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About Us
Reconciliation with Purpose is a healing-informed, transformational framework designed to rebuild and reimagine relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners. Rooted in the values of Ska:na Family Learning Centre, the project is grounded in over two decades of community collaboration, cultural teaching, and relationship-based learning.
Our approach is supported by action-centered and community-relevant research, using storytelling as a central method of inquiry and reflection. Through shared stories, teachings, and lived experiences, we’ve developed a practical, adaptable collaboration framework that identifies real spaces for growth and offers tools to guide meaningful reconciliation efforts.
What we now offer is not only an effective framework, it’s a pathway. We walk with communities and organizations, offering guidance, training, and practical mechanisms to implement reconciliation in ways that are culturally respectful, relationship-driven, and rooted in healing.
We work with Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners—including community organizations, governments, educational institutions, and service agencies—to foster understanding, cultural connection, and reconciliation.
What does reconciliation mean in an urban Indigenous context?
Who is involved and how they contribute?
What is currently being done and where we can improve?
Our Development
The foundation for Reconciliation with Purpose (RWP) traces back to 2014, when SFLC launched the Journey Together project (The Journey Together: Ontario’s Commitment to Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples) in partnership with municipalities and with support from the Province of Ontario.
As administrators of SFLC, Faith and Sophia embraced reconciliation not only as an organizational mandate but also as a personal and professional commitment. Through the Journey Together project, they initiated research that led to the development of the Indigenous EarlyON initiative, which set SFLC on a healing journey. Out of this, the organization began shifting from a trauma-informed approach to a healing-informed practice.
By 2016, SFLC had turned a deeper focus toward child and family development, emphasizing trauma-informed care. They learned from leading experts such as Dr. Jean Clinton and collaborated with Dr. Tami Decoteau from Minot, North Dakota, to deepen their understanding of early childhood brain development. Their research also explored the science of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), which helped shape what has become the Healing Informed Approach. This approach blends evidence-based methods such as HighScope and Reggio Emilia with trauma-informed practices, while remaining rooted in Mino Biimadziwin—“Living the Good Life”—and the Seven Stages of a Good Life.
Building on this foundation, in 2019 Faith and Sophia established the Women's Equity Network (WEB), another stepping stone in advancing reconciliation—this time by enhancing and supporting the journey at professional and corporate levels.
In partnership with Dr. Magda Smolewski, Faith and Sophia went on to lead the Reconciliation with Purpose research project, which explored:
We engaged with community partners, organizations, and individuals in meaningful conversations to better understand their unique perspectives on reconciliation. These discussions explored not only how reconciliation is personally understood and lived out, but also how it shapes the work and values of local organizations. Through this process, we also sought to uncover ways we can come alongside one another, building stronger relationships and identifying practical opportunities to collaborate in pursuing healing, justice, and meaningful change.
The insights gathered from these conversations were not only documented but also shared widely by Dr. Smolewski, ensuring that the voices and perspectives of community members were meaningfully represented. These findings laid the foundation for developing a functional and effective framework for reconciliation, one that could move beyond theory into practice. By shaping concrete approaches and guiding principles, the work provided Reconciliation with Purpose with a living structure to advance reconciliation in real and measurable ways. Today, that framework continues to inform and strengthen our efforts, offering both direction and accountability as the organization carries this work forward.
Our Framework
Reconciliation isn't a checklist, it’s a lived journey. Our frameworks are not rigid structures, but living guides shaped by ceremony, story, and shared responsibility. They honour both Indigenous wisdom and practical action, helping people move from intention to impact.
By working through these frameworks, individuals and organizations begin to see reconciliation not as a one-time initiative, but as a way of being; rooted in relationship, responsibility, and reciprocity.
At Reconciliation with Purpose, we ground our work in four interconnected frameworks that guide meaningful and sustainable reconciliation practices. Each framework offers a unique entry point into building relationships, shifting mindsets, and creating lasting change within systems, organizations, and communities.
Our Team
Faith Hale, Sophia Peltier, and Magdalena (Magda) Smolewski share a deep commitment to community, culture, and reconciliation. Together, they bring decades of experience in Indigenous-led education, cultural preservation, organizational leadership, and healing-informed research.
Faith, co-founder and Executive Director of Ska:na Family Learning Centre (SFLC) and Women’s Equity Business (WEB), has been a leader in creating culturally rooted early years programming in Southwestern Ontario.
Sophia, co-founder and Corporate Services Director of SFLC, was instrumental in establishing the first Indigenous non-profit charity to operate child care and Indigenous EarlyON programs across multiple municipalities in the region. She is also the co-founder of the Women’s Equity Business (WEB), which extends her commitment to reconciliation and equity into professional and corporate spaces.
Magda, a socio-cultural anthropologist and co-author of Historical Trauma and Aboriginal Healing, has spent over 25 years learning from and working alongside Indigenous communities.
United by respect, humility, and a belief in the power of relationships, Faith, Sophia, and Magda work together to build bridges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples—one story, one teaching, and one relationship at a time.
Magdalena Smolewski
Faith Hale
Sophia Peltier
Faith Hale
Magdalena Smolewski
Sophia Peltier
