Overview

The Native Nations, Nursing, Helpers, & Healers Summit welcomes tribal members, health professionals, students, and faculty, campus and community members, and advocates who are committed to holistic, relational approaches to health.

This year's theme is Community as Medicine, which recognizes that healing does not happen in isolation. Across Indigenous communities, wellness is cultivated through relationships with family, Elders, culture, language, community, the land, and one another. Community provides belonging, identity, accountability, safety, and hope. It is where knowledge is shared across generations, resilience is strengthened, and healing becomes possible.  

The 2026 Native Nations Nursing, Helpers, and Healers Summit will explore how communities function as medicine by fostering connection, collective care, cultural continuity, and shared responsibility for health and well-being. Drawing on Indigenous knowledge, lived experience, community-engaged partnerships, and evidence-informed practice, presenters will highlight innovative approaches that strengthen Indigenous health while honoring tribal sovereignty, relationality, and self-determination.  

Bringing together tribal members, healthcare professionals, students, researchers, educators, and community leaders, the summit will offer opportunities to learn from one another, build meaningful partnerships, and advance collaborative approaches that promote culturally safe care and healthier Indigenous communities for generations to come.  

Statement of Need and Purpose

A significant practice gap is the predominance of deficit-based approaches in healthcare and health professions  education when working with Indigenous populations. These approaches focus on the "lack of" something and aim to identify failures and insufficiencies, often ignoring Indigenous strengths and perpetuating inequities. For example, healthcare providers may primarily focus on the high rates of certain diseases in Indigenous communities without adequately understanding or leveraging existing community strengths, resilience, or traditional healing practices. According to "Indigenous strengths based approaches to healthcare", health professionals are often taught and supported in practice via deficit-based approaches that perpetuate inequity for Indigenous peoples. This highlights a gap in the ability of healthcare teams to adopt and implement strengths-based perspectives that recognize and build upon the assets within Indigenous communities. 

Another practice gap involves limitations in access to culturally appropriate healthcare and a lack of understanding. Furthermore, there is a gap in collaborative research efforts to understand barriers to care and disparities in treatment outcomes. This suggests that healthcare teams may not fully grasp the complexities of healthcare access for Indigenous peoples and the systemic issues that contribute to disparities. 

Elements of Competence

This educational activity is designed to change learner competence and focuses on the following competencies:

• Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)/Nursing: Interpersonal and Communication Skills
• National Academy of Medicine (NAM)/Nursing: Provide patient/person-centered care and Population Health
• Interprofessional Education Collaborative Competencies: Values/ethics for interprofessional practice and Interprofessional Communication
• Social Impact and Belonging: Engage in Self-reflection, Address Differences in Health Outcomes, and Value Culturally Centered Care