Indigenous-Led Family Stewardship Centre Launches Search for Founding Partners and Legacy Property
The Family Stewardship Centre is seeking Nations, employers, philanthropists, and community supporters to help build a ceremonial home for birth, parenting, and family wellbeing.
VICTORIA, BC — A new Indigenous-led movement is emerging on Southern Vancouver Island with a bold belief: families thrive when they are surrounded by community, ceremony, and support.
The Family Stewardship movement is working to restore the village around modern families.
The movement is grounded in a simple but powerful idea: if healthy families are the foundation of healthy communities, then families deserve guidance, ceremony, and community support long before crisis emerges.
The Family Stewardship Centre, founded by Métis birth worker and educator Jace Poirier Lacerte, is publicly announcing its search for partner Nations, employers, philanthropists, and angel supporters to help open the first Birth and Family Stewardship Centre on Southern Vancouver Island.
The Centre is currently in its founding stage, actively building the partnerships and community relationships needed to open its doors.
The Centre aims to create a welcoming third space for families, one that exists between the hospital and the isolation of home. A place where birth is supported not only as a medical event, but as a relational, emotional, cultural, and community ceremony.
“We are not trying to replace medical care,” says Poirier. “Midwives, nurses, physicians, and healthcare providers remain essential. What we are building is the missing layer around families: ceremony, continuity of care, community support, and relational guidance through life’s major thresholds.”
Poirier founded the Centre after years of witnessing families navigate birth and early parenthood without community, ceremony, or continuity of care, and recognizing that modern families often lack the village humans have relied upon for generations.
The movement places particular emphasis on supporting both birthing and non-birthing parents through the transition into family life.
While healthcare systems rightly focus on the health and safety of the birthing parent and baby, many non-birthing parents receive little formal preparation or support for their own transition into caregiving, emotional regulation, relational responsibility, and family leadership.
Family Stewardship recognizes that parenthood is a rite of passage for everyone involved. By supporting both parents, families are better equipped to navigate the challenges of early parenthood, strengthen their relationships, share responsibilities, and build the foundations for long-term family wellbeing.
“We are not only birthing babies,” says Poirier. “We are birthing families. When only one parent is supported through that transition, we leave a critical gap in the system. Family Stewards help ensure both parents are seen, prepared, and connected to the support they need to thrive.”
The Family Stewardship model introduces a new emerging profession: Family Stewards, trained professionals who guide individuals and families through major life transitions with education, relational care, community building, and ceremony.
The Centre’s approach responds to growing rates of parental isolation, burnout, postpartum mental health challenges, and family fragmentation by rebuilding the kinds of intergenerational and community support systems many families no longer have access to. It also addresses a longstanding gap in family care by intentionally supporting both parents through the transition into family life, rather than focusing solely on the birthing parent and baby.
The work begins in pregnancy and birth because the transition into parenthood is one of the most emotionally vulnerable and identity-shifting periods in a person's life. From there, the work extends far beyond birth itself.
The Family Stewardship framework identifies seven major thresholds of family life:
Birthing in Ceremony
Becoming Children
Coming of Age
Becoming Parents
Midlife Transitions
Becoming Grandparents
Becoming Ancestors
The Centre envisions families being able to access workshops, circles, mentorship, preparation programs, and ceremonial care throughout the lifespan, rather than only during moments of crisis or the first six weeks of a baby's life.
The movement has already begun gaining momentum.
The Family Stewardship Centre’s Becoming Parents program has been reviewed by the University of Victoria Healthy Relationships Lab, led by Dr. Erica Woodin. The movement is also collaborating with Camosun College to explore training and operational development and is in conversations with Royal Roads University regarding the future development of a Graduate Certificate in Family Stewardship.
At the same time, the movement is responding directly to what families are saying they need.
“We keep hearing the same thing from parents,” says Poirier. “Families are overwhelmed and isolated, trying to navigate one of life’s biggest transformations without a village or intergenerational guidance. People are not only asking for support with birth, but they are also asking how to stay connected, regulated, and safe as a family afterward.”
The Family Stewardship Centre is currently building foundational relationships with:
Indigenous Nations seeking Family Stewardship Centres
Employers ready to offer Family Stewardship as a health and wellness benefit
Philanthropic partners aligned with upstream family violence prevention, reconciliation, and family and child well-being
The Centre is also actively seeking a legacy property gift, a home, heritage building, or land on Southern Vancouver Island that could become the ceremonial heart of this work. A property donor would be founding a living legacy: a place where families gather, heal, and grow for generations to come. If you have land or a building aligned with this vision, we would be honoured to speak with you.
The long-term vision includes a residential-style centre with gathering spaces, ceremony rooms, family suites, gardens, and community programming designed to support families across generations.
The Family Stewardship Centre is based in Lekwungen territory on Southern Vancouver Island and is currently building partnerships, community support, and operational pathways toward opening its first location.
The Family Stewardship Centre positions itself as an upstream prevention model, one focused on strengthening families before crisis intervention becomes necessary.
This Centre doesn’t yet have walls; it has a vision, a growing movement, and an open invitation.
If you are a Nation, employer, philanthropist, or property holder who believes families deserve a village, we are building one, and we are looking for you.
To learn more, partner, or support the vision:
Instagram: @familystewards
About the Family Stewardship Centre
The Family Stewardship Centre is an Indigenous-led movement dedicated to supporting individuals and families through life’s major thresholds with education, relational guidance, community building, and ceremony. Beginning with birth and the transition into parenthood, the Centre is working to restore intergenerational care systems and strengthen family wellbeing across generations through the emerging profession of Family Stewards.
Media Contact
Jace Poirier Lacerte, Founder & Vision Keeper, Family Stewardship Centre
hello@familystewardshipcentre.ca
