Positive Native Parenting

Sunday, April 13. 2:00pm-3:30pm. Olympic Room.

Description 

Parents have a great deal ofresponsibility in raising compassionate children. But what happens if we were not raised withcompassion and we don’t know how to show, give, accept, or teach about it? For many Native parents today, our parentsand grandparents were raised in a time of great change. Their lives were filled with oppression,often resulting in the loss of our natural and traditional ways of ensuringcompassion. Federal governmentalpolicies and practices such as extermination, boarding schools, reservations,termination, relocation, and the list goes on, caused an environment filled withfear which bred anger, frustration and even hopelessness, diminishing anyopportunity for compassion and other positive and traditional parenting ways tobe given or received. This interactiveworkshop is intended for Native people or those who work with or who areconnected to Native families to better understand where we learned to parent,discuss what examples we have for positive parenting, decide what kind ofparent we want to be today and what specific things we can do to show, give,accept and teach compassion to our children and others. Traditional Native teaching modalities willbe utilized and parent participants will share their wisdom and stories toenhance the teaching and learning process.

Presenter Bio 

Jillene Joseph, Native Wellness Institute

Jillene Joseph (Gros Ventre) is a single mother of four children and has also raised a nephew. She has a bachelor’s of science degree in community health education and is currently the Executive Director and one of the founders of the Native Wellness Institute, a national, non-profit organization providing wellness training to Indian tribes and organizations. For the past 20 years, she has traveled extensively throughout North America providing health, wellness and healing training to tribes and organizations.  She is the lead consultant trainer for the National Indian Child Welfare Association’s Positive Indian Parenting curriculum and their youth trainer. She has team-facilitated GONA trainings, provided strategic planning facilitation, has experience writing and managing grants and has visited hundreds of Native communities and organizations providing information as well as furthering her own knowledge and understanding of our People and the Indian ways. She prides herself in choosing to be a positive role model by being drug and alcohol free and by living a life that she knows is making her ancestors proud. Jillene’s personal mantra is “Living the Warrior’s Spirit: being positive, productive, and proactive.” Her passion and life’s work is dedicated to bringing wellness to individuals, families, places of work and communities throughout Indian country!