Social determinants of Indigenous health are known to include structural determinants such as history, political climate, and social contexts. Relationships, interconnectivity, and community are fundamental to these determinants. Understanding these determinants from the perspective of Indigenous youth is vital to identifying means of alleviating future inequities. In 2016, fifteen Yellowknives Dene First Nation (YKDFN) youth in the Canadian Northwest Territories participated in the 'On-the-Land Health Leadership Camp'. Using a strength- and community-based participatory approach through an Indigenous research lens, the YKDFN Wellness Division and university researchers crafted the workshop to provide opportunities for youth to practice cultural skills, and to capture the youth’s perspectives of health and health agency. Perspectives of a healthy community, health issues, and health priorities were collected from youth through sharing circles, PhotoVoice, mural art, and surveys. The overall emerging theme was that a connection to the land is an imperative determinant of YKDFN health. Youth identified the importance of a relationship to land including practicing cultural skills, Elders passing on traditional knowledge, and surviving off the land. The youth framed future health research to include roles for youth and an on-the-land component that builds YKDFN culture, community relations, and traditional knowledge transfer. Youth felt that a symbiotic relationship between land, environment, and people is fundamental to building a healthy community. Our research confirmed there is a direct and critical relationship between structural context and determinants of Indigenous Peoples’ health, and that this should be incorporated into health research and interventions.

Strength-based approaches are regarded as being effective in research with communities but there are minimal examples of application as a research approach, particularly in health, with Indigenous populations, and with youth. Systemic racism manifested through colonization, including in academic institutions, has contributed to historical and ongoing traumas by supporting the overuse of deficit-based approaches with Indigenous populations in many disciplines, including health. We present our creation and application of a strength-based methodological approach to research in health alongside Dene First Nation youth. It was developed on principles consistent with the strength-based paradigms in social work, psychology, and education. We share four main components of strength-based research approach: 1) identifying strengths, 2) prioritizing and creating descriptions of strengths, 3) refining strengths by gathering contextual examples, and 4) depicting strengths to plan future research. Each component included qualitative methods (such as asset-mapping, nominal group technique, storytelling interviews, and participatory 360-degree video) that reflected aspects of strength-based approaches and emphasized active participation, multiple knowledge sources, and empowerment. Utilizing this approach promoted connectivity to the larger environment, inclusivity of multi-knowledge sources, agency and voice, increased empowerment, and practicality in action. We share challenges and lessons learned from exploring a strength-based approach in health research and provide insights for researchers interested in applying a strength-based approach to research, particularly in Indigenous health.

Strength-based approaches with Indigenous populations are recognized as empowering and promoting change, but there are minimal published explicit examples in Indigenous health in Canada. Working with three First Nations community partners in Alberta and the Northwest Territories, we explored an Indigenous strength-based application of Forum Theatre as a tool for mental wellness. Forum Theatre is differentiated by the interactive participation of the audience, who can change the play outcome. Collectively, community members were trained as community facilitators and used an Indigenous strength-based approach to indigenize Forum Theatre activities. We share strengths highlighted in our approach including inclusivity, relationality, language revitalization, intergenerational connectivity, team facilitation, partnerships, protocols, safety, empowerment, resilience, community connection, community-specific strengths, and relational responsibilities. An Indigenous strength-based approach must include the Indigenous group leading the project and has multiple benefits to the participants, facilitators, and community at-large, particularly when intertwined with relational, communal, and cultural assets.

In many Indigenous communities, wellness is a holistic balance of spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing through connections with self, family, community, and environment. Interventions to promote mental wellness (as a means of suicide prevention) with Indigenous youth thus need to focus on strengths and promoting these relations. First Nations and Métis communities in Alberta and the Northwest Territories in Canada partnered with academic researchers to adapt Forum Theatre as a mental health intervention for Indigenous youth. Forum Theatre, developed by Brazilian activist Augusto Boal, is based on playing games that encourage laughter, trust, and cooperation to build a community. The games lead to creating images with participants' bodies to reflect different life events, which are developed into a play with conflict and oppression. Through interaction with the play, community members explore solutions to the conflict. Indigenous community partners handpicked community members to train in facilitating Forum Theatre activities to deliver this mental health intervention. Our video showcases the reflections of a group of community facilitators and researchers on the process of being trained in Forum Theatre and indigenizing it for delivery to the participating communities. Community facilitators explain how they came to understand the potential and power of Forum Theatre activities. They describe their training experiences and briefly explain how they indigenized Forum Theatre in a manner that prioritized each community's assets and needs. Their description of the impact they saw in themselves, participants, and communities emphasizes the transformative nature of delivering indigenized Forum Theatre in communities.