“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.
13 search results
for
Indigenous rights and self-governance
Title:AN ANALYSIS OF THE CHILD WELFARE LEGISLATION IN BC
Subtitle:THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD PRINCIPLE AND THE LEGISLATIVE EMPHASIS ON THE CHILD’S SAFETY
Recommendation 3: the Alberta Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act (CYFEA), provides that the best interests of the child assessment requires decision makers to provide children who have been exposed to family violence any intervention service that “supports family members and prevents the need to remove the child from the custody of an abused family member.” This is a key framing of some of the programming needed to address family violence in the case of the child welfare system and is the approach that many Indigenous community-based family service organizations electively employ to keep families together. We recommend that similar language is included in the defnition of the best interests of the child principle that directs decision-makers to turn their mind to prevention-based supports in assessing the right of the child to be protected from harm.-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendations for legislative reform
Recommendation 4: MCFD should undertake a comprehensive legislative review of the CFCSA in order to bring the provincial child welfare standards in line with the federal minimum standards. It is essential that Indigenous communities and Nations are adequately consulted in the review process.-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY AROUND A SOCIAL WORKER’S OBLIGATION TO IDENTIFY LESS DISRUPTIVE MEASURES
Recommendation 5: Recommends that Canadian legislation mimic the language of the US Indian Child Welfare Act, which requires evidence that social workers have made “active efforts” that “proved unsuccessful.-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendations for legislative reform
Recommendation 5: MCFD should amend the guiding principles of the CFCSA to ensure that children’s rights are not viewed as hierarchical but interdependent. The guiding principles should reflect the holistic nature of children’s rights including the right of the child to maintain relationships with their family and community, the child’s right to support services, and the importance of maintaining the child’s relationship to their culture.-
Category and theme:
- Classism ,
- Culture and language ,
- Decolonization and Indigenous rights ,
- Discrimination and hate ,
- Health, wellness and services ,
- Human rights system ,
- Indigenous children and youth in care ,
- Indigenous rights and self-governance ,
- International human rights ,
- Poverty and economic inequality ,
- Public services ,
- Racism
Audience:
Groups affected:
A LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY AROUND A SOCIAL WORKER’S OBLIGATION TO IDENTIFY LESS DISRUPTIVE MEASURES
Recommendation 6: There should also be a requirement that the Ministry respond to alternative proposals by parents, Nations, and community-based organizations that support the parent. The Yellowhead Institute recommends that the legislation include “affidavit evidence from the Indigenous group that there is no available placement.-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendations for legislative reform
Recommendation 6: MCFD should amend the best interests of the child principle set out in the CFCSA to ensure that decision-makers turn their mind to the entirety of children’s right. The best interests of the child principle should at minimum direct decision-makers to:- consider the trauma caused by apprehension;
- weigh the risks to the child’s well-being if the child remains or is returned with the family against the risks to the child’s well-being that is caused by the removal and placement of the child in care;
- assessment of the risks to the child if the child remains or is returned to the family must be done with due consideration of all the supports and services that can be provided to the family; and,
- consider the impact of family violence on the child and provide all the necessary services to the family in a manner that supports family members and prevents the need to remove the child from the custody of an abused family member.
-
Category and theme:
- Decolonization and Indigenous rights ,
- Health, wellness and services ,
- Human rights system ,
- Indigenous children and youth in care ,
- Indigenous issues in policing and justice ,
- Indigenous rights and self-governance ,
- International human rights ,
- Policing and the criminal justice system ,
- Poverty and economic inequality ,
- Public services
Audience:
Groups affected:
Recommendations for legislative reform
Recommendation 9: MCFD should review the legislation to assess how the legislation could support a more accountable and robust legal framework for prevention-based supports including by:- Adding a comprehensive list of functions for MCFD at the beginning of the legislation which includes:
- working with community and social services to alleviate and remedy the socio-economic conditions that place families at risk;
- developing and providing services and supports before and after intervention;
- proactively identifying groups of children the recognition and realization of whose rights may require MCFD to undertake special measures and develop special programming
- Replace the reference of prevention services in section 2(c) of the CFCSA, with a legislative provision that places a binding and measurable obligation on the Ministry to provide supports to keep families together who are at risk of having their children apprehended. The provision should place a positive obligation on the Ministry to take active efforts to provide remedial services and rehabilitative programs designed to prevent the breakup of the child’s family. The courts must then be satisfied that these active efforts proved unsuccessful in keeping the family together.
- Expand the list of supports under section 5 to include:
- improving the family’s financial situation;
- improving the family’s housing situation;
- improving parenting skills;
- improving child-care and child-rearing capabilities;
- improving homemaking skills;
- drug or alcohol treatment and rehabilitation;
- providing child care;
- mediation of disputes;
- self-help and empowerment of parents whose children have been, are or may be in need of protective services; and,
- transition supports for families who have just had a child apprehended or returned.
-
Category and theme:
- Ableism ,
- Accessibility ,
- Accessible services and technology ,
- Classism ,
- Courts ,
- Decolonization and Indigenous rights ,
- Disability and parenting ,
- Discrimination and hate ,
- Economic inequality ,
- Education and employment ,
- Health ,
- Health, wellness and services ,
- Housing and homelessness ,
- Human rights system ,
- Income insecurity and benefits ,
- Indigenous children and youth in care ,
- Indigenous issues in policing and justice ,
- Indigenous rights and self-governance ,
- International human rights ,
- Mental health and detention ,
- Policing and the criminal justice system ,
- Poverty ,
- Poverty and economic inequality ,
- Public services ,
- Racism ,
- Substance use
Audience:
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.-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
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.-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected:
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-
Category and theme:
Audience:
Groups affected: