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‘Shocking’ numbers of aboriginal children in care an ’embarrassment,’ children’s advocate says
By Tracy Sherlock Published on: March 30, 2017 | Last Updated: March 30, 2017 7:23 PM PDT In the Vancouver Sun
The high numbers of aboriginal children being taken into foster care in B.C. is “shocking” and “an embarrassment to the community,” the province’s children’s representative says.
Bernard Richard, B.C.’s representative for children and youth, released a report Thursday, which says that both federal and provincial funding for delegated aboriginal agencies is “flawed and discriminatory” and “confusing and inconsistent.” The end result is that aboriginal children are 17 times more likely than other children to be taken into government care.
Richard linked these findings with the death of Alex Gervais, a young man who died after he jumped from a fourth-storey window of a Super 8 hotel in Abbotsford in September 2015. He was under the care of an aboriginal agency and just months from aging out of foster care. A February report by Richard found that Gervais was left alone for several days before his death and was neglected by his contracted caregiver.
“There are dozens and dozens and dozens of other stories like Alex’s,” Richard said in his latest report.
B.C. has 23 delegated aboriginal agencies — organizations that are responsible for about 1,900 of the 4,400 aboriginal children in government care in the province. Richard said funding for these agencies is inadequate and inequitable compared to what is provided for non-aboriginal children in care and that even if the funding was equal, it wouldn’t be enough because aboriginal children in care have “more complex (needs) because of the intergenerational effects of colonial policies such as residential schools.”
B.C.’s Minister of Children and Family Development Stephanie Cadieux said she agrees that Delegated Aboriginal Agencies need more support and federal funding, and that the focus should shift to prevention and family preservation from child protection alone.
“Over the next three years, my ministry will budget a total of $150 million over three years to help address Grand Chief (Ed) John’s recommendations,” Cadieux said. “As part of this plan, the ministry will invest $14.4 million in 2017-18 to ensure that delegated aboriginal agencies are funded at equitable levels to the ministry.”
John made 85 recommendations about indigenous child welfare in a November 2016 report to the children’s ministry. Many of the recommendations were supportive of keeping families together and preventing children from being taken into care.
Cadieux said her ministry is working to implement those recommendations, specifically in making sure that aboriginal agencies are funded at an equal level to the ministry, that services are culturally appropriate, that additional staff are hired and that family group counselling is available to prevent children from being taken into care.
Melanie Mark, the NDP’s children and families critic, said the report shows the provincial government discriminates against indigenous children.
“Indigenous children continue to be taken from their homes, their families, and their communities, because of intergenerational trauma and poverty, instead of being offered supports that keep families together,” Mark said in a statement.
The aboriginal agencies have a tough time retaining staff, because, due to inadequate funding, they cannot offer the same training and benefits that government workers receive, the report says. The result is a high staff turnover, many staff on sick or stress leave and not enough staff to replace them.
Like John ‘s report, Richard’s latest report makes the case that keeping children out of care by bolstering supports to their families is better than taking them into care.
“Prevention through strengthening community and family supports is a vital and urgent part of indigenous child welfare services, given the well-documented intergenerational effects of residential schools on healthy family functioning,” the report says.
Aboriginal child welfare is both a federal and provincial responsibility. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found that federal funding of aboriginal child welfare was in violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act, Richard said. Since then, the federal funding model has not changed and it can encourage more Aboriginal children being taken into care, Richard said.
“Instead of promoting prevention or least disruptive measures, federal funding rules actually make it more likely that indigenous children will be removed from their families, which undoubtedly contributes to the gross over-representation of indigenous children in care,” the report says.
Cadieux said Richard’s report didn’t consider the recent funding boosts or commitments her ministry has made.
Richard said he will measure progress, not promises.
Editor’s note:
Jesus said: Whatsoever (whatever) you do to the least of these, my children, you do to me.
