Thank you for having me here.
My name is Dr. Monnica Williams. I am an African American and permanent resident of Canada. I'm a board-certified and licensed clinical psychologist and tenured professor at the University of Ottawa in the School of Psychology, where I serve as a tier 2 Canada research chair in mental health disparities. I graduated from MIT and received my doctorate at the University of Virginia.
My research focus is culture, racism and mental health. I have founded mental health clinics in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Ottawa and a refugee clinic in Kentucky. I provide supervision and training for mental health clinicians for culturally informed, empirically supported treatments. I also provide diversity training internationally for clinical psychology programs, scientific conferences and community organizations.
Prior to my move to Canada in 2019, I was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, the University of Louisville and then the University of Connecticut, where I had appointments in both psychological science and psychiatry. I've published over 200 scientific articles and am a member of the Royal Society of Canada. My current research includes addressing barriers to care, the assessment of racial trauma, improving cultural competence in the delivery of mental health care services and interventions to reduce racism.
Although I'm not an indigenous person, as a scholar of racism I can confirm that indigenous people experience striking social and societal discrimination that adversely effects their mental health and well-being. My work with indigenous people in Canada includes in-depth mental health assessments for several indigenous women, including some who were subjected to coerced or involuntary sterilization by the Saskatoon health authority.
I also conducted a nationwide study of the mental health needs of diverse Canadians that was published in the International Journal of Mental Health last year. The findings with respect to indigenous people were significant and dovetailed with other research indicating that indigenous people receive a poor quality of care. Sixty-nine per cent said they had experienced difficulties accessing mental health care, significantly more than white Canadians. Indigenous Canadians reported more financial barriers to care than other groups, and even more than other Canadians of colour. The most striking of the findings was that half reported negative experiences with mental health care providers, which we know creates a barrier to treatment adherence and follow-up care.
There are a few critical take-home messages here. For one, we need to incorporate indigenous approaches into how we deliver health care to make it more relevant and palatable for indigenous citizens. Second, we need more indigenous clinicians. There are not enough indigenous providers to provide culturally relevant care to this often highly traumatized population. In 2018, the Canadian Psychological Association drafted a response to the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and stated that there are likely fewer than 12 indigenous practising or teaching psychologists in Canada. That would mean that only 0.0006% of the 19,000 psychologists in Canada identify as indigenous.
Notably, psychologists function not only as mental health care providers but also as researchers and scientists. Those best suited to integrate indigenous traditional knowledge and science into government policy are indigenous people themselves. Not only do we need to ensure the active involvement of indigenous people from various regions within Canada, but these efforts need to be led by indigenous scholars and approved by indigenous leaders.
We need to first ask ourselves why there are so precious few indigenous scientists and scholars in Canada in the first place. Less than two years ago, I admitted the first indigenous student into the University of Ottawa's doctoral program in clinical psychology. I've had a front-row seat to the institutional barriers she faces to get the education she needs to become a scholar who can conduct the very research needed to benefit her community.
Earlier last year, I conducted for the Office of the Auditor General a study of the experiences of racialized employees in the federal government. This included the Canada Border Services Agency, Correctional Service Canada, the Department of Justice, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, Public Safety Canada and the RCMP. The employees shared with us over and over again that rules and policies were ignored as employees of colour experienced unchecked racism that prevented career advancement, and they were subject to retaliation if they reported it.
We can come up with all the good policies we like, but you must understand that if you don't address the systemic racism that infects our institutions at every level, none of it will make a difference. Adopting indigenous knowledge requires us to understand and address the discrimination and systemic barriers that make these changes so challenging in the first place.
Thank you.