Child Welfare (1-5)

Calls to Action
  1. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the number of Aboriginal children in care by:
    • Monitoring and assessing neglect investigations.
    • 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.
    • Ensuring that social workers and others who conduct child-welfare investigations are properly educated and trained about the history and impacts of residential schools.
    • 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.
    • Requiring that all child-welfare decision makers consider the impact of the residential school experience on children and their caregivers.
  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.
  3. We call upon all levels of government to fully implement Jordan’s Principle.
  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:
    • Affirm the right of Aboriginal governments to establish and maintain their own child-welfare agencies.
    • Require all child-welfare agencies and courts to take the residential school legacy into account in their decision making.
    • Establish, as an important priority, a requirement that placements of Aboriginal children into temporary and permanent care be culturally appropriate.
  5. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate parenting programs for Aboriginal families.
Index

The History, Part 1 – Origins to 1939

Child welfare institutions, 147-148, 280-282.
Separation of families: criticisms, 178-179, 231-232; Davin Report, 157; goals, 4, 5, 21, 36, 38, 200; government policy, 199, 206, 261; as a parable (a young tree), 178-179; parental affection, 46, 85-86; parental resistance, 68, 159, 163-164, 193, 205, 267-268, 277; parents missing children, 193; residential school experience, 599-613; sibling separation, 163-164, 186-187; as social service, 144, 145.

The History, Part 2 – 1939 to 2000

Child-care workers: Aboriginal employment as, 97; authority over (government/church), 82, 84; caring for children not mandated, 169; control of students, 88; exempt from civil service, 97; staff-student ratio, 166; standards and funding, 100, 166-167, 172; workload, 503-504. See also staff, including teachers.
Child welfare and Children’s Aid: general, 147-173, 535-536; admission policy, 172; connections with parents, 155-157; detention facilities, 153-155; emotional care, 216-220; Indian agents as social workers, 151-153; move to Aboriginal administration, 93; parental consent, 223; residences ill-equipped for, 101-102, 183, 365-366, 448; residences preferred, 173; schools as jail alternative, 387-388; schools contravening standards of, 204-205; sexual abuse by students, 459; Sixties Scoop and closing of schools, 98, 105, 147-148, 159-161, 172-173; staffing inadequacies, 94; students after discharge, 356-357; support recommendations, 351; year-round facilities, 157-158.
Foster home program: Aboriginal criticism of, 94; child-welfare students, 158, 168; closing of residential schools, 99.
Sixties Scoop and closing of schools, 98, 105, 147-148, 159-161, 172-173.
Staff, including teachers: general, 494, 550; Aboriginal employment, 39, 86, 87, 97, 104, 165-166, 183, 525-531, 535; assessment as “troublemaker,” 512, 519, 521, 530; assessments, 119-120; attitudes to students, 534-539; Blue Quills protest, 90; children of staff members, 531-532; comments about children, 142; conflicts, 505, 519-525; cooks, 269, 295, 297, 298, 438, 510, 527; denominational requirements, 118; discipline practices/attitudes, 544-547; dormitory supervisors, 414-417; dress code, 521; failure to screen hires, 414, 434, 451; fees for food and accommodation, 509-510; fire and fire hazards, 331; food and compared to students’, 241, 242, 245, 246, 295-296, 298, 509-510, 528; as government employees, 82; handbooks, 125-126, 166, 186, 495, 520, 521; for high school, 72-73, 76; illness, including tuberculosis, 202, 205, 209, 504-505; Indian Affairs control, 52, 493; injuries and disabilities, 504-507, 522; labour board and working conditions, 80-81; language facilities, 542; living conditions, 183, 508-510, 526; married couples employed, 521, 531; motivation of, 498-499, 550; non-teaching staff duties, 161-167, 494-496; parental concern for quality of, 86; quality and qualifications, 113-120, 141-144, 162, 165-167, 172, 259, 265, 268-269, 350-351, 499-502; in Québec, 43; recruitment of, 496-498, 508; religious beliefs, 533-534; salaries/turnover, 52, 80, 101, 113-115, 117, 118-119, 162, 165-166, 269, 270, 274, 290, 496-497, 503, 506-507, 510-513, 515-516, 526; senior teacher position, 116; sexual abuse awareness, 547-550; sexual abuser/suspected abuser codes, 416-417; sexually abused students turned abusers, 416, 433-434, 445, 549; staff-to-student ratio, 102, 493; teacher-training, 97, 115; turnover rates, 115, 351, 510, 511, 512; workload, 502-508.

 

The Inuit and Northern Experience

Child welfare and Children’s Aid, 68, 151, 166.

The Métis Experience

n/a

Missing Children and Unmarked Burials

Child welfare, 10, 102, 106.

The Legacy

Child welfare, 4, 11-61, 223, 253-256.

Reconciliation

n/a