North Star Wellness is designed as an administrative hub helping independent clinicians to streamline their workflow and facilitate improved client care.
Core Values
Our core values are the foundation for our mission of providing accessible, quality, holistic care dedicated to improving wellness, demystifying mental health and destigmatizing treatment. These values help us execute our vision of a supportive foundation for passionate clinicians working to improve the lives of Vermonters to promote thriving communities.
Compassion
Curiosity
Connection
Meeting people where they’re at in their journey with open hearts, supports fostering resilience and increasing capacity to create the conditions for everyone to live their best lives.
Continually embracing the unknown and adapting strategies to help build understanding, meaning, and purpose.
Committing to move toward developing resources for optimal wellness for our clinicians, our clients, and our communities though engagement with evidence based foundations, new ideas, and the pursuit of excellence.
Land Acknowledgement
What is Land Acknowledgement?
A Land Acknowledgement is a formal statement that recognizes and respects indigenous peoples as traditional stewards of this land and the enduring relationship that exists between indigenous peoples and their traditional territories. To recognize the land is an expression of gratitude and appreciation to those whose territory you reside on, and a way of honoring the indigenous people who have been living and working on the land from time immemorial. It is important to understand the long-standing history that has brought us to reside on the land, and to seek to understand our place within that history. Land Acknowledgements do not exist in a past tense or historical context: colonialism is a current and ongoing process, and we need to build our mindfulness of our present participation. It is also worth noting that acknowledging the land is indigenous protocol (information from LSPRIG).
We acknowledge
the past.
Our work is conducted on the stolen
ancestral land of the Abenaki People who
have cared for this land since the
beginning of time.
We work in the
present.
We commit to building awareness of the systemic multigenerational harms
committed against indigenous people,
and our role in perpetuating privilege and colonialism.
We look to the
future.
We take responsibility for promoting
a future founded in justice, self
determination,and greater harmony
with the earth we all belong to.
We move beyond acknowledgment. Indigenous people are not historical figures but living communities continuing to endure in oppressive systems. It is vital to move beyond land acknowledgment by engaging in meaningful actions to drive change. Learn more about what you can do Beyond (link) https://nativegov.org/news/beyond-land-acknowledgment-guide/
Starting in 2024 North Star Wellness donates a portion of annual income to the Center for Native American Youth https://www.cnay.org to support the empowerment of next generation of indigenous people and their communities.
Anti-Oppression Statement
We are committed to anti-racisist, feminist, and anti-oppressive work in our clinical practice, in advocacy, and in daily life.
We believe that healing work requires a social justice lens/framework. Black, Indigenous and People of Color, trans and non-binary folks, queer people, and people with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by barriers to healthcare and wellness services due to systemic and institutionalized systems.
We believe oppressive systems thrive when individuals with privilege are silent and complacent. This work is never finished, we have not “arrived.” Continuing to “do the work” means tolerating the discomfort of imperfect engagement and taking responsibility for repair when, despite all good intentions, we might make mistakes and cause harm.
Our practice promotes diversity and inclusion as a core value in our work. We recognize all types of diversity including and not limited to size, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, class, citizenship status, religion and abilities. We celebrate and honor the strength, creativity and power that comes from experiencing different viewpoints, backgrounds, lived experiences, and cultures.
Learn more about anti-oppressive practice and concepts here (link https://campusmentalhealth.ca/toolkits/anti-oppressive-practice/what-is-anti-oppressive-practice/)
Living Our Values
2023 Donation: Outdoor Afro
Outdoor Afro celebrates and inspires Black connections and leadership in nature. Our national not-for-profit organization reconnects Black people to our lands, water, and wildlife through outdoor education, recreation, and conservation. Some examples of Outdoor Afro’s year-round activities range from fishing, hiking, biking, kayaking, gardening, skiing, and more.
2022 Donation: Voices of Children
The Voices of Children Foundation has been helping children affected by the way since 2015. Thanks to you, we provide psychological and psychosocial support to children. It helps them overcome the consequences of armed conflict and develop. Today, during the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are providing non-stop assistance to affected children and families from all over the country, providing emergency psychological assistance, and assisting in the evacuation process.
2021 Donation: Vermont Adaptive
In 2021, North Star Wellness is proud to support the expansion of the Vermont Adaptive facility at Surgarbush. Vermont Adaptive is a nationally recognized organization that empowers people of all abilities through inclusive sports and recreational programming regardless of ability to pay. In addition to sports, year-round programming options integrate environmental, holistic wellness, and competitive training philosophies for people of all ages with cognitive, developmental, physical and emotional disabilities.
Volunteer Work: Everybody Wins! Vermont
Everybody Wins! Vermont is a literacy mentoring program. In sites around Vermont, adult volunteer mentors are matched with students at local schools to read together, have conversations, and make enduring connections weekly over lunch to promote reading for pleasure, to build the children's self-confidence and enhance their self-esteem, and to serve as caring role models. By creating mentoring relationships that foster a love of reading and language, Everybody Wins! Vermont increases children's prospects for success and engages a diverse range of volunteers in their community schools,