“Pathways in a Forest: Indigenous guidance on prevention-based child welfare” is a law reform report developed collaboratively by West Coast LEAF and the families, Elders and staff at Tillicum Lelum Aboriginal Friendship Centre, Lii Michif Otipemisiwak and the Fraser Region Aboriginal Friendship Centre Association. The report highlights efforts by Indigenous families, communities and Nations to revitalize Indigenous approaches to child welfare, develop comprehensive community-based supports and fight for self-determination.
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Indigenous Peoples
Discrepancies in the delivery of child welfare services
INCONSISTENCIES IN SOCIAL WORKER PRACTICE STANDARDS
Recommendation 11: MCFD should develop a mechanism for holding regional offices accountable to implement the necessary changes identified through quality assessments-
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Recommendations for improving financial supports
Recommendation 12: The provincial government must immediately raise welfare and disability rates to the Market Basket Measure (MBM), index them to the cost of living, and remove arbitrary barriers.-
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- Ableism ,
- Accessibility ,
- Accessible services and technology ,
- Classism ,
- Decolonization and Indigenous rights ,
- Disability and parenting ,
- Discrimination and hate ,
- Economic inequality ,
- Health, wellness and services ,
- Income insecurity and benefits ,
- Indigenous children and youth in care ,
- Poverty ,
- Poverty and economic inequality
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Discrepancies in the delivery of child welfare services
Subtitle:SYSTEMIC RACISM
Recommendation 12: Project participants also expressed the need for training to cover the following topics: genderbased violence; Indigenous rights, identities, and cultures; the role of ongoing colonialism on intergenerational trauma; the potential for communities and families to provide more appropriate solutions to family healing; and the importance of culture and connection to the child’s well-being.-
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Recommendations for improving financial supports
Recommendation 13: In the meantime, the BC government and MCFD should bridge the gap between the current welfare and disability rates and the MBM for all families that are at risk of having children apprehended by MCFD.-
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- Ableism ,
- Accessibility ,
- Accessible services and technology ,
- Classism ,
- Decolonization and Indigenous rights ,
- Disability and parenting ,
- Discrimination and hate ,
- Economic inequality ,
- Health, wellness and services ,
- Income insecurity and benefits ,
- Indigenous children and youth in care ,
- Poverty ,
- Poverty and economic inequality
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Discrepancies in the delivery of child welfare services
Subtitle:A TOP-DOWN APPROACH
Recommendation 13: MCFD must review its policies and practices to increase the use of ADR processes, including changing the definition of family in ADR processes to recognize and honour Indigenous conceptions of family.-
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Recommendations for improving financial supports
Recommendation 14: The BC government should amend legislation to ensure that there is no reduction of benefits for families when a child is temporarily taken into care so that income supports and housing can be maintained while parents are working to bring their children home.-
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Recommendations for improving financial supports
Recommendation 15: MCFD should develop a policy for supporting each family with whom it comes into contact to secure all the available provincial and federal benets. This may require training social workers to understand social assistance frameworks or creating a position within MCFD for a social assistance support worker that can help families secure all the benefits to which they are entitled.-
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- Accessibility ,
- Accessible services and technology ,
- Classism ,
- Decolonization and Indigenous rights ,
- Disability and parenting ,
- Discrimination and hate ,
- Health, wellness and services ,
- Income insecurity and benefits ,
- Indigenous children and youth in care ,
- Poverty ,
- Poverty and economic inequality ,
- Public services
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Recommendations for improving financial supports
Recommendation 16: MCFD should develop a plain-language fact sheet for kinship caregivers that sets out the pathways available to them under the CFCSA and FLA. Social workers must be required to provide this information sheet to all caregivers that could qualify for the EFP.-
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A pathway forward
THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE NEED FOR MORE SIGNIFICANT GOVERNMENT ACTION
Recommendation 17: Furthermore, the report calls on the federal government to ensure that there is full federal funding for Nations that assume jurisdiction over child welfare-
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Recommendations for improving financial supports
Recommendation 17: MCFD must advocate with the provincial government for the creation of a universal kinship caregiver benefit that is provided to all families in kinship care. This should apply to all children living in kinship care including families in which kinship caregivers have been granted guardianship orders under the FLA.-
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