Family Wellness & Empowerment Program
Wings empowers women and children who are escaping domestic abuse to have safe, independent futures by delivering secure long-term housing and wrap-around support services to help families 24/7. While these fully furnished apartments provide needed shelter for survivors, WINGS does much more than provide a roof over their heads.
Unlike many domestic violence organizations that provide short-term emergency shelter, WINGS offers medium-term housing solutions, allowing survivors the time and stability needed to rebuild their lives. Family violence is often a clear path to homelessness. This is not only true for women subjected to violent homes, but children exposed and traumatized by violence in the home often leave to a homeless state to escape the trauma. WINGS’ medium-term housing and support services are crucial in breaking the cycle of abuse. By providing stable housing, financial education, and emotional support, we significantly reduce the risk of survivors becoming homeless or being forced to return to abusive environments. WINGS is one of the few organizations offering long-term housing, helping to solve this critical need and prevent homelessness for women and children escaping violence.
WINGS creates a safe and welcoming home for women and children. Our trauma-informed approach, intensive counselling, onsite childcare, life skills training, as well as child and youth programs – encourage healing for the whole family. We give women time to process and the tools they need to recover from the horrific trauma they have experienced. Our full-circle healing helps women and children become more stable, access new skills and set a healthy course for their lives.
Family Wellness & Empowerment Program
Effective January 2026
Wings provides medium-term (6-24 months), trauma-informed housing and wrap-around supports for women and their children fleeing family violence. Our Family Wellness & Empowerment Program (FWEP) replaces previous program models and strengthens our continuum of care across second-stage housing and community outreach.
WINGS provides a full spectrum of support—housing, counselling, legal assistance, financial literacy, health and wellness support, and children’s services—all designed to address the many barriers survivors face in escaping abuse and achieving independence.
The families who live at WINGS have left situations of family violence, and are in need of a safe, caring, and supportive home. The women and their children are healing and trying to manage the effects of trauma; some may end up with PTSD, anxiety, and addiction issues. WINGS staff work with the families so that women and children are able to heal, and gain the tools they need to lead safe, healthy, and bright futures. Our programs are designed with trauma-focused care and best practices, aimed at addressing the physical, psychological, and emotional effects of experiencing violence in the home.
Our full-time Nurse Practitioner provides on-site health care to families, and through partnerships with organizations like Civida, YWCA and Legal Aid, Wings integrates services such as trauma-informed counseling, healthcare, and legal advocacy, providing a one-stop solution for families in crisis.
Program Highlights
Clients at Wings take part in the Family Wellness & Empowerment Program and are required to actively engage in goal setting using the Wings Self-Sufficiency Matrix. Daily outcomes-based groups sessions are available for clients at Wings, with a focus on empowerment and self-sufficiency. Clients are encouraged to attend group sessions that align with their individual goals or personal interests.
Clients who arrive at Wings who are currently employed or attending school may remain working/attending school and attend the outcomes-based group sessions on a part-time basis to work towards their personal goals towards empowerment.
Clients may choose to participate in the Strength to Soar: Wings Self-Sufficiency & Employment Certificate, a skills and goal-based program designed to support clients in advancing through the Self-Sufficiency Matrix while building job readiness and personal resilience. Programming will be offered throughout the day (morning, afternoon and evenings) to accommodate all families living at Wings.
Length of stay ranges between 6 to 24 months and is guided by Self-Sufficiency Matrix and ongoing goal planning.
Providing medium-term housing support and outcomes-based programs for families who have high safety risks or complex needs who are escaping family violence.
Programming Includes:
49 fully furnished apartments
Highly secure buildings
24-hour on-site tenant support
Dedicated Case Manager
Supported goal setting
Daily outcomes-based empowerment programs
Safety planning
Criminal justice support
Employment/ Education support
Housing navigation support
Financial literacy
Mental health support
Addictions support
Registered Psychologists
On-site primary health care
On-site, full-time childcare is subject to availability. Mothers attending school, Wings programming, or working will be prioritized.
Child & Youth Empowerment Programs
The Rocky Forest Daycare & Out of School Care
The Rocky Forest Daycare & Out of School Care is located onsite at the Home Next Door. We are licensed Daycare for 33 children, infant to 5 years old and our Out of School Care has space for 15 children, 6 to 12 years old. Our centre is trauma-informed, which means we are mindful of the circumstances of domestic violence and how that affects a child’s development and ability to form trusting relationships. We take pride in building relationships with the child and the mother so they feel safe and secure. Planning and programming follow with Alberta’s Early Learning FLIGHT Framework Curriculum intended to guide the significant work of early learning and childcare educators with young children (ages 0-6yrs) and their families in centre-based childcare facilities.
Quality Foods for Growing Minds
The Rocky Forest Daycare’s Hot Lunch and Snack Program continues to be a great success, with a special thank you to our funders for assisting with the cost of providing high-quality, nutritious, and delicious foods. Canada Food Guide approved Hot Lunch and nutritious snacks are served daily to children. The families living at the Home Next Door are challenged with poverty and the direct and indirect effects of suffering from abuse. Many of the women are unable to afford the high cost of groceries and healthy meals for themselves and their children. The program helps to alleviate the financial pressure on moms to provide healthy meals throughout the day. In addition, the children enrolled in the daycare are provided with healthy food options and a balanced diet. The daycare staff ensures that there are increased provisions for fruits and vegetables. As part of the program, the children try foods from all different cultures, which they very much enjoy, and food literacy is also incorporated.
We aim to reduce hunger for the children whose families face poverty and food insecurity, in addition to the direct effects of domestic violence. Our Daycare offers trauma-informed, specialized support that changes the lives of the children through education, nutritious foods, and healthy, playful activities.
What is the FLIGHT approach to early learning?
Alberta’s Early Learning FLIGHT Framework
This is a flexible framework for thinking about how children learn and experience their worlds, as well as a guide that fosters strong early childhood communities. The child and the Educator become co-learners, co-researchers, and co-imaginers of possibilities with high regard for the child’s potential. Children’s play is central to this curriculum framework as an active, exploratory, creative, expressive process deeply embedded in children’s everyday experiences and through which children participate in, learn about, and actively make sense of the world.
This same philosophy is true in the Out of School Program, 6 to 12 years old; this is a way of planning curriculum in response to children’s interests to create meaningful learning experiences. Activities and projects are planned to educators to match the skills, interests, and unique needs of the specific children they are working with.
If you have any questions or want to learn more about the daycare, please contact the Director of Rocky Forest Daycare at bkotylak@wingsofprovidence.ca
