On October 28–29, 2025, at Working Stronger 2025: Alberta’s Workplace Mental Health Conference, a premier workplace mental health event hosted by CMHA Alberta & Centre for Suicide Prevention, ALIGN presented: “Fostering Safe, Supportive Workplaces in Community Services: A Culturally Informed Approach to Psychological Health and Safety.”
At the Working Stronger Conference, our team delivered an engaging session focused on strengthening wellness and cultural integration in service deliver. We focused on delivering through a community approach to meet the diverse needs of those in attendance. Our session introduced and explored the components of ALIGN’s Well-Being Toolkit co-developed with Albertan youth with lived experience, practitioners, and Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers. The team outlined its structure and purpose as a practical resource for fostering resilience and well-being through an Indigenous lens that can be used in all communities. Participants gained insights into how these interconnected areas support culturally safe workplace and community wellness.
We looked through the lens of building resilience through identified strengths where trust, relationships, and culturally responsive environments—are the foundation for thriving communities and workplaces. Moving forward means prioritizing what protects, connects, and sustains us.
We ended with sharing community approach to implement the Well-Being Toolkit, through the access to three tiers of implementation support tailored to the communities’ unique needs, capacity, and readiness to help ensure high-quality implementation and long-term sustainability.
On Nov 2 – 5, 2025, at Our Children Our Way 2025: National Forum for Indigenous Child & Family Well-Being held in Vancouver, ALIGN Association of Community Services and Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society presented: “Parallel Process: The Link Between Practice as Ceremony in Service Delivery and the ALIGN Well-Being Toolkit.”
Our session explored a powerful partnership: the synergy between ALIGN’s Well-Being Toolkit and Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society’s “Practice as Ceremony” model. Both frameworks are deeply rooted in Indigenous worldviews and designed to guide transformative, culturally grounded child and family service delivery.
When brought together, these models create a parallel process that honors sacred relationships, amplifies community voice, and supports holistic well-being. Through storytelling, reflection, and practical examples, we demonstrated how using these approaches in tandem fosters culturally safe, community-led service delivery—where ceremony and well-being are not separate, but woven into everyday practice.