Grow your understanding through experiential, community-grounded learning.
Our Indigenous Cultural Competency and Trauma-Informed Training course offers a reflective, experiential learning journey designed to strengthen your ability to work respectfully and effectively with Indigenous peoples and communities. Guided by Anishinaabe Traditional Teachings, participants deepen their cultural awareness, explore the impacts of trauma, and gain practical tools for creating safer, more supportive environments rooted in trust, respect, and cultural resurgence.
Highlights
- Experiential, reflective learning rooted in Anishinaabe Teachings
- Blame-free, shame-free approach to cultural competency building
- Trauma-informed practices grounded in Indigenous worldviews
- Culture-based models for wellness, restoration, and relational care
- Tools for strengthening individual and organizational capacity
- Certificate of Completion from Glendon Continuing Education
Why take Indigenous Cultural Competency
at Glendon?
This course provides a transformative learning experience guided by Indigenous knowledge, stories, and community-led practices. Participants explore the historical and contemporary issues impacting Indigenous communities and build confidence in applying trauma-informed, culturally grounded approaches within their personal and professional lives.
At Glendon, learning is relational. Through guided self-reflection, group discussions, and teachings that honour emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical wellness, this course supports participants in cultivating empathy, awareness, cultural humility, and meaningful approaches to reconciliation.
Who is this course for?
- Professionals working in education, healthcare, social services, public service, or community organizations
- Individuals looking to deepen their understanding of Indigenous experiences, trauma, healing, and cultural resurgence
- Teams seeking to strengthen reconciliation-focused practices in their workplace
- Anyone committed to creating safer, more respectful, trauma-informed environments
Upcoming Sessions
DATE & TIME
Spring 2026
Every Fridays
March 6 to April 17
9:30 AM - 4:30 PM
FORMAT
Online via Zoom
LANGUAGE
English
LENGTH
6 hours/week
over 6 weeks
FEE
$250 CAD*
*If you identify as Indigenous, you may apply for the Indigenous bursary (fee waiver) to cover the full cost of the course. By applying, you agree to a validation of Indigenous identity process.
About the Course
Participants will:
- Build cultural competencies through a blame-free, shame-free exploration of issues affecting Indigenous communities today
- Deepen understanding of trauma and its physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual impacts through Anishinaabe Traditional Teachings
- Strengthen culture-based tools for trauma-informed practice
- Enhance personal and organizational capacity to create environments of hope, validation, restoration, and reclamation
Week 1: Trickster Stories on Normative Violence and Emotional Colonisation
Week 2: Cultural Competencies: Routes and Roots of Good Relations
Week 3: Indigenous perspectives on Community, Cultural Continuity, Healing and Wellness
Week 4: Cultural teachings on trauma and tools for developing a Relational Home
Week 5: Changing the social environment: tools for implementing trauma informed practices
Week 6: Building relationships through Trust, Friendship, and Mutual Respect
Audrey Gilbeau, lives in Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek (Sandpoint First Nation), located on the Southeast shores of Lake Nipigon. Audrey carries a steady fire that has warmed and guided community spaces for decades. For nearly 14 years, she served as Executive Director of Nokiiwin Tribal Council, shaping that role with heart-first leadership rooted in the voices and direction of Nokiiwin member communities.
Back in 2017, Audrey invited Maya to lead what was supposed to be a 5-day gathering on “lateral violence.” By the end of the week, something bigger than any agenda had taken shape: the Spirit Building movement was born.
Audrey is an executive leader with more than twenty-five years of experience walking the path of First Nations self-determination. She weaves strategic policy, organizational growth, and intergovernmental partnership into work that feels both deeply rooted and boldly future-looking. Across the country, she is known for that rare blend of vision and follow-through, someone who listens hard, moves with integrity, and builds relationships that strengthen communities while honouring both tradition and transformation.
Guided by kindness, cultural resurgence, and a fierce sense of responsibility, Audrey continues to shape spaces where people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, can gather, learn, heal, and imagine together. As a leader, facilitator, consultant, and Master Spirit Builder, she does not just talk about positive change; she cultivates it, nurtures it, and invites others into it with warmth and generosity.
Important Notes
Partnerships
Located in Thunder Bay and representing five First Nation communities in the surrounding region, has worked to deliver Indigenous culture-based trauma-informed programs, workshops, and training sessions for over four years. With the creation of this certificate, Glendon Campus of 첥Ƶ has formed a partnership with Nokiiwin Tribal Council to uphold OCAP principles in its development, evaluation and delivery.
The certificate program development, materials, and curriculum were made possible with support from the
.
