Our Services

This is a highly respectful, non-blaming approach to therapy and community work. It is highly effective because it is alignment with Indigenous values and also takes a strong stance against injustice and works together with people to re-author their lives. It recognizes that systemic and colonial trauma create related oppressive narratives/stories and have a damaging effect on people’s identities. When these stories become internalized (or embedded in our minds), people can feel as if they are the problem. Narrative therapy works hard to separate the individual from these damaging stories (the actual problem) and focuses on their positive aspects of identity, skills, values and abilities. In doing this, it helps empower individuals/communities to regain a sense of agency in their lives.

This model is based on the three principles identified in its name. The risk principle reflects the importance of matching the level of service to the person who offended and their risk to re-offend. The need principle focuses on assessing the criminogenic needs and targets them in treatment. The responsivity principle focuses on the person who offended and their ability to learn from a rehabilitative intervention by providing cognitive behavioural treatment that is tailored to the learning style, motivation, abilities, and strengths of the person who offended.

This is a strength-based model for working with people who have offended (sexually or otherwise). This model focuses on helping people work towards specific abilities and aspirations. It believes that criminal behaviour/offending is the result of misdirected attempts to get one’s needs met. It is assumed that the individual lacks (internal or external) resources to satisfy their needs in a pro-social way and therefore therapeutic goals focus on assisting them with guidance, skills, opportunities, and knowledge to satisfy their needs in a healthy way.

CBT is a model that focuses on the present to address “faulty” thoughts or cognitive distortions that are believed to be the cause of unhelpful/disruptive behaviour patterns or “negative” emotions. The therapist helps the client to shift to more healthy and helpful thinking patterns in order to alter behaviour and emotion. Using CBT with an Indigenous lens, we recognize the interconnectedness of mind/behaviour/emotions and also include how the spirit is an important piece to include in treatment.

EMDR Therapy is a holistic, evidence-based approach to treating trauma. It utilizes a strategic approach that includes collecting history, development of self regulation skills, and then using a protocol with bilateral stimulation to help the individual process the experiences of trauma. It accesses all parts of the medicine wheel by exploring our thoughts, body sensations, emotions and effect on our spirit. EMDR Therapy has proven to be a beneficial tool to help regulate the nervous system and ultimately clients report that the traumatic experience is no longer felt so intensely in their being, which frees up space for them to move towards their preferred way of being in the world.

HTT is a model that describes colonial trauma and addresses the implications for healing for Indigenous people as well as for non-Indigenous people who have experienced severe trauma. This model provides an explanation of how trauma can be transmitted in various ways through epigenetics (how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work). Further, this model explores the concept of complex post traumatic stress disorder or C-PTSD, which is defined as trauma that is ongoing from a number of different sources (i.e. individual, family, community, society at large). It emphasizes the importance of healing through culture and community.

Somatic therapy honours the wisdom of the body. It recognizes that the body’s memory is often more accurate and relevant than our cognitive memory. It teaches us how to let go of/discharge trauma through working with the body, which allows people to become free from chronic states (fight, flight, freeze responses) that impact our entire being.

CPT is a specific type of cognitive behavioural therapy that has been effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD resulting from a variety of traumatic events including child abuse, combat, sexual violence, and natural disasters. CPT is generally delivered over 12 sessions and helps patients to learn how to challenge and modify unhelpful beliefs related to trauma.

IFS is an evidence-based model that focuses on the idea that the mind is made up of different parts and just like in a family, the different parts take on different roles. The goal is to re-connect with your higher, intuitive self that can help take care of all of the parts. There is a part in each one of us that knows how to heal and it re-inforces the Indigenous belief that we are our own medicine, “we are the ones we have been waiting for”.

We use a variety of different family therapy models (Structural, Bowen, Satir, Gottman) that focus on resolving couple and family conflict as well as the long lasting struggles resulting from family trauma. Using an Indigenous lens is similar to the family systems therapies because they keep our focus on interconnectedness to all our relations and recognizing that we are all part of an intricate web of life. In this way, we can use these concepts to work with individuals, couples, and families. This approach allows us to understand the roles that a person has been conditioned to play from a young age and how this is impacting their relationships. It also takes into account how colonial trauma affects all generations. The goal is to help people find “right relations” with all of their relations, including people, animals, plants, and the earth.

These approaches are grounded in attachment theory, recognizing the importance of working toward security, safety, and health in our relationships with “our adults” (parents/caregivers/mentors/family), our community, and/or with nature. Individuals learn about how past, often early, attachment injuries are formed and how the effects of relational trauma and/or breakdown can show up in our emotions, thoughts, and behaviours, at any life-stage. Through experiential approaches individuals find ways to self-soothe to manage their own trauma response. People are supported to understand and respond to the attachment needs of themselves and their children (if applicable). This work can happen individually or relationally.

SFT is generally a short-term therapeutic approach that focuses on positive psychology to meet client goals. While our model is based on the recognition that time is needed in order to effectively address colonial trauma and severe trauma/sexual violence, this model’s strength-based practices are a very helpful addition that help address negative worldviews and negative sense of self that are caused by severe trauma from sexual violence and systemic/colonial trauma.

Our team has been committed to understanding, exploring, and challenging how our Western education is based on colonized systems. We recognize that colonial trauma has largely been “diagnosed” and often pathologized/labeled through non-Indigenous theories and we work hard to decolonize the way we provide therapeutic services to our clients. The medical model is focused on illness, while Indigenous perspectives are focused on wellness. It is important to us to keep this traditional view of wellness at the core of our work. This allows us to see the resiliency in the people we work with and to help them reconnect to their culture, traditions, language, and ancestral knowledge as there is much healing that is readily available.