Sisters of Providence Funded Initiatives

I-CREAte is a community-based participatory action research initiative that conducts meaningful and action oriented research to improve the health and well-being of children, families, and communities in Kingston and the surrounding region. The funding will support I-CREAte to collaborate with the Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resilience Coalition of KFL&A (ARC) to expand capacity for multidisciplinary community based research supporting children and families experiencing ACEs within KFL&A, including building a hub for research and evaluation for ARC and partner organizations’ projects.

Created in consultation with the community it would serve, A Great Start for Families Kahwà:tsire Ronwatiyenawá:se Centre opened its doors in October, 2022. Offering families better service coordination and navigation has created a ‘one door knock’ for services, including childcare, and helps reduce barriers to accessing services, ultimately preventing escalation of need. This funding builds on this strong foundation, helping to introduce more early relational programming, expanding the hub model to reach more families, and ultimately developing a collaborative, efficient system with a focus on primary prevention, early intervention and support.

In October of 2023 Kingston Community Health Centres, Teach Resilience and the ACEs & Resilience Coalition of KFL&A (ARC) came together to host the KFL&A Resilience Symposium: Navigating Adversity Through the Power of Community. Over 3 days, over 450 people engaged in 10 events at 6 locations, bringing together community champions, educators, decision makers, and those interested in building a more resilient KFL&A to chart a course of systemic community change.

The goal of “Becoming Trauma Responsive,” was to position Pathways Kingston, as well as the KFL&A in general, as leaders in providing coordinated trauma responsive care to children and youth. With the understanding that there were no local resources or trainings available to youth-serving organizations in KFL&A, the Trauma-Responsive Team Leads, or “TRTLs”, came together to build local capacity for low cost, local, trauma-responsive coaching. Through this grant, the TRTLs earned trauma-responsive trainer certification from the Community Resilience Initiative (CRI). The TRTLs then trained over 2000 local participants in CRI’s certificate courses, which offer foundational background information on ACEs and brain science, as well as practical strategies for approaching a variety of situations with children and youth in a trauma-responsive way.