HARC Team Facilitates Secret Pocket Workshop at Ksyen Regional Hospital in Terrace

On February 14th, 2025, Sarah de Leeuw, Marion Erickson, Lisa Striegler, and Kelsey Chamberlin facilitated the Secret Pocket Workshop with a group of resident physicians and third-year medical students at Ksyen Regional Hospital in Terrace BC.

Workshop Description: While concepts like anti-racism, anti-oppression, privilege, cultural humility, cultural safety, and cultural competency are in wide circulation across healthcare service provision, few of the educational and professional development opportunities about these practices are focused on ways participants feel and/or orient emotionally to complicated and messy workplace dilemmas. The heart of this workshop is ensuring participants explore how within each of us, and despite mistakes and fears and through critical reflective practice informed by story and art, there is unlimited potential for professional transformation.

Workshop Objectives: Using arts-based curriculum, participants will build an understanding about anti-Indigenous racism and bias, along with deeper commitments to cultural safety and humility through creative reflective practices. This curriculum revolves around interactive discussions and hands-on creative activities that will work towards:

• Identifying cultural barriers in the health care system between healthcare practitioners and Indigenous peoples’.
• Discussing how cultural sensitivity reduces cultural barriers and increases safety for patients.
• Developing revised practices based on cultural sensitivity and culturally safe care.