Sleep for Strong Souls (3S) : Multisectoral partnership and co-designed solutions to improve the sleep health of First Nations Adolescents

Growing rates of poor sleep in First Nations adolescents, and their role in health and well-being, are major concerns for community members, service providers, and policymakers. Failure to address poor sleep and the downstream human and economic costs was also highlighted in the landmark 2019 Federal Government Inquiry into Sleep Health Awareness. Mainstream programs have successfully improved the sleep health of non-Indigenous adolescents. However, they do not address First Nations peoples' contextual and cultural needs and, therefore, will have limited applicability and uptake in First Nations adolescents. First Nations adolescents often do not connect with programs developed by 'experts' with insufficient cultural knowledge or those delivered by external ‘facilitators’ with a limited understanding of local challenges affecting sleep health.
Furthermore, the lack of training for service providers to address sleep health issues from the perspective of First Nations peoples limits engagement and uptake of clinical care and further contributes to high rates of undiagnosed & untreated sleep problems.