About Me:

Christine has been an educator for over 30 years and school administrator for 12 years on the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council, also known as Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. She now teaches at Yukon University in their Faculty of Education, where she coaches new teachers on how to create classrooms and schools where people feel safe, loved and celebrated. She has a Master’s in Education from the University of Ottawa and is a certified instructor with Mindful Schools. She is also a Restorative Justice teacher and facilitator having been trained through various Indigenous and Settler mentors and elders.

Her most fulfilling work began 16 years ago when she brought her first Challenge Day to her school. It was the beginning of a new life for her community which has a high Indigenous population and suffers inter-generational effects of colonization and residential schools. Challenge Day and the Be the Change Movement flipped her negative school culture making it a magnet school. The program then spread into other schools and further into the community through the Yukon Circle of Change for whom she know runs the Restorative Justice Project. This fall will see the 14h year of workshops in Whitehorse and other smaller communities north of 60 degrees.

If you really knew me, you would know…

• I was teased a lot when I was young, but my biggest regret was not standing up for others. I needed the tools I learned through Challenge Day and the Community Workshops, and am proud to say that my own kids and hundreds of others here in the Yukon now have them.
• I love where I live with my family, under the northern lights and the midnight sun!
• My favourite way to travel is on my bike.
• I am passionate about the idea of reconciliation through restorative practices which I believe is the key to world peace.
• What keeps me involved with the organization is their grounding in restorative practices and their commitment to trauma-informed practices