From that land, something different began to grow.

Kackaamin's story does not start with us. It starts with the Elders, the families, and the community members who looked at a place that had caused great harm and decided it could become something else. This is the story of that decision and of everything that has grown from it.

The Land: Meares Island

A seed planted in difficult ground

For generations, a residential school operated on Meares Island, taking children from their families and communities. The harm caused there, to individuals, families, and the fabric of Nuu-chah-nulth life, was deep and lasting.

When the school closed and relocated, the land and buildings remained. And with them, a question: what should this place become?

Elders and community members, alongside others who had witnessed the damage, answered that question with something radical. They said: this place should become a place of healing.

Early 1970’s

A community decides

In the early 1970s, Nuu-chah-nulth Elders, community members, and others came together and made a deliberate choice: the site on Meares Island would become a place of healing for families. They would take what had been used to separate families apart and build something that brought families back together.

The founding vision was simple: families would come, stay together, and heal together.

1974

The first families arrive

In 1974, the first group of families arrived at what was then called Kakawis Family Centre on Meares Island. They were the first to do what thousands of families have done since: come together, stay on site, and begin the work of healing.

That first group of families set something in motion that has not stopped.

"What began as an act of hope in 1974 has never stopped being exactly that."

In the years that followed

Decades of growth on Meares Island

For more than three decades, Kakawis ran programs from its site on Meares Island. The programs evolved, deepening in clinical scope, widening in cultural practice, and growing in the number of families served. The physical remoteness of the island was both a challenge and a gift: it asked families to be fully present, cut off from the distractions and pressures of daily life.

2009

A new home in Port Alberni

In 2009, the Centre moved to a larger, more accessible campus at 7830 Beaver Creek Road in Port Alberni on the territory of the Tseshaht and Hupacasath First Nations. The new site allowed for more families to be served at once, more programs to run in parallel, and a physical campus built for this purpose rather than adapted from another.

The name changed to Kackaamin Family Development Centre. 

The new campus was intentionally built in a circle with buildings arranged around a central park and playground.

2009 - Today

Roots in Alberni Valley

Since the move to Port Alberni, Kackaamin has become deeply rooted in the Alberni Valley community. Programs have expanded and the staff has grown. The campus has grown into itself; the trees are taller, the grounds more established, the sense of the place is more settled.

The three programs now running at Kackaamin: Family, Supportive Recovery, and Rebuilding the Circle. They reflect the fullness of what healing requires at different points in a person's journey.

2023

Accreditation with exemplary standing

In 2023, Kackaamin received full accreditation with Exemplary Standing which is the highest possible result. It was a formal recognition of what the people who work and heal here have always known: the care being provided is exceptional.

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2024

Fifty Years

On July 5th, 2024, Kackaamin marked 50 years of family healing. What began with one group of families arriving at a site on Meares Island in 1974 has become one of only three Indigenous Family Treatment programs in Canada, a place that has shaped the lives of thousands of families across five decades.

The celebration honoured the Elders who planted the seed, the staff who have kept it growing, and the families who have trusted Kackaamin with the hardest work of their lives.

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"Fifty years is not a number. It is a thousand families. It is what happens when you refuse to give up on people."

What’s next

The Family Healing House

Kackaamin is raising funds for a new ceremonial gathering space, the Family Healing House. A longhouse-style building with a commercial kitchen and healing offices. A home for the cultural and spiritual dimensions of healing that have always been at Kackaamin's core.

The river is still moving.

Support the Family Healing House Learn about the project

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