Trauma-Informed Group Care Program Alberta – Creating Safe, Steady Homes for Youth
At Changes for Hope, our work begins where safety has been lost. We provide a trauma-informed group care program in Alberta for children and youth who need more than supervision—they need consistency, calm, and connection.
Many of the young people who come to us have experienced instability, trauma, or disconnection. What they need most isn’t another rulebook—it’s someone who stays. Our Community Group Care Program offers that kind of steady presence.
Whether youth come from Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, or smaller communities like Camrose and Strathcona County, they receive care that adapts to their pace—and never asks them to prove they’re ready to heal.
Community Group Care Program
Territorial Connections for youth
What Our Group Care Program Offers
Group care should never feel institutional. At Changes for Hope, it doesn’t. Our homes are structured and calm, but they’re also relational and responsive. Each home provides a safe, stable environment where youth can begin to recover from the effects of trauma and feel emotionally supported day-to-day.
We serve youth in care across Alberta who may be navigating:
- Emotional dysregulation or shutdown
- Trauma-related behaviors or grief
- Disconnection from family or cultural identity
- Loss, neglect, or chronic instability
Our care model centers on building trust first—because healing doesn’t happen without it.
Every Day Is Part of the Program
Trauma isn’t treated in one meeting or one milestone. It’s something that’s responded to over time, through the everyday:
- A calm response when things escalate
- A familiar routine when the world feels chaotic
- A trusted adult showing up again tomorrow
Our staff are trained in trauma-responsive practices, and our homes are designed to reduce emotional overwhelm—not add to it. We partner with Alberta Children’s Services, local mental health providers, and school systems to provide whole-child care that continues beyond our doors.
Culturally Safe, Relationship-Based Support
We understand that youth in care often feel disconnected—from their communities, families, or identities. Our care is not only trauma-informed but also culturally aware. When needed, we integrate additional supports that honor heritage and lived experience.
For youth needing deeper cultural grounding, we also offer a dedicated Cultural Component, where Elders, land-based learning, and ceremony become part of the healing process. Many of our youth reconnect with parts of themselves they thought they’d lost—and that matters as much as therapy or structure.
Many of the youth who have witnessed/experienced violence/abuse will continue to exhibit the symptoms of Trauma and have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and/or other developmental delays. Children who have experienced early and persistent relationship disruption will exhibit the symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder. A portion of the children will qualify for the diagnosis of Conduct Disorder or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder, both serious designations with often poor prognosis. And finally, there may be a variety of substance abuse issues and disorders. This extensive list of issues, events and difficulties describes many of the youth needing the benefit of stable, emotionally, and physically secure relationships to achieve the best possible maturational development. However, the potential contradictory requirement to balance the needs of children with the desire to maximize the on-going integrity of the child’s family makes relational stability much sought after but seldom achieved.
The core of any successful Prevention strategy is development of relationships with goals to help youth move through the Stages of Change to arrest the progress of an established event and to control its negative consequences: to reduce disability and stigma, to minimize suffering caused by existing Trauma, Loss and Grief, and to promote the youth’s adjustment to irremediable conditions, “Minimize the consequences.” The relationships must be positive, constructive, purposeful, and long term. This relationship is not a friendship, but rather a relationship with a purpose that is built on care, trust, and respect and must preserve cultural, familial, and territorial connections.
To be in these positive, purposeful, constructive, and long-term relationships with youth, and families, we must believe that they can change and understand that it takes time to build these relationships. We must with the help of their communities, work with the youth and families to create concrete developments to start to heal what took years to create and prevent any further damage and decrease high-risk behaviors.
More Than One Type of Home
Our Community Group Care Program is one of several paths within our care system. For youth ready for a different stage—whether they need more structure or are moving toward independence—we offer a network of supportive homes under our Hope, Faith, Prosperity, SIL & Courage House model.
Each home in that network is built with care and clarity. Some offer transitional living. Others provide extended support in a more independent setting. All carry the same core: trauma-informed, relationship-first care that doesn’t stop when the placement ends.
Who We Serve
We work with youth aged 10–18 who are navigating grief, trauma, emotional regulation challenges, or disrupted family attachments. Many are preparing for transitions—into foster care, back home, or semi-independent life. Others are learning to feel safe in their own skin for the first time.
Whether a youth comes from Calgary, Red Deer, Fort McMurray, or any part of Alberta, we provide care that recognizes individual need—not just a placement plan.
Many of the youth who have witnessed/experienced violence/abuse will continue to exhibit the symptoms of Trauma and have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and/or other developmental delays. Children who have experienced early and persistent relationship disruption will exhibit the symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder. A portion of the children will qualify for the diagnosis of Conduct Disorder or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder, both serious designations with often poor prognosis. And finally, there may be a variety of substance abuse issues and disorders. This extensive list of issues, events and difficulties describes many of the youth needing the benefit of stable, emotionally, and physically secure relationships to achieve the best possible maturational development. However, the potential contradictory requirement to balance the needs of children with the desire to maximize the on-going integrity of the child’s family makes relational stability much sought after but seldom achieved.
The core of any successful Prevention strategy is development of relationships with goals to help youth move through the Stages of Change to arrest the progress of an established event and to control its negative consequences: to reduce disability and stigma, to minimize suffering caused by existing Trauma, Loss and Grief, and to promote the youth’s adjustment to irremediable conditions, “Minimize the consequences.” The relationships must be positive, constructive, purposeful, and long term. This relationship is not a friendship, but rather a relationship with a purpose that is built on care, trust, and respect and must preserve cultural, familial, and territorial connections.
To be in these positive, purposeful, constructive, and long-term relationships with youth, and families, we must believe that they can change and understand that it takes time to build these relationships. We must with the help of their communities, work with the youth and families to create concrete developments to start to heal what took years to create and prevent any further damage and decrease high-risk behaviors.
Affiliates
Our Approach: Steady, Human, Trauma-Informed
We don’t fix kids. We walk with them while they build new ways of coping, relating, and belonging.
- We believe behavior is communication
- We protect emotional and cultural safety
- We respond to trauma with consistency, not control
- We create space for youth to fail safely—and try again tomorrow
We support families and foster parents with trauma-informed parenting education and reentry planning
Why Trauma-Informed Group Care Matters in Alberta
Alberta’s youth deserve care that sees who they are, not just where they’ve been. Our trauma-informed group care program in Alberta provides the emotional safety and structure that many youth have never known.
This isn’t about filling beds. It’s about helping kids rest long enough to heal.
Start with Stability. Build from There.
Because every child in care deserves more than a roof. They deserve a reason to feel safe again.