Real Change Starts with Real Relationships
In the era of reconciliation, working meaningfully with Indigenous Peoples isn’t optional, it’s a professional and moral responsibility. But good intentions aren’t enough. Meaningful engagement requires more than a polished land acknowledgment or an inclusion policy. It demands a commitment to relationship-building that’s informed, intentional, and values-driven.
That’s where the Building Local Relationships training from Indigenous Perspectives Society (IPS) comes in. This three-hour session isn’t a standard cultural competency course. It’s a transformative experience that equips participants with the insight, tools, and self-awareness needed to form respectful, lasting relationships with Indigenous communities.
Here are five core takeaways that make this training essential for anyone serious about reconciliation and ethical engagement:
Start with Self-Awareness, Not Strategy
Effective relationship-building begins by understanding your own foundation. One of the first lessons in the training is the distinction between your “core” values, those that define you, and your “flex” values, which can adapt to new contexts.
This internal clarity matters. When you understand your own value system, you’re better prepared to engage with others, especially across cultures, without imposing assumptions or defaulting to unconscious bias.
Key Insight: You can’t build bridges if you don’t know where you stand. Self-awareness is the first step toward authentic connection.
Language Shapes Relationships
The words we choose reflect, and shape, our respect for others. This training explores the evolving and often politicized language used in reference to Indigenous Peoples, including the distinctions between “First Nations,” “Métis,” and “Inuit,” and why naming specific Nations (e.g., Heiltsuk, Nlaka’pamux, Ktunaxa) matters.
It also unpacks the harmful legacy of imposed terms like “Indian” and emphasizes the importance of using language that reflects autonomy and identity, not colonial constructs.
Key Insight: Language is not a checklist of correct terms. It’s a living reflection of respect, recognition, and relationship.
Community Is a Commitment, Not a Concept
In this training, community is reframed not as a vague ideal but as a set of practices rooted in reciprocity, trust, and mutual accountability. Using the Ethical Space framework, participants learn how to navigate the differences between Indigenous and Western worldviews through shared values like humility, respect, and relationality.
The session emphasizes that community-building, particularly with Indigenous Nations, is not a short-term task but a long-term commitment. Patience, flexibility, and consistency are essential, especially given the historical context of broken promises and systemic harm.
Key Insight: Without trust, there is no true engagement. Community isn’t built through outreach, it’s built through relationships.
Reconciliation Is a Verb
Reconciliation is not a slogan or symbolic gesture. It’s a call to action grounded in frameworks like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).
The training helps participants move beyond abstract support and into practical alignment. Whether it’s through policy reviews, updated hiring practices, or developing a meaningful Statement of Reconciliation, the goal is to embed accountability into your everyday work.
Key Insight: Reconciliation isn’t a destination. It’s a continuous process of listening, learning, and acting with integrity.
Local Relationships Require Local Knowledge
Effective engagement with Indigenous communities means understanding who you’re working with, not just at the individual level, but at the Nation, organizational, and governance levels. Participants explore what respectful outreach looks like and how to honour protocols, capacity realities, and community-specific structures.
The training also covers Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and the risks of unintentionally replicating colonial patterns by approaching communities as stakeholders rather than rights holders.
Key Insight: Real relationships aren’t built through transactional engagement. They grow through respect, patience, and place-based understanding.
From Knowledge to Practice
Building Local Relationships isn’t about checking a training box, it’s about changing your approach. It offers a roadmap for shifting from awareness to action, from performative gestures to meaningful allyship.
If you work in government, education, health, or any field that intersects with Indigenous communities, this training will challenge you to think differently, and give you the foundation to act better.
Take the First Step Toward Meaningful Engagement
Join hundreds of professionals across British Columbia and beyond who are transforming their organizations through deeper relationships with Indigenous Peoples. This is where respectful collaboration begins, and where reconciliation becomes real.
Register for Building Local Relationships Here or ask us for a custom quote to deliver this training directly to your organisation Here