Contributor

Chrystal Waban Toop is a restorative circle keeper, public speaker, published author, life spectrum doula, counsellor, sociologist, and registered social services worker. For over twenty years, she has focused on healing as an intergenerational residential school survivor whose path began as a youth-at-risk, surviving on the streets of downtown Ottawa and Thunder Bay. Chrystal is a member of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation and the founder of Blackbird Medicines, a professional social enterprise that advances healing justice through her work as an Indigenous counselor, spiritual caregiver, and matriarch.