About Us

In 2003, under the leadership of Dr. Nancy Gibson and her team at the Edmonton ACADRE Centre the inaugural issue of Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health was published. It was a bold step in academic publishing, inviting community people to be a part of the peer review process and focussing on community-based, collaborative, participatory research with Aboriginal people and communities.

In 2006 Native Counselling Services of Alberta (NCSA) took over the publication of the Journal. Working with organizations like the Cooperative Research Center for Aboriginal Health in Australia, Papa Ola Lokahi in Hawaii and Te Rau Ora (previously known as Te Rau Matatini) in New Zealand, NCSA was one of the first Aboriginal community organizations to publish a peer-reviewed, academic journal that focused on creating accessible, evidence-based articles. Our goal has always been to make good Aboriginal health research available to service providers, researchers and policy makers.

In 2015, NCSA have agreed to transfer the Pimatisiwin Journal to Te Rau Ora.  The refreshed journal is affiliated with the international ‘Healing Our Spirit Worldwide’ movement established to promote the health and healing of indigenous individuals, families, communities and nations. The official relaunch of Journal of Indigenous Wellbeing: Te Mauri – Pimatisiwin took place at the Healing Our Spirit Worldwide, The Seventh Gathering, 16^th November 2015 in Kirikiriroa, Hamilton, New Zealand.

See our archived issues page to access all Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health issues.

The Journal of Indigenous Wellbeing is a peer-reviewed, open-access, scholarly online journal that shares multi-disciplinary Indigenous knowledge and research experience amongst Indigenous health professionals, leaders, researchers and community members. The journal publishes original, informative and scholarly articles on the broadly defined topic of Indigenous wellbeing. Serving as a forum for the clarification and exchange of ideas, the journal features articles on projects that make a significant impact on our understanding of Indigenous wellbeing.

Submissions will be encouraged that advance knowledge and practice which have an international and multidisciplinary appeal across a range of healing contexts and applied disciplines especially psychology, social work, anthropology, Indigenous studies, counseling, health sciences, health promotion, social, spiritual and emotional wellbeing, economics, addictions, community empowerment, service delivery, policy development and governance. Studies and papers written with and by Indigenous community research partners are especially welcome. Submission may also be experiential, methodological, both qualitative and quantitative in nature. The journal also publishes editorials, invited articles, timely review articles and critical commentaries, all peer-reviewed within the Indigenous academic and practitioner community. Letters and book reviews are also welcome.

The Journal of Indigenous Wellbeing provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors retain the copyright to their work and have the right of first publication of the work.

All content of the journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License. This license allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.

The license also prevents others from using the work for profit without the express consent of the author(s). The license also prevents the creation of derivative works without the express consent of the author(s). Note that derivative works are very similar in nature to the original. Merely quoting (and appropriately referencing) a passage of a work is not making a derivative of it.