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Indigenous children and youth in care


Legacy

Child welfare

Recommendation 1: We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the number of Aboriginal children in care by:

  1. Monitoring and assessing neglect investigations.
  2. Providing adequate resources to enable Aboriginal communities and child-welfare organizations to keep Aboriginal families together where it is safe to do so, and to keep children in culturally appropriate environments, regardless of where they reside.
  3. Ensuring that social workers and others who conduct child-welfare investigations are properly educated and trained about the history and impacts of residential schools.
  4. Ensuring that social workers and others who conduct child-welfare investigations are properly educated and trained about the potential for Aboriginal communities and families to provide more appropriate solutions to family healing. v. Requiring that all child-welfare decision makers consider the impact of the residential school experience on children and their caregivers.



Legacy

Child welfare

Recommendation 2: We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with the provinces and territories, to prepare and publish annual reports on the number of Aboriginal children (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) who are in care, compared with non-Aboriginal children, as well as the reasons for apprehension, the total spending on preventive and care services by child-welfare agencies, and the effectiveness of various interventions.


Legacy

Child welfare

Recommendation 4: We call upon the federal government to enact Aboriginal child-welfare legislation that establishes national standards for Aboriginal child apprehension and custody cases and includes principles that:

  1. Affirm the right of Aboriginal governments to establish and maintain their own child-welfare agencies.
  2. Require all child-welfare agencies and courts to take the residential school legacy into account in their decision making.
  3. Establish, as an important priority, a requirement that placements of Aboriginal children into temporary and permanent care be culturally appropriate.



Legacy

Child welfare

Recommendation 5: We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate parenting programs for Aboriginal families.


Legacy

Education

Recommendation 10: We call on the federal government to draft new Aboriginal education legislation with the full participation and informed consent of Aboriginal peoples. The new legislation would include a commitment to sufficient funding and would incorporate the following principles:

  1. Providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation.
  2. Improving education attainment levels and success rates.
  3. Developing culturally appropriate curricula.
  4. Protecting the right to Aboriginal languages, including the teaching of Aboriginal languages as credit courses.
  5. Enabling parental and community responsibility, control, and accountability, similar to what parents enjoy in public school systems.
  6. Enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children.
  7. Respecting and honouring Treaty relationships.



Legacy

Justice

Recommendation 38: We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to commit to eliminating the overrepresentation of Aboriginal youth in custody over the next decade.


Reconciliation

National Council for Reconciliation

Recommendation 55: We call upon all levels of government to provide annual reports or any current data requested by the National Council for Reconciliation so that it can report on the progress towards reconciliation. The reports or data would include, but not be limited to:

  1. The number of Aboriginal children—including Métis and Inuit children—in care, compared with non-Aboriginal children, the reasons for apprehension, and the total spending on preventive and care services by child-welfare agencies.
  2. Comparative funding for the education of First Nations children on and off reserves.
  3. The educational and income attainments of Aboriginal peoples in Canada compared with non-Aboriginal people.
  4. Progress on closing the gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in a number of health indicators such as: infant mortality, maternal health, suicide, mental health, addictions, life expectancy, birth rates, infant and child health issues, chronic diseases, illness and injury incidence, and the availability of appropriate health services.
  5. Progress on eliminating the overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in youth custody over the next decade.
  6. Progress on reducing the rate of criminal victimization of Aboriginal people, including data related to homicide and family violence victimization and other crimes.
  7. Progress on reducing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the justice and correctional systems.



Reconciliation

Church apologies and reconciliation

Recommendation 61: We call upon church parties to the Settlement Agreement, in collaboration with Survivors and representatives of Aboriginal organizations, to establish permanent funding to Aboriginal people for:

  1. Community-controlled healing and reconciliation projects.
  2. Community-controlled culture- and language revitalization projects.
  3. Community-controlled education and relationship-building projects. iv. Regional dialogues for Indigenous spiritual leaders and youth to discuss Indigenous spirituality, self-determination, and reconciliation.



Reconciliation

Missing children and burial information

Recommendation 71: We call upon all chief coroners and provincial vital statistics agencies that have not provided to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada their records on the deaths of Aboriginal children in the care of residential school authorities to make these documents available to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.


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