Quick Exit

Programs & Services

At the Heart Home Network, we approach case management from a strengths-based perspective. Our focus is on personal empowerment and prioritizing community connections to build long-term stability for each client. We strive for creativity when working with our families. To help them reach where they want to be, we meet them where they are.  

Our case management support can include: 

  • Basic needs (food, clothing, etc.) 
  • Housing 
  • Employment 
  • Safety planning 
  • Addictions counseling 
  • Trauma-informed emotional / crisis support  
  • Court support  
  • Education 
  • Healthy relationships / communication  
  • Parenting tips and strategies 
  • Group workshops 
  • Community resourcing  
  • Goal setting 

Case management services are offered on an ongoing basis to our residents, and for a period of up to 6 months to clients exiting our program.  

Programs

Core Programs:

We offer workshops that focus on the following areas: 

      • The cycle of Domestic Violence and personal safety 
      • Communication Types and Styles 
      • Understanding Attachment and Childhood Trauma  
      • Creating Healthy Relationships 
      • Trauma and Mental Wellness 

Skills Groups:  

HHN offers a variety of skills groups for mothers to attend with topics such as life skill development; relationships; managing stress; mental health wellness; and even basic car maintenance.  

The Circle of Security Parenting™ (COSP): 

HHN offers The Circle of Security Parenting™ program which is based on decades of research about how secure parent-child relationships can be supported and strengthened. COSP is an 8-session group program. Participants are guided through a series of videos and asked to observe, reflect, and respond. Individual sessions with mothers and their children are offered each week to be able to put the learnings in practice.  

Learning Objectives of the Program: 

      •   Understand your child’s emotional world by learning to read the emotional needs
      •   Support your child’s ability to successfully manage emotions 
      •   Enhance the development of your child’s self esteem
      •   Honor your innate wisdom and desire for your child to be secure

Rainbow Room: 

In the Rainbow Room the Family Counsellors meet with children and mothers to support with: social, emotional, and behavioural development of the children; parenting strategies; and understanding trauma and how to create secure attachment with their children. This is a very welcoming space where sessions are individualized to meet the specific needs and goals identified by mothers and the children themselves (ages up to 11).  

Client Feedback: 

“Being housed at Heart Home Network has been a blessing for us. “ 

“The staff and management meet the resident families where they are – honor and listen to their struggles. They provide resources and support(s) thereby, inspiring residents to make changes, grow and confidently start rebuilding their lives to become future thrivers.”  

River of Tears

The history of residential schools has been identified as having long lasting and intergenerational effects on the physical and mental well-being of Indigenous populations in Canada. At Heart Home Network more than 30% of the families in residence identify as Indigenous. The risk factors that contribute to higher rates of domestic abuse in Indigenous families are directly linked to the impacts of inter-generational trauma. The revelations of child deaths at Indian Residential Schools have had a profound impact on resident families and have triggered deep issues related to grief and loss.  

HHN provides enhanced programming to support families in their emerging need through delivery of a new initiative called River of Tears: Families Healing from Grief and Loss. The initiative involves delivery of an interdisciplinary program that offers a range of healing exercises, workshops, acts of creation, and ceremony to allow families to mourn and build skills for the healthy processing of grief and loss. The program is designed to serve the family as a whole and includes both parent and child in the process. 

Currently we see low levels of capacity to cope with grief and loss among resident families.  In the absence of healthy coping strategies, many clients employ coping mechanisms that have significant adverse impacts on the well-being of both mother and children. These include increased incidence of substance misuse, self-harm, emotional neglect and abuse, lowered ability to parent, and a heightened risk of unsafe choices related to relationships. All of these are directly linked to trauma and to the unaddressed issues of grief and loss. Without appropriate intervention and supports we witness the cycle of abuse repeating itself. This further perpetuates the legacy of trauma within Indigenous families. 

River of Tears – Grief Healing Sessions (with the generous contributions of Crows in A Row)

We are continuously in relationship with beginnings and endings, and each one invites us to feel joy or grief or both. Being in those relationships and with those feelings requires skill and practice. As part of Heart Home Network’s River of Tears program, structured group activities are offered with the intention of practicing to build the skills we need that will help us grieve in community and within our own hearts. 

These activities use the wisdom of the land and the elements; the cycles of the earth and moon as guides for turning towards beginnings and endings with love instead of turning away in fear. Together, we’ll learn to align with the shifting seasons and moon phases. Because these gatherings will be held every second Thursday, the activities won’t correspond with the actual seasons or moon phases, so we’ll be left with the awareness and the opportunity to continue to practice throughout the year.  

The structure of our gatherings will be as follows: 

      • Land acknowledgement and open the circle 
      • Learn from each other  
      • Activity to honor the season/moon phase  
      • Share our experiences of the activity 
      • Close the circle 

Sharing is optional. Participating in silence is always honored. Open to all. 

Brighter Futures

HHN is excited about our bold, new step towards promoting economic wellbeing for women and their children. Income is the primary social determinant of health.  

When a woman and her children live in poverty it leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, coercion, and abuse. Often women are forced to remain in unsafe relationships because they do not have the financial resources to live independently. Experiencing domestic violence strips women of their confidence and their capacity to pursue education or return to work.  

Exiting women to poverty in community is not a solution.  

What if we could change this reality and forge a new one where every woman and child exiting HHN left with the potential to achieve financial stability? That possibility is now a reality with our newest Program, Brighter Futures: Fostering Economic Independence for Survivors.  

What is Brighter Futures? 

Brighter Futures is an essential skills training program offered to the clients of Heart Home Network, which will positively impact 150 participants annually.  Included in this number are all the women and their children who will be benefit from enhanced capacity to achieve sustainable employment and financial stability because of their participation in Brighter Futures. Thanks to the generous support of The Government of Alberta’s Civil Society Fund our program pilot commenced in 2022 and we welcomed our first two cohorts of students.  

To sustain this important Program beyond the pilot phase, we are actively fundraising to make this an ongoing initiative. 

The Brighter Futures Program supports our clients who: 

      • Are thinking about returning to school and/or work 
      • Are seeking to transition to a career path that will give them financial independence and security 
      • Are looking to learn more about employment options, scholarships, training programs and how to achieve their dreams 

What impact will this program have? 

The Heart Home Network Brighter Futures Program will offer women impacted by family violence training and skill building in core competencies for employment, mentorship and coaching, and support to access post-secondary education, work experience internships and, actively compete for employment opportunities. This innovative project uses a social determinants of health lens to address and prevent the root causes of intergenerational family violence by empowering single female headed households leaving family violence to: 

      • Gain critical work skills that will enable them to enter the workforce with valuable skills 
      • Earn micro-credentials including Microsoft Certifications 
      • Receive mentoring within a supportive program tailored to reflect trauma-informed practice 
      • Acquire and practice business and communication skills that can be applied to all areas of life 
      • Obtain scholarships to support post-secondary education programs 
      • Access work experience internships 
      • Rejoin the workforce  

What are the long-term goals of Brighter Futures? 

      • Reduce poverty and enhance socio-economic status for 150 + survivors through core skill and capacity building 
      • Support the creation of a collaborative working relationship between the domestic violence sector and the post-secondary sector to increase access for marginalized women 
      • Support the participatory engagement of BIPOC women impacted by domestic violence in research and program design 
      • Build the foundation to remove barriers for BIPOC women to access living wage employment.  

In addition to the far-reaching impacts of family violence, our diverse clientele face systemic barriers to employment. BIPOC women and children are disproportionately impacted by family violence with 29% Indigenous families and the overarching 79% POC in residence at Heart Home Network. Faced with insurmountable barriers to economic stability, and the accompanying negative impacts of poverty, survivors may see no choice but to return to their abuser. We are committed to changing this. 

Child, Youth & Family Counseling

Our experienced Family Counselling team supports mothers and their children as they heal from trauma, build secure attachment, improve emotional wellness, practice nurturing parenting, and reach self-selected goals. The team members lead informative workshops on domestic violence, communication, healthy relationships, trauma and mental wellness, attachment & childhood trauma, and 22 skill building sessions. All ages are supported by the team using a strength-based, client-centered, client-led approach.