On September 16, 2026, The Gatehouse and the Survivor Council of Canada welcomed 66 participants to a hybrid Indigenous Town Hall on Childhood Sexual Abuse. Hosted at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and online, the gathering created space for Indigenous voices, lived experience, community knowledge, and practical recommendations for healing, prevention, and systems change.
The Town Hall brought together survivors, Indigenous community members, allies, service providers, students, staff, and community supporters. Forty-five people participated in person and 21 joined online, making it possible for voices from different locations and experiences to contribute to the conversation.
Listening to Indigenous lived experience and community knowledge
Featured speakers Kristi White, Leo Nicholas, Melissa DeLeary, and Rosalia Rivera, shared knowledge and perspectives that helped ground the day’s conversations. Stewart Thompson served as MC, while The Gatehouse Executive Director, Maria Barcelos welcomed participants to share in this safe and inclusive space. Rosalia Rivera also presented the 2026 Out of the Shadows Index, connecting the community discussion to a broader policy framework for preventing and responding to sexual violence against children and adolescents.
The Index presentation examined governance and accountability, prevention, healing, and justice. Canada’s lowest score among these four areas was in healing, reinforcing the urgency of expanding medical care and integrated survivor services in rural, northern, and Indigenous communities, as well as improving access to legal support.
Community sharing…
Through facilitated discussions, participants identified barriers that Indigenous survivors continue to encounter within healthcare, policing, counselling, victim services, legal systems, and other institutions. Distrust grows when people are dismissed, disbelieved, misunderstood, or asked to navigate services that do not reflect Indigenous histories, cultures, and lived realities.
Participants also spoke about the importance of restoring and sustaining Indigenous cultural practices that colonization attempted to disrupt. Examples of culturally grounded healing included cedar footbaths, sweetgrass brushing, connection with nature, and nurturing practices rooted in culture and community. The discussions emphasized that Elders, traditional healers, Indigenous practitioners, and Indigenous women’s services need stable financial, emotional, and practical support.
Healing spaces must also be strength-based. Survivors need opportunities to speak not only about harm, but also about resilience, identity, cultural connection, leadership, and hope.
Prevention, safety, and inclusion
Participants called for prevention education in schools and community settings, with meaningful involvement from Elders, aunties, uncles, and community knowledge holders. Education must also acknowledge the continuing effects of colonization and the Sixties Scoop.
Two-Spirit inclusion emerged as an essential priority. Data, language, counselling, facilitation, and community spaces must reflect Two-Spirit experiences. Participants also discussed culturally safe support systems, community response protocols, survivor circles, and anonymous ways for survivors to seek help and information when reaching out openly does not feel safe.
Building sustainable community responses, helping Indigenous survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
Some discussions focused on the gap between how community programs need to operate and how funders expect them to be structured and measured. Participants noted that funding models often emphasize numerical outputs while overlooking the lived realities behind the numbers, particularly in remote and geographically isolated communities.
The group explored collaboration and community-led sustainability, including shared training, resource partnerships, social enterprise, community food gardens, and initiatives that reinvest revenue locally. These ideas centered community ownership, local capacity, and responses shaped by actual community needs.
Turning survivor knowledge into action
A consistent message ran throughout the Town Hall: Indigenous survivors and communities must have meaningful representation in the programs, policies, funding decisions, and systems that affect them. Lived experience is not simply testimony. It is knowledge that can guide prevention, healing, education, professional practice, advocacy, and policy.
These insights will help inform The Gatehouse Survivor Knowledge Network, an emerging initiative designed to ethically connect survivor knowledge with research, frontline practice, education, and systems change. As the Network develops, Indigenous survivor knowledge must be stewarded with respect for culture, consent, community, survivor-centred governance, and data protection.
Continuing the work together
The Town Hall showed what becomes possible when people are invited into an environment grounded in cultural safety, respect, inclusion, and survivor leadership. The recommendations gathered through the event will support future advocacy, education, partnerships, funding proposals, community engagement, and survivor-informed resources.
The Gatehouse and the Survivor Council of Canada extend sincere thanks to speakers Kristi White, Leo Nicholas, and Melissa DeLeary; presenter Rosalia Rivera; MC Stewart Thompson; facilitator Erin Alexandra; staff members Maria Barcelos and Jasmine Lem; student volunteers Naeema, Joshua, and Caitlyn; and every survivor, participant, volunteer, partner, and community supporter who contributed to this gathering.
We are also grateful to the Brave Movement and Together for Girls for supporting this important event.
Learn more and connect with The Gatehouse: www.thegatehouse.org
Learn more about Survivor Council Canada https://survivorscouncil.ca/
Learn more about the Out of the Shadows Index https://www.bravemovement.org/campaigns/out-of-the-shadows
Connect with Kristi White https://www.jayandgizmo.ca/
Connect with Rosalia Rivera https://www.consentparenting.com/
The Gatehouse • Survivor centered support education and advocacy. Watch the Town Hall Video on our YouTube channel!
Thank you to our event sponsor
