Celebrating Indigenous Parenting and Community- with guests Shashana Skippingday and Joe Tahdooahnippah

About this episode

This episode discusses Indigenous parenting and the Family Spirit Home Visiting Program with experts Shashana Skippingday and Joe Tahdooahnippah.

In this episode, Native Roots Radio host Robert Pilot speaks with Shashana Skippingday, Director of Maternal Child Health Programs at the Division of Indian Work, and Joe Tahdooahnippah, a Family Spirit home visitor. They explain the Family Spirit Home Visiting Program, a culturally tailored,tribally developed curriculum created with the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, consisting of 65 lessons from pregnancy to age three to support children’s physical, cognitive, social-emotional, language, and self-help development. The guests discuss why pregnancy through age three is acritical window for brain development, the importance of consistent, nonjudgmental relationship-building and trust, and what a typical home visit includes. They describe evidence-based outcomes such as increased maternal knowledge and self-efficacy and reductions in stress, depression, substanceuse, and behavioral problems, and they emphasize reclaiming Indigenous parenting knowledge, culture, language, and storytelling disrupted by colonization and boarding schools. This episode was recorded live on the radio program Native Roots Radio: I’m Awake, which airs on multiple stations throughout the…

People in this episode

Host: Robert Pilot

Guests: Shashana Skippingday, Joe Tahdooahnippah

Topics covered

• Indigenous parenting
• Family Spirit Home Visiting Program
• brain development
• cultural knowledge
• relationship-building
• maternal health

Keywords

• Indigenous parenting
• Family Spirit
• home visiting
• brain development
• maternal knowledge
• cultural reclamation
• child development

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, Division of Indian Work, Native Roots Radio

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