We ask people a lot of questions when they enter life-skills, employment, education and training programs.
What are your goals?
What kind of work do you want to do?
What are your strengths?
What barriers are getting in your way?
Where do you see yourself in five years?
What training do you need?
What is your action plan?
These are reasonable questions. But lately, I have been thinking more about the assumption underneath them.
We are assuming that the person sitting in front of us already has a reasonably strong understanding of themselves—what matters to them, what they are good at, where they belong, what they want from life and how they see themselves contributing to the world around them.
When we are working with Indigenous people, I think we need to examine that assumption much more carefully.
Because if colonization deliberately disrupted the relationships through which identity, belonging, language, knowledge, values, roles and responsibilities were passed from one generation to another, then identity building cannot sit somewhere off to the side as a “cultural piece.”
It has implications for how we design life-skills programs, employment programs, education, youth development and other services intended to help Indigenous people plan their futures.
How can we continually ask Indigenous people, “Where are you going?” without also creating space to explore, “Who am I? Where do I come from? What do I carry? What matters to me? And what do I want to contribute?”
Identity is much bigger than “knowing your culture”
When we talk about Indigenous identity, there can be a tendency to immediately think about culture.
Do you know your language? Do you attend ceremony? Do you know traditional teachings?
Those connections can be incredibly meaningful. But Indigenous identity is much broader than that.
It can include family and kinship, community and Nation, language, land, territory, teachings, spirituality, history, values, ancestors, roles and responsibilities, gifts and abilities, political identity, citizenship, belonging and contribution.
And there is no single Indigenous identity.
First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples have distinct histories, cultures, political identities and experiences. Within those broad distinctions are individual Nations, communities, languages, territories and families.
A large 2021 systematic review of Indigenous wellbeing research found that although understandings of wellbeing differed across peoples and places, identity, connection, balance and self-determination repeatedly emerged as important themes. The researchers also found that identity was closely connected with family, community, culture, land, genealogy and spirituality.
Canadian research has reached similar conclusions. A 2023 study examining Indigenous perspectives on wellbeing across Canada found that wellbeing was understood at multiple levels—the individual, family, community and Nation—and included cultural, social, political and economic dimensions. Land, language, knowledge, relationships and Indigenous peoples’ ability to determine their own priorities were all part of the picture.
That tells us something important.
Identity is relational.
It is not simply information I know about myself.
It is also how I understand myself in relationship to other people, where I come from, my community, my history, the land, and the generations before and after me.
Colonization disrupted how identity was passed on
This is where history matters.
Residential schools did not simply provide Indigenous children with a poor education.
They were part of an assimilation system that deliberately separated children from families, communities, languages and cultures. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission documented how children were removed from the environments in which language, values, knowledge, relationships and identity would normally have been transmitted from one generation to the next.
And residential schools were not the only mechanism.
The Indian Act, child apprehension, displacement, interference with Indigenous governance, suppression of ceremony, language loss, gender discrimination and other colonial policies all affected the relationships through which Indigenous people learned who they were and where they belonged.
That distinction is important.
Colonization did not simply cause Indigenous people to “lose culture.”
It disrupted the ways culture, identity, relationships, knowledge and belonging were carried forward.
Think about how people normally learn who they are.
A child does not learn their identity from a workbook.
They learn through relationships.
Through parents and grandparents.
Through stories.
Through language.
Through observing other people.
Through responsibilities.
Through community.
Through the land.
Through being taught where they come from, what their family carries and what their responsibilities are to others.
When those pathways are deliberately interrupted for generations, it should not surprise us that some of the effects can also travel through generations.
That does not mean Indigenous people are without identity
There is a danger in talking about colonization in a way that makes Indigenous people sound damaged, culturally empty or defined entirely by what was taken.
That is not the story either.
Indigenous peoples survived extraordinary attempts at assimilation.
Families protected knowledge. Languages survived. Ceremonies survived. Communities adapted. Nations resisted. People maintained relationships, rebuilt relationships and created new ways of carrying knowledge forward.
Today, there are Indigenous people with very strong family, cultural and community connections.
There are also people learning their language for the first time.
People reconnecting with relatives.
People who were raised away from their Nation.
People learning their community’s history as adults.
People who are unsure about protocols because nobody had an opportunity to teach them.
People living in cities with strong Indigenous identities.
People whose connection is strong in some areas and still developing in others.
Recent Métis research in Saskatchewan illustrates why we have to make room for these distinctions. Participants described identity, kinship, community, culture, language and land as meaningful parts of health and wellbeing, while also describing intentional efforts to carry those relationships and ways of knowing into the future.
There is no single starting point.
And that is exactly why identity building must never become another way of deciding who is “Indigenous enough.”
Identity building is about connection—not performance
If we build identity into programming, it cannot become another assessment.
It should not be about measuring how much language somebody knows.
It should not be about whether they attend ceremony.
It should not be about whether they grew up on reserve.
It should not determine whether somebody is “traditional enough.”
And it certainly should not judge people who were raised away from their families or communities.
The goal is not to manufacture an Indigenous identity for somebody.
The goal is to create opportunities for people to explore the relationships, experiences, values and knowledge that help them understand themselves.
That can involve questions like:
Who am I?
Where do I come from?
What experiences have shaped me?
What matters to me?
What values guide me?
What abilities and gifts do I carry?
Who are the people I am connected to?
Where do I feel that I belong?
What am I interested in?
What kind of life do I want?
What do I want to contribute—to my family, my community, my workplace or future generations?
Some answers may be deeply connected to culture.
Others may not be.
People will begin in different places.
The goal is connection, not performance.
Why belonging matters
There is also research behind the importance of connection and belonging.
Angela Snowshoe and colleagues studied cultural connectedness among First Nations youth in Saskatchewan and southwestern Ontario. Cultural connectedness included dimensions of identity, traditions and spirituality, and the researchers found strong associations with measures such as self-efficacy, sense of self, school connectedness and life satisfaction.
That does not mean we should turn culture into another intervention and promise that reconnecting people to culture will automatically produce a certain outcome.
Human beings and communities are much more complicated than that.
What the research does reinforce is something much broader:
Connection matters. Belonging matters. Identity matters.
And if those things influence how people understand themselves and their future, then they should matter to the systems asking Indigenous people to make major decisions about that future.
This is where life-skills and pre-employment programs need to pay attention
A lot of mainstream employment programming follows some version of this sequence:
Assess → Identify Barriers → Choose a Goal → Develop a Plan → Build Skills → Find Employment
There is nothing inherently wrong with employment assessments.
There is nothing wrong with career exploration, literacy development, budgeting, communication skills, workplace preparation, digital skills, training plans, resumes or interview preparation.
We need many of those tools.
But I think we may be missing something before them.
Before asking someone to choose an occupation, have they had an opportunity to explore what actually matters to them?
Before asking them to list their strengths on an assessment, have they had an opportunity to discover the gifts other people see in them?
Before choosing a training program, have they explored their values, interests and preferred ways of working?
Before developing an action plan, do they understand what kind of life they are actually trying to build?
Before identifying someone’s “barriers,” do we understand their relationships, responsibilities, experiences and environment?
And before asking somebody to become work ready, have we ever asked what work, responsibility and contribution mean to them?
This is where I believe we need to change the starting point.
Adding culture is not the same as changing the program
This is an important distinction.
A mainstream program can invite an Elder.
It can begin with prayer.
It can include a cultural activity.
It can put a medicine wheel into a workbook.
All of those things may have value.
But underneath those activities, the program can still operate exactly the same way it always has:
Assess the client.
Identify the deficits.
Identify the barriers.
Pick an occupation.
Develop an action plan.
Move the participant toward an employment outcome.
We have added Indigenous content, but we have not necessarily changed the way we understand the person.
Identity-informed programming changes the questions we ask before the action plan is ever developed.
Instead of beginning primarily with what the system needs to know about a participant, we create a process through which the participant begins learning more about themselves.
There is a significant difference between:
“We need to assess you so we can determine what you should do.”
and
“We are going to create opportunities for you to understand yourself more deeply so that you can make meaningful decisions about where you want to go.”
That is a different relationship with the participant.
The difference between collecting information and building self-knowledge
Think about how much information employment and social programs collect about people.
Education.
Employment history.
Income.
Barriers.
Skills.
Aptitude.
Transportation.
Childcare.
Interests.
Goals.
Most of that information serves a legitimate purpose.
But there is a difference between the program knowing a lot about the person and the person knowing more about themselves.
An assessment might tell us that someone has an aptitude for a particular occupation.
That can be useful information.
But imagine combining it with a deeper process where the participant has also explored their values, gifts, interests, identity, relationships, preferred environments, responsibilities, motivation and hopes for their future.
Now the assessment becomes a tool.
It does not define the person.
Maybe the pathway needs to look more like:
Identity → Values → Gifts → Interests → Relationships → Purpose → Possibilities
and then:
Career Exploration → Skill Development → Education or Training → Goals → Action → Employment, Entrepreneurship or Other Meaningful Pathways
We have not removed employment development.
We have built a stronger foundation underneath it.
We are starting to see this in workforce development
There are some encouraging examples emerging in Canada.
The Future Skills Centre’s Indigenous Employment Hub, led by the Coast Salish Development Corporation and co-delivered by the Stz’uminus Education Society, used a community-centred approach that combined skills assessment, training, employment supports and strong relationships with community members and employers. The project’s findings emphasized the value of culturally specific, community-driven programming, flexibility and face-to-face relationships with participants.
That is significant because it moves employment development beyond simply delivering a predetermined set of interventions.
The Future Skills Centre’s For-credit inSTEM program provides another example. Indigenous youth participated in land-based STEM education that connected Indigenous Knowledge with contemporary STEM learning. The evaluation found that participants reported greater interest and learning when Indigenous instructors and guests were involved. It also identified belonging and community as an important foundation for learning and growth.
And in a 2025 Leadership Development for Indigenous Communities project, Workforce Warriors incorporated cultural and language learning, Elders, work-integrated learning and Two-Eyed Seeing into workforce development. The Future Skills Centre reported high engagement while also noting that the approach required more time, flexibility, relationship building and responsiveness to individual communities than a conventional program model.
These projects do not prove that there is one perfect identity-based employment model.
What they do show is that when Indigenous communities, organizations and practitioners are given room to shape programming, relationships, belonging, culture, community priorities and Indigenous ways of knowing begin to influence the structure of the program itself.
That is much different than simply adding a cultural activity.
Employment matters—but it is not the whole person
Employment is important.
Economic independence matters.
Education matters.
Income matters.
Being able to support ourselves and our families matters.
But a meaningful life cannot always be measured by whether somebody became attached to the labour market within a program’s reporting period.
Contribution can take many forms.
It might mean supporting family.
Raising children.
Helping an Elder.
Going back to school.
Learning language.
Reconnecting with relatives.
Starting a business.
Becoming dependable.
Serving the community.
Taking on leadership.
Mentoring young people.
Learning something that can be carried forward.
Canadian research examining Indigenous perspectives on wellbeing reinforces this broader view. Wellbeing was described not simply at an individual level, but through family, community and Nation, and through cultural, social, political and economic dimensions.
Employment still matters.
But perhaps employment programs also need better ways of recognizing movement, development and progress before the final labour-market outcome occurs.
Sometimes very important change happens long before the job offer.
Identity building is bigger than individual wellness
There is another reason this work matters.
When somebody learns their family history, that knowledge may eventually be shared with their children.
When somebody learns even a little of their language, those words can move to another generation.
When somebody reconnects with relatives, relationships can begin moving again.
When someone learns community history, stories, teachings, responsibilities or ways of knowing, knowledge that was interrupted can begin travelling forward again.
That is part of cultural continuity.
Elders → Adults → Youth → Children → Future Generations
Moving through those relationships are:
language • stories • teachings • values • knowledge • responsibilities • relationships • identity
That is why Indigenous identity reclamation is bigger than simply helping an individual develop better self-esteem.
It is also about what gets carried forward.
We are not trying to go backwards
Identity reclamation does not mean trying to recreate some frozen version of Indigenous life from hundreds of years ago.
Cultures live.
People change.
Communities change.
Indigenous people can work in technology, operate businesses, attend universities, work in industry, live in cities, learn their language at 45, participate in ceremony, use social media, raise children and continue figuring out what their identity means within a contemporary world.
Reclamation is not about going backwards.
It is about Indigenous people having the opportunity and authority to decide what we carry forward.
That is also why identity cannot be separated entirely from self-determination.
The research on Indigenous wellbeing consistently connects individual wellbeing with broader relationships to family, community, Nation, land, culture and collective self-determination.
The responsibility therefore cannot be placed entirely on an individual to “reconnect.”
Systems also have responsibilities.
Are languages supported?
Are communities resourced?
Do Indigenous people have access to land and cultural spaces?
Are programs Indigenous-led?
Do institutions respect Indigenous Knowledge?
Are families and communities involved?
Are people experiencing racism when they enter education or workplaces?
Do Indigenous Nations actually have meaningful authority over the programs intended to serve their citizens?
Identity building cannot become another way of telling Indigenous people that they need to fix themselves.
There cannot be one Indigenous identity curriculum
And this brings me to another caution.
The answer is not to create a standardized “Indigenous Identity Module” and deliver it everywhere.
That would repeat the same problem.
Identity work needs to recognize First Nations, Inuit and Métis distinctions.
It should be grounded locally wherever possible.
It should respect individual Nations, communities, families, histories and protocols.
It needs to make room for people with different levels of cultural connection.
It needs to be safe for people reconnecting after being raised away.
And cultural or spiritual participation should never become another compulsory condition people must satisfy to access a service.
There is no universal Indigenous identity pathway because Indigenous peoples were never one people to begin with.
Maybe we need a different starting point
For a long time, many mainstream systems have approached people with a question that sounds something like:
What is wrong, missing or getting in the way—and what do we need to fix so this person can move forward?
There is another place we can begin.
Who is this person?
What do they carry?
What matters to them?
What gifts and abilities are already there?
What experiences shaped them?
Who are they connected to?
Where do they belong?
What are they curious about?
What relationships could be strengthened?
What kind of life do they want?
What responsibility do they want to carry?
What do they hope to contribute?
And then we can talk about the plan.
The education.
The training.
The career.
The employment goal.
The next step.
Make room for the person before building the plan
Colonization interrupted many of the relationships through which Indigenous identity, knowledge, belonging, responsibility, gifts and purpose were carried from one generation to another.
We cannot adequately respond to that history by adding one cultural activity to an otherwise unchanged program.
Perhaps we need to reconsider where the program begins.
Before the assessment.
Before the career goal.
Before the action plan.
There needs to be room for the person.
Before we continually ask Indigenous people where they are going, perhaps we need to create more opportunities for them to explore who they are, where they come from, what they carry, what matters to them and what they want to contribute.
The goal should not simply be to make Indigenous people ready for employment.
It should be to create the conditions where people can know themselves, make meaningful choices, develop their gifts and skills, build sustainable futures and carry strong identities into the generations that follow.
And I think that changes the way we need to think about life skills, employment development and Indigenous programming altogether.
Sources & Further Reading
Gall, A., Anderson, K., Howard, K., Diaz, A., King, A., Willing, E., Connolly, M., Lindsay, D., & Garvey, G. (2021). Wellbeing of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the United States: A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(11), 5832. This review synthesized 100 qualitative studies, including 43 from Canada, and identified identity, connection, balance and self-determination as recurring aspects of Indigenous wellbeing.
Snowshoe, A., Crooks, C. V., Tremblay, P. F., & Hinson, R. E. (2017). Cultural connectedness and its relation to mental wellness for First Nations youth. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 38, 67–86. The study involved 290 First Nations youth from Saskatchewan and southwestern Ontario and examined relationships among cultural connectedness, sense of self, self-efficacy, school connectedness and life satisfaction.
Tsuji, S. R. J., Zuk, A. M., Solomon, A., Edwards-Wheesk, R., Ahmed, F., & Tsuji, L. J. S. (2023). What Is Wellbeing, and What Is Important for Wellbeing? Indigenous Voices from across Canada. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(17), 6656.
Foulds, H. J. A., LaFleur, J., Johnson, S. R., Moore, S., McInnes, A., & Ferguson, L. J. (2025). “Community traditions, community kinship, language, and land bring me a lot of joy”: The importance of culture and social support in the health and wellbeing of Métis people. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 20(1).
Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Canada’s Residential Schools: The Legacy. The Commission documents the effects of residential schools on Indigenous languages, cultures, families, communities and intergenerational transmission of knowledge.
Moulton, A., Noumi, C., & McDonough, L. (2024). Project Insights: For-credit land-based inSTEM Program. Future Skills Centre. The project highlights Indigenous-led, land-based learning, cultural connection and belonging as foundations for Indigenous youth learning and skills development.
McLaren, K. (2025). Project Insights Report: Indigenous Employment Hub. Future Skills Centre. The report highlights community-driven programming, flexible supports, relationships and culturally specific approaches in Indigenous employment development.
McLaren, K. (2025). Project Insights Report: Leadership Development for Indigenous Communities. Future Skills Centre. The Indigenous-led workforce initiative integrated Elders, cultural and language learning, work-integrated learning and Two-Eyed Seeing into program development and delivery.
