Wes’s core practice is recognizing the heart and beauty in everyone. Joining in the early days of the Roots to Thrive community was therefore a no-brainer. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, he worked as a therapist in addiction and trauma recovery in the US and Australia. He focused on providing advanced Nonviolent Communication (NVC) seminars for consultants, mediators, and trainers in N. America and Europe for the next decade. Since 2007, Wes has been bringing together best practices from Psychotherapy, NVC, Integral Theory, Restorative Justice, Coaching, Change Management, and more to his work of Organizational Development in healthcare, most recently with Island Health, First Nations Health Authority, and with private organizational and individual clients. In Wes’s role with RTT, he maintains a focus on Curriculum Development and Quality Improvement.
The in-person gatherings of the Roots to Thrive program take place of the ancestral and unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation at the Snuneymuxw Community Wellness Center, and also on the homelands of the Coast Salish, Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw and Nuučaan̓ułʔatḥ (Nuu-chah-nulth) Peoples.
Integral to Roots to Thrive’s approach to healing, re-connection and remembering who we are, are these Guiding Principles. By embodying these principles we intend to honour and give thanks to the Snuneymuxw and all First Nations, the teachings they carry and lands they steward, and to join in working for Truth and Reconciliation.