Sacred Bundles Healing and Counselling Inc. – “A space for healing, growth, and cultural connection.”

Restigouche Family Services is an organization located in Atholville, New Brunswick, that specializes in several services, such as therapy and counseling sessions, speech therapy, and more. One of their most recent initiatives is Sacred Bundles Healing and Counselling Inc., which began as a specialized program, but has grown into its own entity located right here in Listuguj at 28A Gaspé Highway, that just opened earlier this month.

Sacred Bundles is a community-oriented service available to Indigenous clients that focuses on healing, growth and cultural connection. All services are billed through Non-Insured Health Benefits for First Nations and Inuit (NIHB).  The team consists of Eel River Bar’s Holly Miller, a Licensed Counselling Therapist-Candidate, and Listuguj’s Sara Mitchell and Jordan Barnaby, who are both Clinical Social Workers. There is an established Advisory Board with Listuguj members, Michael Martin and Paige Isaac, and Eel River Bar members, Patricia Miller and Rosalie LaBillois.

There are a wide variety of therapeutic and healing practices available at Sacred Bundles. These practices include one-on-one counselling sessions, youth programs, group therapy sessions, grief circles, addictions counselling, play therapy for children ages 3-10, and more. The team will also be introducing more hands-on cultural activities and land-based healing soon. Sessions can be offered in person, or online for community members from Listuguj or Eel River Bar.

Regarding the style of practices, Mitchell said, “We are focused on working in a two-eyed seeing approach. Looking through the lens of Indigenous ways of knowing and doing and the strengths of that, but also with modern day and Western practices, and branching them together.”  Services are adapted to the individual and what they’re comfortable with when it comes to their culture. Barnaby said, “I work with my clients using the Medicine Wheel, and the Seven Sacred Teachings as well. I ask them if they would like more of a Western approach, more of an Indigenous approach, or half and half.”

If you are interested in receiving services from Sacred Bundles, they can be found on Facebook, Instagram, or by contacting info@sacredbundles.ca.

By Ann Marie Jacques