It Takes a Village. So Where Did Ours Go?

We have built extraordinary systems to educate our children, care for the sick, and support our communities. But who prepares us to become parents, navigate life's greatest transitions, or care for the relationships that hold our families together?

Join Jace Poirier Lacerte, Founder and Vision Keeper of the Family Stewardship Centre, for an introduction to the Family Stewards movement: an Indigenous-led initiative emerging on southern Vancouver Island to restore the village around families. Rooted in Indigenous teachings of kinship, ceremony, and collective responsibility, Family Stewards are developing a new profession dedicated to supporting people through seven thresholds of life, from birth to becoming ancestors.

Discover how a community-driven approach to family wellbeing could strengthen relationships, prevent crises before they begin, and reimagine what it means to care for one another across generations.

Jace Poirier Lacerte

Jace Poirier Lacerte is a Red River Métis educator, social entrepreneur, and community leader living and working on the traditional territories of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples.

A former public school teacher and University of Victoria Distinguished Alumna, Jace is the Founder and Vision Keeper of the Family Stewardship Centre, an Indigenous-led initiative developing a new profession of Family Stewards to strengthen families through education, ceremony, and community connection.

Jace also serves as Vice President of the Victoria Native Friendship Centre and as a Director of the Camosun College Foundation. Through her work, she brings together Indigenous knowledge holders, researchers, community organizations, and families to reimagine how communities prepare for and support life's most significant transitions.

Her guiding belief is that every birth deserves ceremony, every family deserves a village, and every person deserves stewardship across their becoming.