April 20, 2026
Working Together on Community Development
Community development can get complicated. It often involves many organizations, community leaders, and residents working on different priorities.
The first day featured the Toxic Drug Symposium, which focused on the toxic drug crisis. Keynote speaker Guy Felicella spoke about living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and his journey through addiction and recovery. It was a story many people recognized, and it brought both emotion and perspective, especially around how important community support is for anyone trying to recover.
“Building Brighter Futures for our Children & Families”
The next three days were the Community Development Symposium, which was designed to bring together Nation leadership, knowledge keepers, and decision-makers from across the Carrier and Sekani territory to shape the future of prevention community-based child and family service delivery. Through culturally grounded dialogue and shared learning, the symposium focused on ways we can strengthen capacity and guide the development of the community service plans, financial systems, and identify capital projects that reflect community priorities in child and family service delivery. This gathering created space to honour the voices of community leaders, matriarchs, and unify efforts toward building strong, healthy, child and family community-based services in collaboration with CSFS. Participants included Indigenous Services Canada, First Nations Health Authority, and CSFS. Workshops gave people a chance to dig into practical topics like finance, communications, IT, capital, housing and infrastructure, and emotional intelligence.
The symposium was MC’d by Squamish Nation community leader Khelsilem. He closed with a keynote on Nation-building and shared about Sen̓áḵw, a housing development in downtown Vancouver, as an example of seeing a problem clearly and then building practical solutions.
As Mary Teegee-Gray, CSFS’ Chief Administrative Officer said, “We are here to learn from each other through culturally grounded dialogue, and to strengthen the work that Nations are leading in community, work that supports strong families, safe children, and connected communities.”
To learn more about our mandate, objectives, and mission, visit www.csfs.org/about-us/mandate-objectives-and-mission
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Last modified: Wednesday 03-Apr-24 12:36:29 PDT
CSFS gratefully acknowledges Noeleen McQuary, the artisan who created the traditional Carrier baskets used in the CSFS branding on this webpage, and in other print and online media.
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