TRU School of Nursing Gitxsan Scholar Dr. Sheila Blackstock has been chosen as the inaugural Indigenous faculty representative on a national nursing association board of directors.

For a two-year term, Blackstock will work at the policy level to improve First Nations, Inuit, Metis and urban aboriginal holistic health outcomes across Canada, through the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN).

“I am honored and humbled to be voted in by my peers across Canada for this position. I look forward to working with the CASN Board in partnership with First Nations, Inuit, Metis and Urban Aboriginal peoples,” she said.

Blackstock is an assistant professor and researcher at TRU with more than 35 years of nursing experience in rural, Indigenous and occupational health nursing. Her research interests are to decolonize nursing to address incivility and oppression of nursing within the health-care system. She has also worked on several research projects to improve health outcomes of First Nations, Inuit, Metis and Urban Aboriginal Peoples.

Her new role as the inaugural Indigenous faculty representative to CASN adds to her current appointments to the provincial In Plain Sight task force team and being a director on the board of the First Nations Health Authority.

CASN is the national voice for nursing education, research and scholarship in Canada and as such, it represents baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs across the country. Among the association’s objectives are to speak for Canadian nursing education and scholarship, establish and promote national standards of excellence for nursing education, contribute to public policy and provide a national forum for issues in nursing education and research.