Approach

Every project begins with a deep understanding of community needs, informed by relevant lived and professional experience. Our team is 200+ strong, the majority of whom are Indigenous, and include community members and professionals with direct experience in service delivery, system wayfinding, and healing-centered work. We work alongside Indigenous communities, Elders, and local teams to design programs around the real needs, expectations, and experiences of the people we serve. This foundation helps us build programs that are responsive, reciprocal, and effective.  

We approach our clients and the communities we serve as partners, and work alongside communities to co-design or facilitate programs that lead to meaningful change. Our collaborative approach prioritizes cultural safety and reciprocity with the individuals and communities we work with. We design and deliver performance measurement strategies in-house, tying outputs to measurable objectives and meaningful impact. This allows us to shape experiences that are functional, respectful, accessible, and relevant.  

Our work is guided by clearly defined governance models that ensure accountability, cultural appropriateness, and results. These models reflect the communities we work with, incorporating Indigenous data sovereignty (including OCAP principles), trauma-informed practices, community protocols, and culturally appropriate pathways for engaging leadership and Elders. This ensures we maintain a consistent delivery structure that flexes to meet unique community needs while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements and standards. 

We hold ourselves accountable to quality and learning. We don’t wait until the end of a project to assess what worked; we apply what we learn in real time. Our programs are built with embedded processes for quality assurance, ongoing team training, and real-time improvement.   

This helps us deepen our understanding of communities over time, adapt tools and approaches as we go, provide quality outcomes, and maintain a consistent human focus across every engagement. 

Community engagement today spans both in-person and digital environments. We bridge these touchpoints in ways that build trust and create experiences that are seamless, contextual, and culturally grounded.   

We embed experience design and technology solutions to ensure accessibility, flexibility, and inclusion across diverse user groups and environments.  

At the heart of every experience is a deep understanding of people’s needs—what they value, what they struggle with, and how they engage. From there, design and technology create powerful experiences that deliver clarity, care, and purpose.  

Our work is accountable to our clients, to courts, and to communities. We keep track of how the process is working by checking progress, listening to feedback, and adjusting along the way. We design unique performance measurement frameworks and customize tools and technologies to ensure we accomplish our intended impact. 

We specialize in supporting complex, high-stakes projects. That’s why Castlemain brings disciplined project management to every project and every engagement. We track timelines, risks, and progress with real-time tools and clear communication. Our work is accountable to our clients, to courts, and to communities.