evaluations including Indigenous perspectives on child flourishing.