About Us
Our mission, vision and vision
Mission Statement
Sturgeon Lake Child and Family Services will promote the well being of our children, and families on and off-reserve and deliver culturally-sensitive programs and services designed to maintain, support and preserve the family. The long term goal will be to bring our youth home.
Vision Statement
Strong, healthy families that love and nurture their children within the Cree culture and traditions of Sturgeon Lake First Nation.
Values & Beliefs
SLCFSI believes in:
Protection [KANWEYIMIKOSOWIN]
We believe children are a sacred gift from the Creator and therefore must be protected from neglect and harm. This is a responsibility we share with the community. When their physical needs are relatively satisfied, the individual’s safety needs take over and dominate their behavior. These needs have to do with people’s yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice and inconsistency are under control, the familiar is frequent and the unfamiliar rare.
Empowerment/ Strength [SOHKEYIHTAMOWIN]
We are committed to promoting the well-being of children in need of protection by offering , wherever appropriate, services that are designed to maintain, support and preserve the family in the least disruptive manner. We strive to reintegrate and empower children and families. As Agency Employees we must be committed, patient, caring and knowledgeable in our efforts to help others realize their own maximum potential by demonstrating healthy choices an positive lifestyle choices.
Kinship/ Belonging [WAHKOHTOWN]
Every human being needs to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. We believe our family is important to us because they give us love and roots and a sense of belonging. Where immediate family is not available we look to extend family and the community. The Employees of SLCFSI, the Board and the community members may need to serve as extended family for children in care.
Good Child Rearing [MIYO-OPIKINAWASOWIN]
We offer prevention services that are designed to maintain, support and preserve the family. We help parents assume responsibility for the well-being of their children. We believe that strong, healthy families build a strong community.
Respect/ Love {KISTEYIHTOWIN/ KISEWATITATOWIN]
All humans have a need to be loved, to feel respected, to have self-esteem, self-respect, and to respect others. We believe all human beings are worthy of respect and dignity. We will model respect in all our relationships.
Our logo
Sturgeon Lake First Nation Community Members
The four feathers symbolize:
Four institutionalal principles
• Governance, Education, Health and JusticeFour parts of Human Beings
• Spiritual, Emotional, Physical and Mental aspects of selfFour Directions
• East, South, West and NorthFour Stages of Life
• Infant, Youth, Adult and ElderFour Sacred Medicines
• Sage, Cedar, Sweetgrass and Tabacco
Represents Mother Earth, Father Sun and the Drum
Represents providing support to the families, to promote the well-being of children and families.
To promote the enhancement of health and growth and development of children and adults in the family unit.
Represents spiritual protection, carries prayers, and brings strength, courage, wisdom. illumination of spirit, healing, creation and knowledge of magic. Represents great power and balance, dignity with grace, a connection with higher truths, intuition and a creative spirit grace achieved through knowledge and hard work.
Symbolizes the fifteen traditional Cree culture values that serve as a guide for happy and healthy living. Each value is honored in the contstruction of the teepee, each pole symbolizes one value:
1. OBEDIENCE – accepting guidance and wisdom from others
2. RESPECT – for oneself and others
3. HUMILITY – knowing that we are not above or below others in the circle of life
4. HAPPINESS – showing enthusiasm to encourage others
5. LOVE – love of self and love of others, not things
6. FAITH – belief in the spirit world
7. KINSHIP – relationship and bonds with parents, siblings, extended relatives, knowing one’s
home community
8. CLEANLINESS – Spiritual Cleanliness
9. THANKFULLNESS – gratitude for life and for family
10. SHARING – sharing knowledge, stories, traditions for future generations
11. STRENGTH – Spiritual strength to do things that are difficult
12. GOOD CHILD REARING– guiadance and protection of the sacred gift of children
13. HOPE – hope that the women who are the life givers and nurturerers will carry on the teachings
to bring healthy spirited people into the world.
14. ULTIMATE PROTECTION – protection of the minds, spirit, emotions and health of the youth
15. CONTROL FLAPS FROM THE WIND – balance in life’s journey
These are the scared values that sustain the cree spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally. The first three are considered the foundation of the teepee because a teepee will not stand upright with only two poles, a minimum of three are needed – just as you need a child and two parents to make a family.