Established in 1967, Conestoga now serves 45,000 registered students through campuses and training centres in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Stratford, Ingersoll, Brantford and Milton and is a provincial leader in apprenticeship training. Continuing education programs attract approximately 26,000 enrolments each year.
The School of Health and Life Sciences offers a range of credentials to assist you in your goal of becoming a health-care professional. From pre-health programs, through to certificates, diplomas, graduate certificates and degrees, the School of Health & Life Sciences delivers the most up-to-date training provided by expert faculty and staff in state-of-the-art facilities.
Bachelor of Science – Nursing (Honours) program:
The Nursing (Honours) degree prepares graduates to provide care that is relevant, connected, and responsive to the evolving needs of the people for whom they provide care. The program takes a contemporary approach to nursing education delivery, with courses and learning experienced designed to address the most pressing issues in healthcare today. While we value and emphasize the scientific basis of nursing practice, in health, the importance of relationships cannot be understated – relational practice is a hallmark of nursing at Conestoga. Extensive hands-on clinical learning opportunities will provide students with strong foundations in nursing practice, across a variety of settings and client ages.
Practical Nursing is a career-focused program where the student will gain the knowledge, skills and experience required to become a member of the nursing profession and health-care team. The foundational knowledge for practical nursing is based on scientific theory from nursing, the physical and psychosocial sciences and humanities. Person-centred care is learned in context through real-life experiences and career-related work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences. Seniors care is given special attention to meet the needs of an aging population.
School of Health and Life Sciences Commitment to Truth and Reconciliation
The School of Health and Life Sciences makes no explicit commitment to Truth and Reconciliation
Conestoga College
Office of Indigenous Initiatives
Our response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action continues through our ongoing emphasis on improving education and attainment levels and success rates of Indigenous learners. Developing culturally appropriate curricula, including the teaching of Indigenous languages, as well as offering a range of programming, services and research opportunities that promote Indigenous ways of knowing and reconciliation remain a priority.
Recently, Conestoga has begun development of an Indigenous Success Strategy. While we work with our community to develop our multi-year framework, we continue to focus on Indigenous initiatives in the areas of research, curriculum development, recruitment of Indigenous-identifying students and employees, employee education, creating welcoming spaces, and embedding the work of reconciliation into our organizational plans.
At Conestoga, we believe that all students can be successful. As outlined in Conestoga’s 2021-24 Strategic Plan, “We promote and foster a college community that is characterized and enriched by equity, diversity, and inclusivity.” A shift is taking place in Indigenous research, scholarship and education and we look forward to continued collaboration to support and empower the success, prosperity and well-being of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities we serve.”
Call to Action # 24
We call upon medical and nursing schools in Canada to require all students to take a course dealing with Aboriginal health issues, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, and Indigenous teachings and practices. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.
Mandatory Course: Yes
Bachelor of Science Nursing (Honours) NURS72020 Health and Wellbeing: Indigenous Ways of Knowing 3 credits
Learners will critically examine Indigenous health and healing practices through the lenses of Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Health Equity. Learners will explore the impact of major historical and current events on Indigenous health and self-determination. An appreciation for culturally safe nursing practice will be developed by exploring topics of colonialism, anti-racism, Truth and Reconciliation, trauma-informed care, and strength-based approaches to healing. Learners will explore nursing roles and responsibilities related to healthy public policy, system change, allyship, and nursing leadership.
Practical Nursing: INDS2000 Indigenous Ways of Knowing 3 credits
Description: Students will examine Indigenous health and wellbeing through the lenses of health equity, Indigenous social determinants of health, and Indigenous perspectives on health and wellness. The implications of major historical and current events and Indigenous self-determination will be explored. Approaches to culturally safe nursing practice and understanding the person’s story will be addressed through engagement in learning about colonialism, racism, Truth and Reconciliation, trauma informed care, strength-based approaches to healing and nursing responsibilities related to healthy public policy.
Course descriptions for BScN are here and Practical Nursing here
School of Health and Life Sciences Commitment to Call to Action # 24: 5 out of 5 = 100%
| 1. Aboriginal health issues | |
| Yes. See mandatory course description. | |
| 2. The history and legacy of residential schools | |
| Yes. See mandatory course description. | |
| 3. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples | |
| Yes. See mandatory course descriptions. As per faculty UNDRIP is covered by both NURS72020 and INDS2000 | |
| 4. Treaties and Aboriginal rights | |
| Yes. Not explicitly mentioned but assumed. See mandatory course description. | |
| 5. Indigenous teachings and Practice | |
| Yes. See mandatory course description. | |
Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing’s “Statement” of apology for colonial harms resulting from nursing education
Dec.11, 2023: CASN apologizes to Indigenous Peoples of Canada for Colonial harms resulting from nursing education…CASN is committed to a process of self-reflection, learning, and transformation. We will take the following steps to address the harms:
- Anti-Racism, Cultural Safety, and Humility: Promote education, resources, and practices that address anti-Indigenous racism, supporting decolonization, cultural humility, and cultural safety for nursing faculty, staff, and students. Promote institutional policies and processes that address systemic racism to foster an inclusive and equitable learning environment.
- Curriculum Revision: Promote a review of nursing education curricula to ensure a strengths-based focus and trauma-informed approach, the inclusion of content on the continued impact of colonialism and racism on Indigenous health, as well as Indigenous perspectives on health and well-being.
- Community Engagement: Establish meaningful partnerships with Indigenous organizations and communities to ensure their voices are heard in shaping nursing education policies and practices.
- Recruitment and Retention: Promote strategies that create culturally safe and supportive learning environments including pre-admission supports, in-program supports, and services that are developed in partnership with Indigenous communities.
- Ongoing Accountability: In collaboration with Indigenous partners, establish mechanisms to monitor progress and address concerns raised by partners, Indigenous nursing students, and faculty.
Land Acknowledgement:
Why don’t we have an official Land Acknowledgement?
Here are some reasons we are moving away from scripted Land Acknowledgements:
- Following the example of Indigenous Knowledge Keepers and Elders, we recognize that these acknowledgments should be rooted in relationships rather than in ideas of ownership, property, and/or capital expenditures. We look to wampum belts, like the Dish with One Spoon and the Two Row wampum to guide us when describing these relationships with ourselves, each other and the land and water.
“Wampum belts are visual memory keepers that mark significant events and codify agreements. The Dish with One Spoon wampum models how relationships should be formed and maintained.”
Rick Hill (2020)
- Conestoga occupies various lands which may fall under different treaties. It’s important to be specific to the lands you live, work, and play on each time you deliver a Land Acknowledgement. This demonstrates a level of intentionality that is becoming increasingly standardized across post-secondary institutions provincially, and nationally.
“Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren’t looking because you were trying to stay alive. In the face of such loss, one thing our people could not surrender was the meaning of land. In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity so it could never be bought or sold,”
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Braiding Sweetgrass (p 17)
- Using creativity and curiosity as tools for change: when we challenge ourselves to move beyond scripted Land Acknowledgements, we are activating opportunities for genuine and authentic engagement. We question what it is that we are acknowledging, and we are demonstrating to students, employees and partners that we are intentional about this work, which leads to safer, most equitable spaces.
“No matter how detailed and considerate a territorial acknowledgement spoken in a [non-indigenous] space is, it can never be more than a move to innocence if it is not combined with concrete actions embedded in relationships of solidarity,”
Asher, Curnow and Davis.
The limits of settlers’ territorial acknowledgments. Curriculum Inquiry 18:3, 316 – 324. (2018).
| NOTE: All content has been submitted to the respective faculty for validation to ensure accuracy and currency as of the time of posting. The Conestoga College School of Health & Life Sciences reviewed and approved the document. Managing Editor: Douglas Sinclair: Publisher, Indigenous Watchdog Research Assistant: Timothy Maton |