Kemēcemenaw: Menominee Food Sovereignty

What evidence tells you this is an issue?

How is your community working across sectors to address health and wellness?

Brainstorm and share some innovative ways that people from across departments can collaborate to address health issues.

What role does the community have in helping with these issues?

Menominee Trauma Model

The Menominee Trauma Model provides a visual representation of the historical trauma that exists within the Menominee Indian Reservation. This model represents years of community conversations and local understanding of the complexity of community health and social issues. Historical traumas like loss of language, loss of land and community, federal termination policies, boarding school experiences, and genocide, among countless other traumas, are the root cause of many unhealthy behaviors seen in the community today. This realization helped change program efforts and behavioral approaches to working with the community. For example, for several years, the community was working to address obesity. Program efforts focused on proper diet, exercise, and negative messaging (don’t do this, don’t do that). Once the connection was made that obesity was a symptom of historical trauma, shame, internalized pain, fears, and anger, then the approach to obesity programs became more holistic. There was still a focus on diet, exercise, and messaging, but it is now connected to cultural assets described in Integrating Culture: Indigenous Planning Systems and Integrating Culture: Cultural Assets. These are the foundation of the Menominee Indigenous Food Sovereignty projects. While this trauma model is representative of specific Menominee history and branded as the Menominee Trauma Model, it has been shared with other Tribal communities. The model has resonated in other communities because of the visual representation. The visual representation that the model embodies has resonated in other communities and it is hoped that the model can help other Tribal communities visualize

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