Circles of Care - Circles of Courage

The Circles of Care- Circles of Courage girl’s program is now in its 4th and final year of its current funding grant. Due to the current COVID-19 restrictions the group has been on hold since March Spring Break. The facilitation team is actively looking for ways to engage with the participants, and keep connections. They hope to explore meeting virtually in the coming weeks.

Through out this year our program participants have been fortunate to participate in a number of unique opportunities to bond with elders from the Malahat Nation community including: traditional drum making, and elder and youth gathering and hosting an elder tea party. On average there are 8-12 participants with a total 15 registered. This number has remained consistent through out the year as participants age out of the program new members of the community who have aged in.

Continuing to build on the experience we have gained over the last 3 years, we continue to focus activities and programming around 5 areas related to building resiliency, they are: Communication, Critical Thinking, Culture, Self-Confidence, and Connection. We use all of these areas to direct our discovery of what it means to nurture resiliency for girls in the period of early adolescence. Our facilitation team is comprised of a child and youth care worker and an elder from the Malahat community, together they are able to provide programming that is culturally strong, academically informed and participant centred.

We are excited to receive continued funding from the Canadian Women’s Foundation. With this funding we will to expand the program to include a mentorship component that would focus on working with participants who have aged out of the girl’s program to help build their leadership and mentoring skills. This program will now run until 2024.

This program would not be possible if not for the close partnership between CMHA and Malahat Nation’s social programs department and funding from the Canadian Women's Foundation.