Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Recommendation 59: Provide all residential school survivors with a guaranteed livable income for the rest of their lives.

Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Employment security

Recommendation 77: Rectify Indigenous women’s exclusion from the economy by:

1. Developing equitable and inclusive hiring policy and standards.
2. Creating a diversity of low-barrier jobs in the DTES with priority hiring and support for Indigenous women of the community.
3. Creating peer-based employment programs including navigation positions throughout the housing, mental health, substance use, and income support systems.
4. Ensuring Indigenous women peer workers are paid a living wage, have full benefits, and have the right to unionization.
5. Creating jobs that value and compensate skills such as weaving, beading, drum making, food harvesting, and traditional healing, and support the creation of an Indigenous women’s cooperative in the DTES.
6. Improving employment supports and workplace accommodations for Indigenous women who are single parents and/or in recovery to ensure that they are not setup to fail in their employment due to systemic barriers.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Recommendation 111: Implementation of and full funding for federal Indigenous Child Welfare legislation that is attentive to specific First Nations, Metis, and Inuit needs. Ensure that Indigenous nations resume sole jurisdiction—and not simply service delivery—over child welfare for child-members of the nation who are on reserve and off reserve. This is in accordance with the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Recommendation 112: In full partnership with First Nations, INAC must immediately:

1. Fully redress the inequities and structural problems of funding for First Nations children.
2. Support funding and policy options proposed by First Nations for child and family services.
3. Ensure that a formal compliance and reporting program be established specifically for the First Nations Child and Family Services Program.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Recommendation 113: We applaud the work of Dr. Cindy Blackstock and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and call on the federal government to comply with the legally-binding orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to:

1. Immediately and fully apply Jordan’s principle to all First Nations children living on and off reserve.
2. Apply Jordan’s principle based on the need of the child and not limited to the normative standard of care.
3. Ensure that administrative delays do not delay service provision and respond to most cases within 48 hours.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Recommendation 114: Implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Actions on Child Welfare, recommendations in Indigenous Resilience, Connectedness and Reunification – From Root Causes to Root Solutions by Special Advisor Grand Chief Ed John, and recommendations in Calling Forth Our Future: Options for the Exercise of Indigenous Peoples’ Authority in Child Welfare by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Support Indigenous families

Recommendation 119: Making funds available for non-Indigenous foster care services but not for supporting Indigenous families perpetuates the detrimental cycle of apprehension. Increase available supports and preventative services for mothers and families.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Support Indigenous families

Recommendation 128: Implement existing recommendations by the Fostering Change Initiative and First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. In particular:

1. Remove eligibility restrictions and increase financial and other supports for youth and young people on Youth Agreements and Agreements with Young Adults. Agreements with Young Adults should be increased to at least $1400 per month with no clawbacks.
2. Remove the maximum number of months during which young people are eligible to remain on Agreements with Young Adults.
3. Extend the age till 25 years old for how long MCFD should support young people as they transition into adulthood and continue to receive housing, food, transit, cultural, and other financial supports.
4. Remove the age limit to be eligible for free postsecondary tuition and eliminate the requirement of months in care to be eligible for free postsecondary tuition.

Recommendations to keep Indigenous families together in the DTES

Accountability

Recommendation 129: Train and hire more Indigenous social workers and ensure that all social workers are culturally-competent, committed to decolonizing practices, have better communication skills, and are educated about and sensitive to the intergenerational trauma of family separation.

Recommendations to end criminalization of Indigenous women in the DTES

Recommendation 133: All levels of government must recognize the inherent and constitutionally protected right of Indigenous people to establish and control Indigenous justice systems. All levels of government must also fund the establishment of Indigenous law institutes to support the restoration and advancement of Indigenous legal systems.