Introduction

The term ‘Indigenous’ is internationally recognized to describe a distinct group of people that live within or are attached to geographically distinct ancestral territories [1, 2]. In Canada, the term Indigenous is an inclusive term used to refer to the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people, each of which has unique histories, cultural traditions, languages, and beliefs [3,4,5]. Indigenous peoples are the fastest-growing population in Canada, with a population estimated at 1.8 million, which is 5.1% of the Canadian population [6, 7]. Within this population, 63% identify as First Nation, 33% as Métis, and 4% as Inuit [6, 7]. Indigenous youth are the youngest population in Canada, with over 50% of Indigenous youth under 25 years [7]. Projections of Indigenous peoples in Canada have estimated a 33.3 to 78.7% increase in Indigenous populations, with the youth making up the largest proportion of the Indigenous population by 2041 [6, 7].

Before European contact in North America, Indigenous peoples in Canada lived and thrived with their cultures, languages, and distinct ways of knowing [2]. However, Indigenous peoples in Canada rank lower in almost every health determinant when compared with non-Indigenous Canadians [8,9,10]. A report on health disparities in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, described First Nations peoples to be “more likely to experience poor health outcomes in essentially every indicator possible” (page 27) [11]. This greater burden of ill health among Indigenous peoples in Canada has been attributed to systemic racism (associated with differences in power, resources, capacities, and opportunities) [9, 10, 12, 13] and intergenerational trauma (stemming from the past and ongoing legacy of colonization such as experienced through the Indian residential and Day school systems, the Sixties Scoop, and the ongoing waves of Indigenous child and youth apprehensions seen in the foster and child care structures that remove Indigenous children from their family, community and traditional lands) [3, 9, 10, 12,13,14,15,16,17]. These traumatic historical events, along with ongoing inequities, such as: socioeconomic and environmental dispossession; loss of language; disruption of ties to Indigenous families, community, land and cultural traditions; have been reported to exacerbate drastically and cumulatively the physical, mental, social and spiritual health of Indigenous peoples in Canada, creating “soul wounds” (3 p.208) that require interventions beyond the Westernized biomedical models of health and healing [3, 9, 10, 12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21].

In the same way, Indigenous youth in Canada face some of the most profound health inequities when compared with non-Indigenous youth which can be further shaped by the rippling effects of intergenerational trauma caused by the historical and contemporary colonial policies that reinforce or legitimize negative stereotypes regarding Indigenous youth in Canada [2, 10, 14, 20, 22,23,24,25,26,27]. When compared with their non-Indigenous peers, Indigenous youth in Canada have been reported to be more likely to have higher rates of chronic conditions [e.g., diabetes, obesity, chronic respiratory diseases, heart diseases, etc.] [14], discrimination [28, 29], youth incarceration and state care [12, 20, 30], poverty [31], homelessness [32], higher adverse mental health conditions [20, 33,34,35,36,37], higher suicide rates [33, 38, 39], and lower overall life expectancies [24, 40,41,42].

Indigenous peoples’ perception of health and wellness is shaped by their worldview and traditional knowledge [43, 44]. While the Western concept of health broadly defines health as the state of complete physical, mental, social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease [45], Indigenous peoples understand health in a holistic way [26] that seeks balance between the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of an Indigenous person in reciprocal relationships with their families, communities, the land, the environment, their ancestors, and future generations [46,47,48]. Unfortunately, this holistic concept of health and wellness opposes the individualistic and biomedically focused Western worldview of health, which is a dominant lens commonly used in health research, projects, and programs involving Indigenous communities [46]. This practice further perpetuates the legacy of colonization and excludes avenues for Indigenous communities to access holistic healing practices “grounded in their culture” [43, 49, 50]. For example, health research involving Indigenous peoples in Canada tends to focus on Indigenous health deficits and identified social determinants in the communities, more often and without proper representation [43]. Additionally, there is the imposition of research on rather than with youth [43, 44]; and the failure to acknowledge Indigenous worldviews in research, to ensure in benefits them [43].

Authentically engaging with Indigenous youth has been cited by Indigenous scholars as one of the ways of achieving and enhancing wellness by, for, and with youth [51, 52]. This is characterized by meaningful and sustained involvement of the youth in program planning, development, and decision-making to promote self-confidence and positive relationships [53]. Authentic engagement involves working with rather than on youth as research partners or program planning participants [54]. This shift to working with rather than on implies respect for the knowledge of the lived experiences of the youth involved [54,55,56] and is based on meaningful relationships built over time among all involved [53, 57, 58]. Research has shown that engaging youth (Indigenous or non-Indigenous) as partners in a project/program fosters a sense of belonging, self-determination, and self-actualization within their community; thus, enhancing community wellness [54, 56, 58, 59].

This paper explores what is known in the peer-reviewed literature about strategies, approaches, and ways to engage Indigenous youth in health and wellness enhancement. Our main objective is to use information gathered from this review to inform youth engagement strategies, by considering the facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing wellness with Indigenous youth. We define facilitators in this context as factors that improve, enhance, strengthen, or motivate a journey to health, wellness, and self-determination. These are considered ‘strengths’ in the language of Indigenous peoples as they support equitable strength-based pathways towards reconciliation. Conversely, barriers are roadblocks, and demotivating factors or processes that limit and challenge Indigenous peoples’ access to achieving health and wellness. Our overarching research question was, in what ways can Indigenous youth enhance health and wellness for themselves, their family, and the Indigenous communities where they live?

Sub-questions included:

  1. a)

    What factors do Indigenous youth in Canada identify as facilitators/strengths to enhancing health and wellness?

  2. b)

    What factors do Indigenous youth in Canada identify as barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness?

Methodology and methods

Scoping reviews help provide an overview of the research available on a given area of interest where evidence is emerging [60]. While there are several accepted approaches to such reviews, this scoping review was undertaken using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Guideline for scoping reviews [61]. This approach was based on the Arksey and O’Malley methodological framework [62], which was further advanced by Levac et al. [60], and Peter et al. [61]. Our search strategy focused on primary sources that elucidated youth-driven, youth-led, or youth-engaged strategies carried out by, for, and with Indigenous youth to enhance health and wellness. We chose to explore all health programs and research inquiry that explore health challenges on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of an Indigenous person to encompass the definition of health and wellness as defined and understood from an Indigenous perspective. This scoping review is reported in accordance with the guidelines provided in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) [63]. See Supplementary material file 1 for PRISMA-SCR checklist.

Protocol registration and reporting information

There was no pre-published or registered protocol before the commencement of this study.

Eligibility criteria

Types of studies

A priori inclusion criteria for articles in this study included: 1] peer-reviewed journal articles reporting health and wellness programs, initiatives, and/or strategies among Indigenous youth in Canada, and 2] peer-reviewed journal articles published between January 01, 2017, to May 22, 2021. We chose a 5-year time frame to limit our findings to the most updated peer-reviewed literature which could provide implications for the growing body of work done in the field of Indigenous research among youth. Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, study protocols, opinion pieces, and narrative reviews were excluded.

Participants

Peer-reviewed studies involving Indigenous youth (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) in Canada were eligible for inclusion. We considered the fluidity of definitions for youth by age range as literature sources generally defined youth in stages between adolescence to early adulthood [6, 64, 65]. In Canada, the Government of Canada uses several age brackets to identify youth depending on context, program, or policies in question. For example, Statistics Canada defines youth as between 15 to 29 years [6], Health Canada in the first State of Youth Report defined youth as between 12 to 30 years [65] when referring to statistical reports, and as between 13 to 36 years when referring to youth-led programs and policies [65]. However, for the purposes of this review we defined and referred to Indigenous youth or young people as between 10 to 24 years to be more representative of a broader definition of youth which is in keeping with Indigenous peoples’ worldviews, languages, and cultures and more representative of a broader definition of youth as offered by Sawyer et al. [64].

Information sources and search strategy

With the assistance of an Academic Reference Librarian, search terms were identified, which were categorized and combined into three conceptual MeSH terms that we adapted for the database-specific search strategy. These terms included: Indigenous youth (including synonyms and MeSH terms), health (including synonyms and MeSH terms) and Canada. Thus, studies were then identified for this scoping review by searching electronic databases and hand-searching reference lists of included articles.

Initially, the following databases (Medline (Ovid), PubMed, ERIC, Web of Science and Scopus) were used to identify relevant articles published between January 1, 2017, and April 30, 2021. This constituted our first search. We then carried out a second search (updated search) on May 22, 2021, using the same search queries on the same library databases; in addition, we included the University of Saskatchewan’s Indigenous Studies Portal (iPortal) [66] to ensure we had as many hits as possible for our search query on focused studies with Indigenous communities. To ensure exhaustiveness, we employed hand-searching techniques and snowballing methods to identify articles relevant to the research questions by reviewing reference lists of relevant articles that met the eligibility criteria. Following this, all the identified articles were collated in Endnote Reference Manager version X9.3 [67] and exported, after removing duplicates, into Distiller SR [68], a web-based systematic review and meta-analysis software. The syntax used on electronic databases and the University of Saskatchewan’s iPortal to identify potentially relevant articles for inclusion into this review study is outlined in Table 1.

Table 1 Keyword search syntax used for library search
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Selection of sources of evidence

Two iterative stages were employed to select sources of evidence for this review study. First, we created screening, coding, and data extraction forms using Distiller SR [68] for each stage. In the first stage, UO screened titles and abstracts of all articles using the following keywords: Indigenous youth; health; wellness; engagement and Canada. In the second stage, UO independently screened and reviewed the full-text articles (FTAs) of citations included from the first stage. The questions in Table 2 were used to screen the eligibility for inclusion of the article for data extraction. A second reviewer (ST) also independently reviewed and screened every 10th FTA citation from the first phase to check inter-rater reliability.

Table 2 Full-text articles screening form used on DistillerSR
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Data charting process and data items

Data were extracted using a pre-designed data extraction form on DistillerSR [68]. All extracted data were exported into Microsoft Excel [69] for data cleaning and analysis. The title fields used to extract data from included articles are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Data extraction title fields
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Critical appraisal of individual sources of evidence

Conjointly, UO and CB appraised each article included considering characteristics and methodological quality using the JBI Critical Appraisal Tool for qualitative and quantitative studies [70]. The JBI Critical Appraisal Tool was designed to evaluate the rigour, trustworthiness, relevance, and potential for bias in study designs, conduct, and analysis [70]. Results on the critical appraisals are summarized in Supplementary material file 2.

Synthesis of results

We categorized findings in this review as facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing wellness by, for, and with Indigenous youth, further describing how youth described wellness promotion. We met weekly via videoconference to discuss, review, and revisit our study evaluation protocol to ensure we adhered strictly to the scoping review guidelines.

Outcomes

Selection of sources of evidence

As a result of our literature search, 1671 articles from five library databases and 24 articles through hand-search and snowball methods were identified. Of the 1695 articles, 253 were excluded as duplicates on EndNote vX9.3 using the ‘remove duplicates’ function on the software. Another 1227 articles were excluded following screening of title and abstracts on Distiller SR which we had fed with a series of screening questions (see Table 2) that were reviewed independently by two reviewers (UO and ST). Inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s kappa) calculated was 0.886, standard error = 0.147, p-value = 0.001. Where there were conflicts in article inclusion ratings, a third reviewer (CB), was brought in to discuss and provide a resolution. This left 215 articles for full-text article (FTA) screening. After reviewing 215 FTAs, a further 195 articles were excluded, leaving 20 articles for inclusion into the final review. Articles were excluded in the eligibility stage for the following reasons, 1) articles not focused on Indigenous youth or Indigenous communities, 2) articles not focused on Indigenous health and/or wellness, 3) articles not primarily focused in Canadian settings, 4) articles not written in English, 5) articles considered irrelevant or not applicable to addressing the research objectives or research questions of our study, 6) articles other than original research (i.e., we excluded review studies, opinion papers, and conference abstracts). A flowchart of article selection can be found in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

PRISMA flowchart showing selection of articles for scoping review

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Characteristics of sources of evidence

The general and methodological characteristics of all 20 included articles are summarized in Table 4. Of these, one study was published in 2017, two in 2018, eleven in 2019, four in 2020 and two in 2021. Five (25%) studies that were included were set in the province of Ontario, four (20%) in the province of Saskatchewan, three (15%) in the Northwest Territories and two in the province of Alberta. Fifty percent (10/20) of the studies recruited or focused on Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) people as study participants, seven (35%) studies recruited or concentrated on First Nations peoples only, and three (15%), on Inuit peoples only. Sixteen (80%) articles were qualitative studies, three (15%) used mixed methods, and one (5%) was a quantitative study. Eleven (55%) studies used participatory research approaches (which included photovoice, community-based participatory research (CBPR) or participatory action research (PAR)) in their study designs, seven (35%) integrated Indigenous research methods (e.g., the two-eyed seeing approach) into their study design, and five (25%) studies used descriptive or inferential evaluation strategies in their study design. Interviews, focus-group discussions, and discussion circles were the most common data collection methodology used in 17 (85%) of the studies included. Youth were commonly engaged in non-cultural activities in twelve (60%) of the studies and employed a youth-adult co-led strategy in 16 (80%) of the included studies.

Table 4 General and methodological characteristics of included studies (n = 20)
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Results of individual sources of evidence

All included studies provided answers relevant to one or more of the research questions with the potential for changing practice and strategies for engagement. All the included studies explored, investigated, or evaluated issues addressing health and wellness among Indigenous youth in Canada. The age range of youth involved in included studies ranged between 11 to 24 years. All studies utilized fun and interactive strategies to engage youth in their respective studies with the outcomes aimed at promoting health, developing capacity in youth participants and engaging youth in collaborating on sustainable outcomes for and with their communities [5, 8, 40, 44, 57, 71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84], save for one [16]. The summary of individual sources of evidence is described in Table 5.

Table 5 Characteristics of the included studies [n = 20]
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Synthesis of results

The key facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness by, for, and with Indigenous youth that emerged from the included studies are described in Table 6, in descending order of major themes for the frequency of citation by included articles per theme. The facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks have also been categorized into sub-themes under five major themes for facilitators/strengths and six major themes for barriers/roadblocks. Health outcomes/programs examined by included studies included suicide prevention [40], mental health promotion [71, 74], HIV prevention [75], wellness promotion through youth empowerment and cultural activism [5, 8, 16, 57, 72,,76, 77, 78,79, 80], social health [76, 83], land-based healing and wellness [77, 82], art-media based therapy and wellness [44, 73, 81, 84]. An overview of the facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness by, for, and with Indigenous youth is presented in Fig. 2.

Table 6 Key themes identified as facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness by and with Indigenous youth in Canada [n = 20]
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Fig. 2
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Summary of facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing wellness by, for and with Indigenous youth

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Facilitators/strengths to enhancing health and wellness by, for, and with indigenous youth

Five major themes emerged and were identified as facilitators/strengths to enhancing health and wellness by, for, and with Indigenous youth in Canada. The most identified facilitator/strength of health and wellness among Indigenous youth in Canada, identified in 19 [95%] of the included studies, was the promotion of strength-based approaches to engaging with youth in the community [5, 8, 16, 44, 57, 71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84]. A number of sub-themes also emerged from this major theme to include: peer-mentoring [5, 8, 44, 57, 71, 73,74,75,76, 79,80,81,82,83,84]; engaging youth in programs that developed and promoted self-determination, capacity building and empowerment [5, 8, 44, 57, 72,73,74, 76,77,78,79,80, 82,83,84]; building positive relationships and social connections with others, nature and the environment [5, 8, 44, 57, 72, 73, 76, 77, 79,80,81,82,83,84]; showing kindness to one another [5, 16, 44, 57, 77, 79,80,81, 83]; and engaging youth in cultural activities [57, 76, 82, 83] that stimulate or encourage mutual learning, enhance critical consciousness and cause transformative change [5, 8, 75, 76, 79, 81]. The next most common facilitator identified in 16 [80%] of included studies was enhancing cultural identity and connectedness through youth engagement in cultural activities [8, 16, 40, 44, 57, 71, 72, 75,76,77, 79,80,81,82,83,84]. Other facilitators included: reliance on the wisdom, skills, and teachings of community Elders, Traditional Knowledge Keepers and community leaders in the pursuit of health and wellness promotion with Indigenous youth [5, 16, 44, 72, 77, 79,80,81, 83, 84]; taking responsibility for one’s journey to wellness [44, 57, 72, 74, 79, 80, 82, 83]; and providing access to health services and other wellness supports (including traditional health services) for youth in Indigenous communities [76, 78]. A summary of the facilitators/strengths is provided in Fig. 2.

Barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness by, for, and with indigenous youth

Six major themes emerged and identified as barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness by, for and with Indigenous youth in Canada. The most identified barrier/roadblock to enhancing health and wellness identified in 55% (11/20) of the included articles was a lack of community support [including social, financial, and organizational support] for wellness promotion strategies among Indigenous youth [5, 44, 57, 72, 74,75,76,77,78, 80, 81]. Structural and organizational issues within Indigenous communities regarding wellness promotion strategies were identified as the second most common barrier/roadblock to enhancing wellness in 50% [10/20] of included studies [5, 8, 72, 73, 76,77,78, 81,82,83]. These structural and organizational issues included: Indigenous community problems or concerns affecting the sustainability of instituted wellness programs/strategies [5, 8, 78, 81]; dogmatism and debates about definitions regarding traditions of health among Indigenous communities [72, 77, 82, 83]; social and structural instability within communities (e.g., leadership concerns) [8, 76, 83]; modest to low capacity of service providers (e.g. vendors, health service centers, social service centers, etc.) to meet the demands of communities [73, 78, 81]; and the misperception of a lack of control for self-governance in Indigenous communities [81]. Discrimination and social exclusion of Indigenous youth were also identified as a barrier/roadblock to enhancing wellness in eight (40%) studies included [5, 8, 44, 57, 74, 76, 80, 83]. Forms of discrimination and social exclusion identified as subthemes included: Racism (e.g., personal, interpersonal, structural and systemic racism) [5, 8, 76, 80, 83]; low self-esteem and a low view of self-identity leading to self-deprecation and self-exclusion from engaging in youth activities [8, 44, 76, 80, 83]; mental health stigmatization [73, 74, 76]; lack of inclusivity of traditional Indigenous activities into Canadian teaching institutions [76, 77]; and all forms of bullying, abuse and hunger [57, 80]. Other barriers/roadblocks included: cultural illiteracy among Indigenous youth [44, 57, 73,74,75, 83, 84]; friction between Western and Traditional methods of promoting health and wellness [5, 74, 76, 77]; and risky behaviours such as gang activity, substance use/abuse and addictions [44, 57, 75, 76, 80]. A summary of the barriers/roadblocks is provided in Fig. 2.

Discussion

Scoping reviews determine the extent, range, and quality of evidence on any chosen topic [60,61,62,63]. In addition, they can be used to map and describe what is known about an identified topic to identify existing gaps in the literature regarding the chosen topic [60,61,62,63]. In this scoping review, the peer-reviewed evidence regarding facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness by, for and with Indigenous youth in Canada were mapped and synthesized. Key facilitators/strengths highlighted included: promoting culturally appropriate interventions [8, 16, 40, 44, 57, 71, 72, 75,76,77, 79,80,81,82,83,84] using strength-based approaches [5, 8, 16, 44, 57, 71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84]. Key barriers to enhancing health and wellness by, for and with Indigenous youth identified in this review were the lack of community support for wellness promotion activities among Indigenous youth [5, 44, 57, 72, 74,75,76,77,78, 80, 81] and structural/organizational issues within Indigenous communities [5, 8, 72, 73, 76,77,78, 81,82,83].

Strength-based approaches empower community members, academic researchers, and policymakers to effect community change while focusing on what has worked in the past and the community vision for success in the future [79]. This is contrasted with the common narrative in most studies exploring Indigenous health and wellness that focused on why and where the community has failed to thrive [79]. Promoting strength-based interventions by, for, and with Indigenous youth works in parallel with ensuring that health interventions are culturally appropriate [44, 79] because Indigenous epistemologies or ways of knowing see reality as intricate processes of interdependent relationships between humans, nature, and the spirit world [44, 77]. As such, wellness promotion in Indigenous communities should emphasize support for their traditional values such as respect, trust, non-judgement, and relationality, all of which support cultural revitalization [26, 71].

Conversely, wellness promotion in Indigenous communities should disavow the use of Western-based epistemologies that embrace and emphasize control over risk factors and health [44, 79]. The definition and perception of health and wellness by Indigenous peoples are starkly different from the Western perspective of health promotion [44, 79] which was found in our study to be a barrier/roadblock to enhancing health and wellness by, for and with Indigenous youth [8, 43, 44, 76]. Because of these contrasting and conflicting views on health and wellness, research carried out with Indigenous communities must be grounded in their culture. Elder Jim Dumont – a professor of Native Studies and a member of the Shawanaga First Nation on Eastern Georgian Bay, when describing the role of Indigenous culture in facilitating wellness among Indigenous peoples, defined Indigenous culture as a “facilitator to spiritual expression” [85 p.11]. He described Indigenous culture as “an expression of the life-ways, the spiritual, psychological, social, and material practice of the Indigenous worldview, which attends to the whole person’s spiritual desire to live life to the fullest” [85 p.9]. This was the way of life for Indigenous peoples before colonization [2]. Back then, Indigenous peoples honoured and utilized traditional methods and practices connected to their respective unceded homelands to promote and sustain health and wellness by themselves within their respective communities [2, 16, 86]. These cultural practices provided and promoted health and wellness for the community, the peoples, the lands, and the environment [2].

Furthermore, Indigenous wellness promotion by, for and with Indigenous youth should go beyond making mainstream health promotion strategies more culturally appropriate. Indigenous wellness promotion should also invite youth as partners and co-researchers to authentically engage with the community, acknowledging their needs while working together with them to identify opportunities for change (which should include shared power and responsibilities in the relationship dynamic). This must be the fundamental principle for any work done by, for, or with Indigenous communities (i.e., authentic engagement) [54, 55, 59]. Authentic engagement is working and walking with rather than on communities [54] in a way that encourages respectful, compassionate, and genuine interest in the work undertaken by all partners involved [54, 55, 57, 87, 88]. In authentically engaging with Indigenous communities, emphasis should be placed on connecting with, rather than controlling, community members [44, 89]. By doing so, enhances a community’s ability to answer their issues by identifying their community strengths and assets, considering opportunities for change, and co-creating meaningful solutions to mitigate them.

The Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS) on Ethical Conduct for Research involving Humans indicates in Chapter 9 that, where research involves First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples and their communities, they are to have a role in shaping and co-creating research that affects them; with respect being given to the autonomy of these communities and the individuals within them to decide to participate [90]. Our study showed that where youth were engaged as partners and co-researchers, promoted self-determination, capacity building and ultimately enhanced wellness [8, 40, 44, 57, 72, 74,75,76,77, 79, 84].

From the outcomes of this review, youth were engaged as partners or co-researcher in 55% of the included articles using research approaches such as community-based participatory research [CBPR], photovoice, visual voice, participatory videography, performative arts, participatory narrative, and storytelling methods [8, 40, 44, 57, 72, 74,75,76,77, 79, 84]. This review demonstrated that these methods helped foster an environment for transformative learning, reciprocal transfer of expertise, shared decision-making, and co-ownership of the research processes [8, 40, 44, 57, 72, 74,75,76,77, 79, 84]. For example, Goodman et al. identified that through photovoice, youth identified how racism negatively influenced the types of social supports and relationships formed in their community, leading to improved access to mental health-promoting social programs [76]. Anang et al. reported that engaging Indigenous youth as co-researchers in exploring ways to promote suicide prevention revitalized awareness of their cultural identity, which was identified as a protective factor to youth suicide [40]. A group of First Nation girls involved in the Girl Power Program designed to build and foster empowerment using youth participatory action research approach indicated that working as co-researchers/co-creators in the program empowered them to find healing from wounded spirits, which helped enhance positive changes towards wellness through āhkamēyimowin (perseverance) [57]. Thus, we can conclude from our study that engaging youth as partners in research processes optimizes their personal experiences and gives them a voice which can stimulate action.

Engaging Indigenous youth in the co-creation of wellness strategies should also involve community Elders, Traditional Knowledge Keepers, and other Indigenous community leaders. This review demonstrated that reliance on the wisdom of Elders, Traditional Knowledge Keepers and Indigenous community leaders facilitated and enhanced wellness among Indigenous youth [5, 16, 44, 72, 77, 79,80,81, 83, 84, 91]. Elders, Traditional Knowledge Keepers, and Indigenous community leaders play a central role in increasing awareness related to the community’s histories, languages, knowledge, and ways of knowing [91, 92]. For non-Indigenous researchers and allies, Elders and Traditional Knowledge Keepers can provide formal and informal teachings on: histories of the Indigenous community in question, their world views, languages in the community, arts, crafts and songs, value systems in the nation/community; knowledge of traditional plants and medicines; clan teachings in the nation/community; ceremonial knowledge or protocols; and understanding of wellness in the community that can increase cultural awareness and build Indigenous research competencies for non-Indigenous researchers and allies [91,92,93]. Hence, engaging Elders, Knowledge Keepers and Indigenous community leaders in youth wellness programs can provide an avenue for mutual learning, guiding non-Indigenous researchers/allies towards cultural appropriateness in co-developing youth-driven wellness strategies.

Practical implications

Overall, this review emphasized the importance of promoting wellness among Indigenous youth using ‘culture as strength’ rather than imposing control measures on Indigenous values. The historical experiences of Indigenous youth have revealed traumatic and distressful pasts propagated by the cumulative intergenerational impacts of colonization which evolved from Residential Schools, Day Schools, and the Sixties Scoop [15, 16, 33, 94, 95]. The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 96 Calls-to-Action stressed the need to decolonize mainstream health promotion strategies and embrace the promotion of self-determination in the use of and access to traditional knowledge, therapies, and healing practices Indigenous peoples [95, 96]. This review provided a foundation for authentically engaging Indigenous youth in the co-creation of culturally appropriate wellness promotion strategies/programs driven and sustained by authentically engaged Indigenous youth in the community. Considering the number of qualitative studies we found in our review, a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies may guide future directions based on the findings in our study to further pursue to understand, appraise, summarize, and combine qualitative evidence to address the specific research questions particularly around the influences and experiences of cultural connectedness and wellness among Indigenous youth in Canada. Nonetheless, this review also contributes to the growing literature identifying strength-based approaches to enhancing health and wellness among Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Study limitations

This review aimed to provide an entire scope of all original studies published in peer-reviewed journals to allow for as broad a scope of literature synthesis as possible. However, this study is not without limitations. First, the search was limited to multiple library databases, including the University of Saskatchewan’s Indigenous Studies Portal (iPortal) [66]. Although this review produced many peer-reviewed and original studies, there is a potential that other relevant articles and reports were missed because we did not search the grey literature. Secondly, because this review was limited to peer-reviewed articles published in English, it is possible that potentially relevant studies in other languages were omitted. Moreover, the outcomes of this review are limited to the nature of the data reported in the articles included in the review. Additionally, we acknowledge the differences and nuances in Indigenous practices, values and culture which limits the generalizability of our review findings. Lastly, some of the studies in the scoping review utilized Indigenous study designs and methods that could not be appropriately evaluated using the JBI Critical Appraisal Tools [70].

Conclusion

This scoping review identified ways health and wellness can be enhanced by, for, and with Indigenous youth by identifying facilitators/strengths and barriers/roadblocks to enhancing health and wellness among Indigenous youth from identified studies published between January 1, 2017, and May 22, 2021. The outcomes of this review showed that promoting culturally based and appropriate interventions using strength-based approaches were key facilitators/strengths to enhancing health and wellness among Indigenous youth. Thus, the outcomes demonstrate the continued need to promote programs grounded in culture as a part of enhancing health and wellness while authentically engaging Indigenous youth in health and wellness strategies, interventions, and programs.