The voices of Indigenous youth around mental health service

The research indicates significant unmet needs surrounding mental health services for Indigenous peoples. Most mental health services have not adapted to Indigenous clients' needs, reflected in the low utilization rates (Crowe-Salazar, 2007). The need for effective treatments when working with Indigenous peoples is recognized within the research. According to Allen et al. (2020), Indigenous peoples face health care systems that fail to reflect or pay attention to the cultural worldviews and definitions of health that they maintain due to the influence of a biomedical approach to health care, including mental health. According to Stock et al. (2017), more emphasis has been placed on the importance of effective engagement with Indigenous communities and professionals. Engagement with Indigenous communities and the development of respectful and trusting relationships are necessary for success (2017). Nelson and Wilson (2017) emphasize that as a group, Indigenous peoples all over suffer from an unequal burden of mental illness. Research indicates that we should be careful about speculating about the pervasiveness of mental illness in Indigenous peoples without taking into consideration colonial processes and structures. Despite a significant amount of health research detailing disparities in morbidity and mortality rates for Indigenous peoples, there appears to be far less research regarding mental health and, in particular, the mental health of Indigenous youth (2017). Through a critical review of relevant empirical and theoretical literature, this paper examines barriers to mental health services for Indigenous peoples, focusing on the voices of Indigenous youth through an anti-oppressive lens. The literature review draws on a two-eyed seeing approach to examine biomedical approaches and Indigenous approaches. The strengths and limitations of the biomedical approaches are analyzed in this paper. Culturally safe practices will be explored to support decolonization and better inform mental health interventions for Indigenous youth.