ABOUT ESTELLE

Estelle Simard is from the Anishinaabe Nation, from the territory of Treaty #3, and a member of Couchiching First Nation. Estelle is currently a Visiting Faculty at the University of Minnesota Duluth's Department of Social Work. Estelle's experience is in the culturally competent management of integrated children's mental health and child welfare services. 

She has direct supervisory and clinical services expertise with Indigenous people and has specialized in family preservation strategies by incorporating cultural activities into service delivery and practice. In addition, she has presented at national and international forums on child welfare on "cultural attachment theory." Estelle is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership/Curriculum and Instruction with the University of Phoenix. Her dissertation is entitled "A Phenomenological Study on Cultural Attachment Theory."

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Estelle delivers services through her sole proprietorship, the Institute of Culturally Restorative Practices. Through ICRP she has delivered over 15 years of services to make the lived realities of First Nations peoples receiving mainstream and colonial services better. Estelle's services works to make meaningful change in the lives of Indigenous people of Canada. Estelle has and continues to work to empower First Nation’s people and their allies in the development of a skills set to practice relationships in the light of our shared colonial history. A key service is making meaningful change through the practice of cross-cultural relational building. Estelle has educated various service professionals across Ontario, Quebec, and BC whose work range from social work, to child welfare, to mental health, to health, to justice, to recreation, to child development, to education – elementary to graduate school level participants, and to governments such as the Ministry of Child and Youth Services, the Provincial Advocates Office, and the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. Professionals from across these service sectors have accessed her researched based knowledge and Indigenous learning modalities as a mechanism to culturally safe practice. Key audiences include:

• Ministry of Child and Youth Services – Child welfare and the Aboriginal Unit

• Ministry of Attorney General – North west Region

• Ministry of the Provincial Advocate – Research

• Child Welfare Agencies of Ontario

• Native child welfare agencies of Ontario

• Party Territorial Organizations

• Various Indigenous Health organizations across Ontario

• Friendship Centers across Ontario

• Justice workers

• First Nation communities throughout Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec

• Missing and Murder Women’s Initiatives

Estelle has developed curriculum that specializes in cross cultural relationship building. Educational Seminars and educational curriculum are core to the Institute. At the Institute we have developed curriculum such as the:​​​

• Culturally Restorative Practice™

• Culturally Restorative Developmental Milestones™

• Cultural Attachment Theory in Practice™

• Ending Lateral Violence in First Nation communities™

• Wellness and Addiction™

• Self Efficacy and Indigenous Development™

A few highlights of Estelle's commissioned curriculum include:

• Ministry of Attorney General / Whitefish Bay’s – Alternative to the Partner Assault Response Program – 17 Week – Wiijitiwin Curriculum for Men who Batter

• First Nation Training Initiative Project “ Weweni ganawenimaadaanig abinoojiiwag: Caring for the Children

• Fort Frances Tribal Area Health Services, Inc – Niiwii-giikendaan Minowaawinigoziwin Curriculum – Addictions’ curriculum

Estelle has worked at developing cultural safe education and programming for health care professions. Estelle has worked with senior managers at Waasegiizhig Nanaandawe’iyewiggamig Health Services in the development of culturally safe practices. In addition to these two organizations, Estelle has worked with the Sioux Look First Nation Health Authority in areas of Aboriginal relations and cultural competency training for health personnel ~ primarily doctors and nurse practitioners, or Ornge ambassadors.

Estelle understands First Nation reality and worldview and the complexities involved with service provision. Our commitment, our knowledge, and our practice are based on reciprocal learning and relationship building. We want to develop relationships with service professionals and help them to understand the unique cultural context that exists for First Nation clients. In doing so, we have empowered Indigenous people to navigate through the structures designed to help them.

At The Institute for Culturally Restorative Practices, Inc. we have promoted organization development in areas of:

• Cultural Development

• Program Development (with culturally restorative frameworks)

• Organizational Development (with culturally restorative frameworks)

• Financial Development & Fund Raising Efforts (specific to cultural programming and service development)

• Practice based research initiatives promoting culturally based standards into programs and practice

• Creating culturally safe evaluations mechanisms, quantifiable cultural standards in program development, and culturally restorative program evaluations in Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations.

• First Nation and Provincial Government liaison, advocacy, research, and dialogue on Indigenous well-being in the context of development, child welfare, mental health, youth justice, and community development.

Estelle advocates for change that happens at an individual level, and within their scope of influence they make the changes within organizations more effectively than an outsider coming in.  In our experience, the Culturally Restorative Practices educational seminars gives practitioners the ability to make meaningful and sustained changed for the Indigenous child, family, and community we serve.