This project is co-led by a team of researchers who are based at the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria in partnership with the First Nations Health Authority, First Nations’ Emergency Services Society and Capital Regional District – Healthy Communities Network. The School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria is situated on traditional and unceded Coast Salish territory. We acknowledge with respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.
We respectfully acknowledge that this research spans across not simply the Province of British Columbia, but also many diverse Nations with varied traditions and grounded place-based relationships. In seeking to approach this community-engaged research in a good way in partnership with Indigenous-serving organizations, we collectively aim to approach our work in a way that deeply respects the ancestral and unceded territories with diverse relationships and connections to the lands and waters where our research takes place. As researchers, we recognize that we have responsibilities to local Nations to learn from the stories shared with us. and that we also acknowledge and respect that the information shared belongs to the individual Nations and are used with their permission for this project.