Expanding the Space to Dream: Co-adapting a Culturally Responsive Social-emotional Learning Program to Promote Indigenous Survivance

Through a partnership between the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) of the Flathead Nation, two school districts on the Flathead Nation, and the University of Montana (UM), the project team is working to better understand how schools serving Indigenous students can co-develop culturally responsive interventions with their communities to support Indigenous children’s educational success and wellbeing. Previously the project team and their partners in the Arlee School District co-created Pathways to Wellness, a strengths-based, culturally-responsive social-emotional learning (SEL) intervention composed of Indigenous and Western knowledge for children, educators, and families through community-engaged research. The team’s aim is to expand the Pathways to Wellness intervention and disseminate a model for co-adaptation of Indigenous-led, school-based interventions to other Indigenous communities to help advance health equity and transformative educational change.