Resilience made practical: notes from the Alberta Family Wellness symposium
At the Palix Foundation and Alberta Family Wellness Initiative’s 2026 Edmonton symposium, Deputy Minister Evan Romanow shared how Alberta’s Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction is applying the Alberta Recovery Model. The model shifts toward a recovery-oriented system of care that reduces access barriers, strengthens positive supports, and moves beyond relying on crisis response.
If you have done brain-story or resilience-scale training, the language will be familiar. The Deputy Minister’s point was that Alberta already has many of the positive supports that build resilience across the province. The work now is coordinating them so people are supported through a whole recovery journey rather than only at the crisis point.
For those of us in early learning and school-age care, this is our work restated at the provincial scale. Stable adults, safe environments, and daily routines build the resilience the whole system is trying to strengthen. When the province talks about moving upstream of crisis, it is talking, whether it names us or not, about the settings where children and families spend their days.
The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative’s resilience-scale resources remain some of the best free training in the field. If your team has not done the Brain Story certification, that is a strong place to start. It is free, self-paced, and open to anyone: albertafamilywellness.org/training.
