Teaching Tradition: Diverse Perspectives on the Pilot Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program.
Many urban American Indian community members lack access to knowledgeable participation in indigenous spiritual practices. And yet, these sacred traditional activities remain vitally important to their reservation-based kin. In response, our research team partnered with an urban American Indian health center in Detroit for purposes of developing a structured program to facilitate more ready access to participation in indigenous spiritual knowledge and practices centered on the sweat lodge ceremony. Following years of preparation and consultation, we implemented a pilot version of the Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program in the spring of 2016 for 10 urban AI community participants. Drawing on six first-person accounts about this program, we reflect on its success as a function of participant meaningfulness, staff support, mitigated sensitivities, and program structure. We believe that these observations will enable other community psychologists to undertake similar program development in service to innovative and beneficial impacts on behalf of their community partners.
['Gone|Joseph P|JP|', 'Blumstein|Katherine P|KP|', 'Dominic|David|D|', 'Fox|Nickole|N|', 'Jacobs|Joan|J|', 'Lynn|Rebecca S|RS|', 'Martinez|Michelle|M|', 'Tuomi|Ashley|A|']
D003466:Cultural Characteristics D006801:Humans D007198:Indians, North American D007398:Interpersonal Relations D008519:Medicine, Traditional D008824:Michigan D010865:Pilot Projects D016730:Program Development D012069:Religion and Psychology D012933:Social Identification D012944:Social Support D029181:Spirituality D014505:Urban Population
American Indians Traditional spirituality Sweat lodge ceremony Program development Community psychology