‘Life-changing’ daycare for indigenous children aims to reverse impacts of trauma on the brain through trauma-informed practices.

CATEGORY: SCHOOLS

Kendra Gage, executive director, Hulitan Family & Community Services Society

Source: Parksville Qualicum Beach News
Read time: 1.9 minutes
 
This Happened
In September 2024, a non-profit organization in Canada opened an indigenous-specific trauma-informed daycare center.
 
Who Did This?
Hulitan Family & Community Services Society is a non-profit based in Victoria, British Columbia. Their mission is to help Indigenous families heal from the damage of colonization and develop resilience through culturally-rooted programs. Services include counseling and supports to reunite children with families, and prevent children from being placed in out-of-home care. Their website opens with a land acknowledgment. At least half of their $2.2 million (Canadian) budget (approximately $1.6 million U.S.) is funded by the Canadian government. The executive director, Kendra Gage, has been with the non-profit for over twenty years.
 
The Premise
Their annual report described the daycare services as having spaces for 24 infant-toddlers and 24 three-to-five-year-old children, providing space for parent workshops, and “…the centre, classrooms, toys, books, and outdoor spaces will be reflective of Indigenous cultures so that children and their families can see themselves reflected in the environment around them, supporting a sense of belonging.”
 
A local news report described the specific trauma-informed practices as:

• Large, airy spaces
• Windows accessing green space
• Lots of natural light
• A calming sea foam color for the walls
• Furniture—from tables to play kitchens—are made of wood for an organic, natural feel
• High staff-to-children ratio
• A therapist on staff

 
Analysis
The ‘trauma’ these children experienced differs from the psychiatric definition of trauma used for defining and researching post-traumatic stress reactions which is that events must involve life-threat. Rather, it is assumed that any indigenous child has experienced ‘trauma’ by nature of being indigenous through historical trauma or perceived discrimination in current society. 

​The daycare’s premise of trauma
belongs to a movement of classifying
​everyday stress as ‘trauma.’ 

​This is consistent with other so-called trauma movements, including Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) and complex PTSD which also conflate stress with trauma.

​There is no clear and consistent definition of what counts as trauma-informed practice, so, the definition can be almost whatever each program wants, such as asserting that wood furniture and sea foam color have healing properties. Reviews of trauma-informed practices have demonstrated there are no high-quality studies and no evidence that they work (see here).
 
Why Is This Happening?
This is one of dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of projects branding themselves as trauma-informed in the  past decade. The label ‘trauma-informed’ provides an imprimatur of scientific authenticity but it has no evidence-based meaning. The leaders of these projects do not seem to care about research evidence. The purpose is to leverage the concept that trauma has been miraculously discovered as the cause of all disadvantaged groups in society.
​This daycare represents another example of how so-called trauma-informed practices are manifesting in support services, architecture design, education, medicine, addiction, and courts. ​

They all have in common a neo-Marxist, postmodern ideology that asserts humans are highly malleable from oppressive forces in society. These services are driven by social justice warriors with highly-emotional investments in a utopian vision for rehabilitating imagined trauma scars on the brain. The adjacent photo from a news story shows Gage tearful at the thought of serving freshly baked banana muffins to the children.

​Their concept of trauma is baffling and the meaning of trauma-informed practices is vague. These attempts to control language are purposeful attempts to install a false intellectual framework (see here); the more confusing they are, the more complex it seems, the harder it is to grasp, but it gives the impression there must be some basis of truth to their premise.