Martina Escutin
Area of Interest: Indigenous Community Development, Culture & Language Revitalization, Child Welfare and Indigenous Family Systems Reclamation, Addressing Homelessness & Coordinated Access, Addressing the Toxic Drug Crisis
Location: Kelowna, BC
Pronouns: She/Her
Martina is a Ktunaxa citizen from ʔakisq̓nuk First Nation, with additional Secwepemc, Syilx and European heritage.
She is a Registered Social Worker, holding a BSW from the University of British Columbia, and brings extensive knowledge on the impacts that historical and ongoing colonialism have had on Indigenous cultures, languages, and family systems. She has experience working in child welfare settings, facilitating collaborative decision-making processes to inform planning, and is a Certified Cultivating Safe Spaces facilitator.
Martina brings a breadth of creative facilitation training to her work and seeks to develop spaces in which Indigenous communities can reclaim inherent systems of wellness through authentic sharing, community dialogue, and strengths-based planning. Martina is a lifelong learner of the Ktunaxa language and is an advocate for integrating Indigenous language concepts and fluency into mainstream spaces; she aims to bring all of her lived and learned experience towards building capacity in both on-reserve and urban Indigenous settings. Martina is an Indigenous consultant with Urban Matters, as an Indigenous Health and Wellbeing Practitioner.