Imagining Something Different
After 25 years, Imagine Institute for Learning continues to shape how relationship-based professionals learn, lead and connect by staying grounded in humanity.
In 2001, Line Perron accepted what she assumed would be a short-term contract coordinating professional development, for home visitation programs and aligning training outcomes across organizations.
At the time, she was looking for something different.
“I was a stay-at-home mom who went back to university when my kids were little,” she says. “Teaching always felt authentic for me. It’s what I’m meant to do.”
After several years teaching at the university level, she found herself drawn toward work rooted more directly in community—bridging the gap between academic knowledge and real-world practice.
The contract was meant to last one year. Instead, it kept renewing. Eleven programs became 34, then 42. At one point, nearly a hundred programs relied on the training and evaluation support her team provided. What began as a short-term project evolved into something much more enduring.
“I never imagined this evolving into what it is today,” she says, reflecting on those early days.
How the Know, Do, Be Framework Supports Transformative Learning
Over the next two decades, the work evolved alongside the communities it served. Originally rooted in early childhood development support, the organization worked closely with professionals supporting children and families navigating complexity, trauma and marginalization. The training expanded, but the philosophy remained consistent: learning had to do more than just deliver information.
Imagine’s Know, Do, Be framework, created by Launa Clark, reflects a progression from understanding concepts to applying skills and integrating learning into daily interactions. Participants often report that the work changes not only how they perform professionally, but how they show up in their personal lives as partners, parents and colleagues.
“It’s not a button you turn on and off,” Line explains. “You become different in how you move through the world.”
That emphasis on the whole human has shaped everything from Imagine’s hiring practices to internal culture. Staff are chosen not only for credentials but for lived experience and emotional readiness—people who, as Line puts it, have learned to “train from scars, not wounds.” Continuous learning is expected, and reflection is embedded into practice, supported by an external reflective practitioner who helps the team refine its approach.
“The ability to reflect on what we learn from participants and integrate it into our learning is what keeps us relevant and authentic”.
Delivering Trauma-Informed Training from Coast to Coast to Coast
The work gradually expanded beyond Alberta. Invitations to collaborate increased as trauma-informed practice gained recognition across sectors.
“When trauma-informed care started becoming part of the conversation, there really wasn’t anyone providing it in community spaces,” she says.
Delivering Trauma-Informed Training from Coast to Coast to Coast
The work gradually expanded beyond Alberta. Invitations to collaborate increased as trauma-informed practice gained recognition across sectors. training in the field.
“When trauma-informed care started becoming part of the conversation, there really wasn’t anyone providing it in community spaces,” she says.
In 2019, the organization rebranded as Imagine Institute for Learning. The name was chosen deliberately. “Institute” signaled depth and professional learning. “Imagine” honoured Line’s French-Canadian heritage and a philosophy rooted in possibility: imagining systems, workplaces and relationships differently.
In 2019, the organization rebranded as Imagine Institute for Learning. The name was chosen deliberately. “Institute” signaled depth and professional learning. “Imagine” honoured Line’s French-Canadian heritage and a philosophy rooted in possibility: imagining systems, workplaces and relationships differently.
The timing proved pivotal. Soon after, longstanding government operational funding ended, forcing the organization to rethink how it sustained itself. What might have been destabilizing instead became a catalyst.
“We had to reinvent,” Line says. “And it pushed us forward.”
Learning Together Across Communities
Over time, Imagine’s influence has extended far beyond formal training rooms. The organization has worked from coast to coast to coast, often traveling to rural and northern communities where professional development opportunities are limited.
Those experiences reshaped the organization’s understanding of access and equity, and reinforced a core belief: learning is reciprocal.
“The learning goes both ways,” she says. “We are lucky—We learn as much as we leave behind.”
Even after decades of facilitation, participants continue to surprise her: professionals discovering new confidence, participants finding a new direction in their work, a room collectively realizing they share more common ground than they expected.
“When we make space for people to show up authentically,” Line says, “they show up beautifully.”
A Philosophy Influenced by Lasting Relationships
What has sustained Imagine Institute for Learning for 25 years, she believes, is not scale or visibility but relationships with partners, funders, communities and staff.
“We exist because they exist,” she says. “It’s always been a partnership.”
Community organizations helped sustain Imagine during funding gaps. Indigenous partnerships shaped its human-centred approach from the earliest days. Collaborative tables allowed ideas to move across sectors, influencing projects and initiatives far beyond individual trainings.
Internally, the same relational philosophy holds. Staff members step into multiple roles, supporting one another in a tightly woven culture where hierarchy matters less than shared purpose.
“It’s the people,” Line says. “Our team has always been our greatest asset.”
Carrying the Work Forward
Now, as Imagine approaches its next chapter, Line finds herself contemplating transition. After decades on the training frontlines, she is beginning to step back—a shift prompted partly by necessity and partly by intention.
“For Imagine to keep growing,” she says, “my role now is to prepare and support the next generation of leaders so they can carry the work forward with integrity.”
Her hope is for stability, continued evolution and new leadership that will preserve the organization’s core values. The goal has never been growth for its own sake, but depth: doing the work well and doing it with integrity.
Looking back, she says the greatest surprise is how much the work continues to teach her.
“I still learn every day,” she says. “And I like the human I’ve become because of this journey.”
