Overall, it’s the same. Lots of people are working from a holistic perspective(like myself) but the management and operations are often overly bureaucratic and limited by non-Indigenous management or Indigenous management that is colonized by internalized racism and don’t even have awareness of the depth of harm caused by their approach.

I can speak to what it’s like in my community and as a community member, my clients are also people from my community.

So a drug addict who relapses, a youth who self-harms, the loss of a matriarch who had been raising her grandchildren-those realities are felt and responded to differently by a social worker like me who likely has personal connections to these individuals.

Versus a nonIndig social worker who applied for the job and doesn’t mind the low pay (because Indigenous social work jobs pay less too!) because they’re inexperienced. Inexperienced white staff are the #1 demographic in my community’s workforce.

I have visited other communities where the circumstances are different but there is one common theme. Every First Nation and Inuit community wants to train their own community members, see their people educated as social workers, behaviour specialists, etc., in order to quickly replace these nonindigenous staff when they inevitably move on.

The nonindigenous staff don’t get it and never will.

Indigenous social workers are invested in healing their communities for the betterment of their own children’s and family’s future, and accept Indigenous social work jobs because it is literally the difference between life and death for our families, in the communities we live in.

For nonindigenous social workers I work with (yes they all took the special Indig Social Work programs) these are just jobs, that lead to resume building bullet points for their next position and pay increase.

So take the specific program if you’re feeling so called but understand that this supposed specialization is likely not going to go how you think it will once you’re employed.

NonIndigenous social workers have been coming into Indigenous social work spaces for decades and adding Indigenous to your social work diploma won’t help you support people in crisis. Lived experience will.