Heidi A. Eriksen, is an Indigenous Sámi, working as a general practitioner and chief medical officer in her home of Utsjoki, Finland — the northernmost municipality of Finland with Indigenous Sámis comprising a majority of the population. Raised in Utsjoki, she has worked at the Utsjoki Health Care Centre since 2005. Since finishing her doctoral thesis focused on biochemistry in 2010, her research interests have centered on the health, disease and wellbeing of Sámi and other Indigenous peoples; an interest that arose through her work with the Sámi population as she noticed the lack of stewardship of Sámi people in the health systems and lack of systematically collected data on Sámi health and wellbeing issues. Heidi was an elected member of Sámi Parliament from 2008 to 2011 and a member of Sámi Parliament’s Social and Health Board from 2008 to 2011 and 2012 to 2015. She has been a member of advisory boards for several projects concerning Sámi health and social issues.

The Sámi people are indigenous people living in an area divided by four nations, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. The history of the Sámi people shares many similarities with other indigenous peoples around the world, especially in the Arctic. The discrimination experienced by the Sámi as individuals, families, communities and as a whole nation has affected the current state of and the well-being of the Sámi people. In all Nordic countries truth and reconciliation processes are ongoing. The purpose of these is to identify and evaluate historical and current discrimination and the structures in the society that still maintain these and affect the Sámi people. The aim is to dress and manage the traumas that the Sámi people, collectively and as individuals, carry over generations. Already early in the process, the need for appropriate culturally sensitive psychosocial support in own language during the process was acknowledged to help gain these goals. The unit of Sámi psychosocial support Uvjj-Uvjâ-Uvja (Feather in three Sámi languages spoken in Finland) was founded in 2022. It is a health care unit working in connection with the mental health and substance abuse services of the Lapland welfare area, offering low-threshold mental health care services in Sámi languages and in the context of Sámi culture. It offers help for individuals and families both at the anonymous level and as patients, but as important is the work to open the historical experiences and traumas safely at the community level. To reach as widely as possible to the Sámi community, digital solutions are utilized.