How the Relationship Began
Our relationship with Cowichan Tribes began five years ago, when members of their team saw Angie present at the Our Children Our Way gathering.
Following that presentation, Cowichan Tribes reached out to the Gathering Our Medicine team to explore how the approach could support their children, youth, families, and prevention work.
The relationship began with listening and learning about Cowichan’s vision. The Gathering Our Medicine team spent time with Cowichan staff, Elders, Knowledge Holders, and community members to understand what families needed and how the work could reflect Cowichan language, teachings, values, and ways of caring for one another.
Over the five years that followed, these conversations grew into a deep, ongoing relationship.
A Relationship Grounded in Care
Angie’s relationship with Cowichan Tribes has always been at the heart of this work. She has remained closely connected to the people, the vision, and the program’s day-to-day development.
Her role has included listening to what the community is asking for, helping organize and carry the work forward, supporting facilitators, coordinating with the Gathering Our Medicine team, and ensuring that the program remains connected to Cowichan’s original intentions.
This relationship carries deep care and responsibility. The goal has always been to protect and support Cowichan’s vision for a program grounded in its own people, language, culture, and knowledge.
The work has continued to deepen because the relationship has continued.
Trust has been built through showing up, listening carefully, responding to what is needed, and allowing the program to grow at the pace of the community.
How the Work Expanded
The work developed into a long-term process of curriculum development, facilitator training, community capacity building, and family support.
The Cowichan Prevention Team participated in an in-person Gathering Our Medicine intensive followed by online learning and mentorship.
The training focused on:
- Relational and trauma-informed facilitation
- Cowichan approaches to caring for children and families
- Attachment, belonging, grief, and emotional development
- The effects of colonization and intergenerational trauma
- Gathering and building relationships before directing
- Supporting children and youth experiencing anxiety or aggression
- Creating culturally grounded family and kinship circles
- Supporting parents without replacing their knowledge or authority
- Facilitator identity, integrity, and relational accountability
- Planning and delivering community-based programs
Elders and Knowledge Holders remained central throughout the process, providing language, teachings, ceremony, cultural guidance, and mentorship.
Developing the Cowichan Way
Over five years, Gathering Our Medicine was adapted into a six-session family-support program grounded in Cowichan traditional knowledge and ways of life.
The teaching guides the program:
Mukw'tu Shhwa'luqu'a'o tth'ele'e tu shhwuli — The family is the heart of life.
The six sessions are:
Mukw’tu Shhwa’luqu’a’o tth’ele’e tu shhwuli
The Family Is the Heart of Life
Uqwitul
Care and ensuring our family relationships are strong and resilient
Tl’l’tul tst
Guiding principles in our Law: Love
Hwe'nelh
Rest, recovery, and becoming content after physical or emotional stress
Shqualawun
Honouring emotion, sadness, and grief
Language for Ceremony
Honouring our families through ceremony
Each session brings Cowichan teachings and language into conversations about family, healing, emotional development, caregiving, belonging, grief, ceremony, and the responsibilities carried between generations.
The program reminds parents and caregivers that they are not expected to have every answer. Their relationship with their children, their cultural knowledge, and the teachings carried within their families and community are part of the medicine.
Preserving Language, Traditional Knowledge and Elder Voices
A central part of the Cowichan vision has been preserving and sharing Hul’q’umi’num’ language, traditional knowledge, and Elder voices.
Multiple videos were created to carry teachings connected to:
- Cowichan language
- Culture, identity, and family
- Ceremony and traditional laws
- Love, respect, and generosity
- Grief and emotional expression
- Rest and recovery
- Belonging and ancestry
- Caring for children and families
- The Cowichan way of life
These videos allow facilitators and families to hear directly from Elders and Knowledge Holders. They also create a lasting record so that the teachings can continue supporting future generations.
A detailed Hul’q’umi’num’ glossary was developed alongside the curriculum. It includes greetings, family relationships, guiding principles, emotional teachings, ceremony, seasons, land, ancestors, and Cowichan ways of caring for one another.
This work is much more than adding language to an existing program. The language and teachings shape how the entire program understands family, healing, relationship, and responsibility.
Building Local Facilitators
The facilitator-development process moved gradually from learning into supported practice.
Local facilitators and emerging champions received:
- Full facilitator onboarding
- In-person and online training
- One-to-one coaching
- Weekly planning and mentoring
- Session-planning templates
- Facilitation tools and teaching resources
- Opportunities to co-facilitate family circles
- Pre- and post-circle debriefing
- Elder guidance and cultural mentorship
- Participant evaluation resources
- Facilitator self-reflection tools
The first family circle allowed emerging facilitators to practise alongside experienced Gathering Our Medicine mentors.
A second family-circle series gave local champions greater responsibility while continuing to provide mentorship, planning support, and opportunities for reflection.
This created a complete pathway from facilitator onboarding and training to delivering a culturally grounded family-support program.
Full Online Learning Platform
As the work continued, we developed a complete Gathering Our Medicine online platform specifically for Cowichan Tribes.
The platform brings the six program sessions, videos, Elder teachings, Hul’q’umi’num’ language, traditional knowledge, curriculum, planning materials, and evaluation tools together in one accessible place.
The platform includes:
- Six complete family-support sessions
- Multiple videos featuring Elder and Knowledge Holder voices
- The Cowichan Way Facilitator Guide
- A detailed Hul’q’umi’num’ glossary
- The Gathering Our Medicine Facilitator Training guide
- Full facilitator-onboarding materials
- Session-specific key points
- Instructional planning examples
- Weekly planning templates
- Narrated learning materials
- Participant evaluation resources
- Facilitator self-reflection and evaluation tools
- Fillable certificates of completion
- Videos and readings about grief, colonization, cultural reclamation, rest, emotional expression, and the Cowichan way of life
- Resources for planning and delivering future family and kinship circles
The platform supports continuity. New facilitators can complete a consistent onboarding process, while experienced facilitators can return to the videos and planning tools as their practice continues to develop.
Where the work is now
What began five years ago after Angie's presentation at Our Children Our Way has developed into:
- A deep and continuing relationship with Cowichan Tribes
- A Cowichan-specific Gathering Our Medicine approach
- A complete six-session family-support program
- A culturally grounded facilitator-training process
- Full onboarding for local facilitators
- Local facilitator and champion development
- Elder and Knowledge Holder involvement
- Multiple videos preserving language, teachings, and Elder voices
- The Cowichan Way Facilitator Guide
- A detailed Hul’q’umi’num’ glossary
- Supported family and kinship circles
- A complete online learning and resource platform
- Practical planning, evaluation, reflection, and certification tools
The work continues to evolve. Every circle, teaching, conversation, video, and facilitator experience adds to the program and strengthens its connection to Cowichan families and community life.
The difference it made
Nothing changes in an organization until the relationships do.
Cowichan Tribes now has a complete, culturally grounded pathway for onboarding and training facilitators, preserving community knowledge, and supporting families.
The work preserves and shares Hul’q’umi’num’ language, traditional knowledge, cultural teachings, and Elder voices while strengthening local facilitators’ capacity to lead family and kinship circles.
Rather than creating dependence on outside professionals, the work supports Cowichan people in carrying the program forward. Local facilitators can access the complete training, six-session curriculum, videos, language resources, planning materials, and evaluation tools through the online platform.
The depth of this work reflects the depth of the relationship. Over five years, Angie and the Gathering Our Medicine team have continued walking alongside Cowichan Tribes with care for its vision and respect for the people carrying it.