Trauma-Informed Approach
Trauma affects every part of a child's development. Young people need to understand how trauma has shaped their brain and their experience — and to heal from it so they can achieve safety and security.
About
Our History
Dream Care grew out of years of practice in social work, child welfare, and residential care. Our team kept seeing the same pattern — a gap in service for high-risk children and youth where trauma-healing, cultural engagement, and a holistic approach rarely came together under one roof.
In Alberta, only a small number of residential programs focus on high-risk children and youth. Many agencies support young people in the community, but few can offer the daily, live-in environment they need. When intensive support can't reach the place a child actually lives, the cycle of impermanence continues.
We believe children and youth can heal from trauma and move forward in healthy ways. Healing starts once relationship is built — and when a young person has a place to call home, everything else becomes possible.
Mission
Our Mission
We support children and youth (ages 4–24) in the care of Children's Services, Delegated First Nations Authorities, and Indigenous Governing Bodies as they work through trauma. Our approach combines cultural connection with family and community, evidence-based western therapy, and relationship-based practice — grounded in what we know about brain development and attachment.
Vision
Our Vision
That every child and young person has a safe home. Dream Care believes healing happens when relationship and safety are created. Through intentional interventions rooted in holistic healing, young people stabilize, address their trauma, and feel — often for the first time — that they have a home.
Guiding Principles
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Harm Reduction
We take a humanistic approach to harm reduction, building it into daily interventions, education, and safety planning. Our focus is on reducing risk — for the young person and the community — with practical tools and support.
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Community Collaboration
Working with Indigenous communities, government, and larger systems creates positive change. Collaboration builds shared understanding, a shared vision, and a path forward that works for everyone.
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Respect for Cultural Diversity
Every Indigenous community is unique and deserves to be celebrated and respected. We support young people to engage in the traditions and practices of their community.
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Evidence-Based Western Therapy
Evidence-based Western approaches to trauma are essential in helping people develop safety, security, and trust — in themselves and in others.
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Strength-Based Approach
Every person has strengths. Focusing on strengths builds capacity and resilience. Changing the language we use with young people opens space for respectful, trusting, workable relationships.
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Relationship-Based Interventions
Positive, healthy relationships with young people are the catalyst for change. Through intentional, consistent, supportive interactions, relationships form — and change begins.
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Attachment-Building Interventions
Attachment takes many forms. Each child's experience of attachment shapes the interventions we use to help them build connection and see the world differently.
Program Philosophy
Trauma changes everything
The children and youth we serve have been severely affected by trauma — and that trauma affects how their brains develop. Behaviours labelled 'bad', 'criminal', 'manipulative', or 'aggressive' are usually the visible layer of an injured nervous system. Our work is to use purposeful, trauma-informed interventions that address the cause, not just the symptom.
Changing the question
'What's wrong with you?' becomes 'What happened to you?' When we change the language, we start to change the story. When we see young people as resilient rather than broken, we can begin to build — and bridge — real relationships.
Relationship is the intervention
Every intervention at Dream Care is rooted in relationship. From there we move toward safety, and from safety toward positive change. We use harm reduction where appropriate, and keep assessment, education, and safety planning ongoing for every young person in our care.
Why residential matters
Alberta has many agencies supporting at-risk children and youth in the community, but few that these young people call home. Most agencies can't provide the intensive, in-the-home support that changes outcomes — so the cycle of impermanence continues. We believe healing starts when a young person has a place to call home. From there, anything is possible.