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Indigenous Child Welfare Practice: The Canadian Case
Indigenous Child Welfare Practice: The Canadian Case Naadli T Ormiston, Indigenous Studies Program, Camosun College, Victoria, BC, Canada; and School of Social Work, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Kundoqk J Green, School of Social Work, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract This article will explore child welfare practice from an Indigenous perspective. In the article, we begin by centering Indigenous ways of caring for our children. We also provide an overview of how state-controlled jurisdiction over Indigenous children had intergenerational and devastating effects of legislation and policies on Indigenous families. Finally, we review how Indigenous peoples are reclaiming jurisdiction to deliver their own distinct methods of child and family services, in an effort to reclaim, regenerate, and strengthen Indigenous child well-being in British Columbia, Canada.
Introduction This article explores child welfare practice from an Indigenous perspective. Both authors have personal and professional experience within Indigenous child welfare. Both authors have been instrumental in contributing, developing, and implementing Indigenous child welfare courses and programs at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. This article is organized in three sections. Section one provides an introduction to Indigenous ways of caring for our children. Section two provides an overview of state control and jurisdiction over Indigenous children and the devastating effects of legislation and policies on Indigenous families, communities, and nations. Finally, section three examines ways in which Indigenous peoples are reclaiming jurisdiction over ways in which our people deliver their child and family services, in an effort to building healthy individuals, healthy communities.
Traditional First Nations Child Raising (Throughout this article, we will use terminology of First Nations, Aboriginal, and Indigenous interchangeably depending on what we are speaking to. Many communities in Canada refer to themselves as First Nations people. Many other communities and people refer to themselves as Indigenous people and finally, Aboriginal, is terminology defined by the state.) Before settler contact, Indigenous nations (‘Nations’ is closely linked to the modern European concept of a ‘state.’ For Indigenous people, decision-making structure and methods are resolved within Indigenous sovereign states/nation.) were responsible for their own child welfare, and every culture dealt with their child-raising practices differently. There was recognition that children belonged to the community, and that children were the most precious people of the community. For many Indigenous nations, the old people and/or elders sustained and lived traditional and ceremonial practices that strengthened and enhanced the well-being of children and families. For example, rites of passage rituals involved practices that honored all stages of life and in this practice; family members such as aunts, grandmothers, and traditional teachers
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were involved in raising children. Rites of passage have been important for children, because these not only acknowledge varying life stages, but also the child learns who his or her caregivers are and knows that these caregivers will be nurturing and will provide support throughout their life. Another cultural practice important for the nurturing of Indigenous children and families include learning about Indigenous ceremony. In this, learning important ceremonies and rituals were done through storytelling. In this practice, children learned not only about different forms of ceremonial practices, but children also learned about their histories, landscapes, relations to animals, about other Indigenous communities, and about natural resources that sustained their way of life. This way of life and cultural practices were and are Indigenous knowledge, philosophies, and praxes once utilized to enhance the well-being of children and families. Ceremonies were and are methods that encapsulate Indigenous living. Hence, ceremony is a way that our people view Indigenous law and policy. As Indigenous peoples, our belief is that our inherent rights, responsibilities, and laws flow from natural laws of what we refer to as inherent and from the Creator. Inherent knowledge or rights for our people instill our sense of belonging, connectedness to the earth and the responsibilities that we have to care for the earth. Importantly, in knowing ceremony and rights of passage, we understand the importance of connecting natural laws to our social responsibilities to take care of our children, families, and communities. In presettler times, ceremony and inherent knowledge was a method practiced by Indigenous peoples to care ‘holistically’ for children, families, and communities. Prior to settler contact, cultural practices, ceremonies, and rituals strengthened families and the caregiving of children, now known as child welfare.
Commonalities for Indigenous Approaches to Caring for Children Prior to settler contact in Canada, and perhaps for other Indigenous peoples throughout the world, children were and are viewed as precious and the heart of communities. In this, there were common practices about caring for children that
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Indigenous Child Welfare Practice: The Canadian Case
were nonintrusive to the family and community. For example, if a family were experiencing difficulties in raising their child, another family member would intervene and raise the child. In doing so, the ‘other’ family members who would intervene, would care for the children and this was done to provide space and time for parents to address their issues. For many Aboriginal nations, the first born was always raised by their grandmother and not by the ‘nuclear’ parent. In other situations, ceremony was utilized as a practice method to provide support to the family in need. Ceremony is a method that connects the family to all aspects of their being, such as their spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental state. The belief here is that when we collectively look after all aspects of our being, families recognize where there is ‘unbalance’ and also can see ‘issues’ they may need to work on. Traditionally, Aboriginal peoples in Canada have a broad definition of family membership and our children were cared for and raised by the extended family. Storytelling has also been an important practice historically. Children learned the values of respect, honor, love, sharing through stories. They learned how to act in the world around them. Thomas and Green (2009) remind us that stories provided children with the skills needed to survive. “Traditionally storytelling was the primary source of educating our children. Our children were considered gifts from the Creator and, as such, were protected by all in our communities through stories” (p. 101).
Interruptions for Indigenous Child Caring Disruptions in Indigenous family life in Canada began shortly after contact with European people. During early contact times, the relationships between European and Indigenous peoples of Canada were one of respect. However, over the years and due to development of lands for economic expansions, these relationships began to deteriorate. Relationships succumbed to the notion of ‘power over’ by the Canadian government toward Indigenous people. This power difference is described historically as the ‘protection’ phase of relations between settler Canadians and Aboriginal people. One of the earliest documented legislation intended to ‘protect’ Indigenous peoples is the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The Royal Proclamation (The Royal Proclamation was issued by King George III in 1763 to officially claim British territory in North America after Britain won the Seven Years’ War over the French.) is a document that sought to protect Aboriginal (Throughout this article, we will use terms interchangeably. Indigenous is a term used by international group of Indigenous peoples. Aboriginal is a term used by government and Indian is a term within the Indian Act. Native is also used to describe a group characteristic of indigeneity.) people by providing instructions for European settlement of Aboriginal territories in what is now North America. The Royal Proclamation explicitly states that Aboriginal title has existed and continues to exist, and that all land would be considered Aboriginal land until ceded by what is now known as ‘treaty.’ The Proclamation provided the first policy preventing individual settlers from claiming land from Aboriginal occupants. The Royal Proclamation
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further sets out that only the Crown (Canada) can purchase land from Aboriginal people. By way of this law, the concept of the Crown’s ‘fiduciary’ (One who holds anything in trust, or who holds a position of trust or confidence with respect to someone else.) responsibility with Indigenous people was set in motion, which continues to be in effect today. The Proclamation and its fiduciary responsibilities began to set the framework for the relationship between Indigenous people and Canada. This imposed relationship also affected how Indigenous people related to and learned about land teachings, and in turn affected cultural teachings and practices for Indigenous families. Many more laws and policies emerged in a manner that continued to confine and control an Indigenous way of being. One such act that subjugated and oppressed Aboriginal people was the Indian Act, federal legislation passed in Canada in 1876. The Indian Act collected all “previous legislation pertaining to Indians into a body of law comprising over a hundred sections” (Lawrence, 2004: p. 33). The Indian Act defines who is Indigenous and who is not, according to the federal government. This act also articulated a reserve system where Indigenous peoples would reside and specified policies on how Indigenous peoples would be governed. This act is still in place today. Lawrence (2004) talks of the lingering effects of the ‘Indian Act’ and its policies: The Indian Act is much more than a body of laws that for over a century has controlled every aspect of status Indian life, it provides a conceptual framework that has organized contemporary First Nations life in ways that have been almost entirely naturalized, and that governs ways of thinking about Native identity. p. 34
Ormiston (2010) also contends that this act of colonialism intends to force the “colonized group into dominant society; adopting policies that suppress . transform or destroy Native values . orientations and way of life . manipulation and management of the colonized . justified by an ideology of racism” (p. 2). Within the Indian Act, the goal of Canada was to eliminate traditional teachings, values, and significant cultural ceremonies through the banning of the Potlatch, Longhouse, and Sundance ceremonies as well as traditional governance systems. Cultural knowledge, philosophies, and practices were all outlawed as they provided a threatening opportunity for First Nations people to share their history and ways of doing, knowing, being into the future (Thomas, 2005: pp. 244–245). The federal government exercised jurisdiction and control over Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Affects of Colonial Practices Resulting from colonial governing systems, Indigenous peoples were deemed to be inferior and uncivilized. Nowhere is this more evident than through the creation of residential schools, which resumed the federal government’s role of ‘protecting the child.’ The government of Canada also sought to ‘civilize’ and assimilate Aboriginal people through residential schools.
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Beginning in the late 1800s, the government and the church’s attitude was that European culture was superior to Native cultures. Therefore, every First Nation’s child was deemed to be in need of protection and it became compulsory in 1880 for First Nations children to attend residential schools (Powderface, 1984). Children as young as 5 years of age were removed from their families and communities for 10 months of the year or longer. In residential school, children were prevented from speaking their languages and taught to reject their traditional lifestyle. As Harold Cardinal (1999) wrote: “These schools were nothing less than state sponsored programs of cultural genocide aimed at Indian First Nations. Residential schools were an integral component of a systematic, intergenerational, state planned program of brainwashing aimed at removing the ‘Indian’ from the minds and souls of Indian children” (p. 18). The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. Most Canadian citizens (settler nonIndigenous) are not aware that in some areas of Canada, almost half of the children who attended residential schools died while in those schools (Mission School Syndrome, 1985). Death of young children at residential school was due to tuberculosis, malnutrition, and other forms of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse. The residential school of ideology dictated that religion and domestic duties comprised the ‘education’ deemed important for Native children. In residential schools, the common experience was religious practices, followed by domestic duties. Girls would learn household domestic skills while the boys would learn trades and agricultural skills. Only a portion of each afternoon of a school day was preserved for ‘education.’ Civilizing and assimilating Native people were the goals of this ‘doomed to fail’ law and policy. Protection, civilizing, and assimilating policies in Canada remain a devastating and torturous factor for Indigenous people. Protective and assimilative laws and policies nearly destroyed the cultural knowledge and practices, stories, experiences, and knowledge of the land for First Nations. These laws were harmful, and Indigenous peoples resisted and confronted these injustices. Consequently, throughout the past half century, many Canadian laws have been amended to correct past injustices.
Provincial Involvement Through the Indian Act in 1876, the federal government of Canada exercised jurisdiction over child welfare for Indigenous peoples in Canada. The way they enforced this was through compulsory education for Indigenous children, as articulated above ‘residential schools.’ The provinces in Canada became involved in child welfare in 1951 when revisions to Section 88 of the federal Indian Act extended provincial laws of general application to Indians and lands belonging to Indians. At that time, provinces were not involved in the ‘well-being’ or welfare of Native children. The amendment extended provincial child welfare activities and practices to children on reserves. Without Section 88, provincial legislation would not apply to Indians because Canada’s constitution gives the federal government the exclusive power to legislate laws and policies regarding
Indians. The changes were somewhat controversial, the federal government feeling that any developing provincial laws would be deemed unconstitutional while Indigenous peoples fought against this, feeling that the federal government was reneging on their fiduciary responsibility. By the 1970s, First Nations peoples across Canada had started to confront and challenge these issues. Although amendments were intended to address Native issues, public policy continued to promote assimilation of First Nations children into the dominant culture. The federal government began to dismantle the residential schools in the 1960s and 1970s and replaced them with ‘day schools’ (which are still controlled and operated by Indian Act civil servants). As residential schools were ‘phased out,’ government continued to assimilate Indigenous peoples through practices of child removal, which is remembered by many Indigenous people in Canada as the ‘60s scoop.’ (A term used to describe the highest numbers of adoptions, which took place in the decade of the 1960s. These were so described because, in many cases, children were literally scooped from their homes and communities without the knowledge or consent of families and communities (http://www.originscanada.org/aboriginalresources/the-stolen-generation/).) This government practice marked a dark period of history for Aboriginal people because the adolescents who returned from residential schools never experienced or received love and affection within these schools. The only parenting they knew for up to 10 years was from the religious order (nuns and priests) and they had been deprived of opportunities to develop positive cultural parenting skills. When these residential school survivors became adults and parents, the government ultimately labeled them as incompetent and unable to raise their own children, and deemed them to be in social need. In many circumstances, this was the government’s justification for removing these children and placing them into provincial care. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the government continued to apprehend Aboriginal children in the province of British Columbia. According to Patrick Johnston (1983): In 1955, there were 3433 children in care of B.C.’s Child welfare branch. Of that number, it is estimated that 29 children, or less than one percent of the total were of Indian ancestry. By 1964, however, 1466 children in care in B.C. were of Indian extraction. That number represented 34.2 percent of all children in care. p. 23
Today the statistics are even worse. Newly released data from the National Household Survey suggests that “of the approximately 30,000 children in care in Canada in 2011, 14,225 (48 percent) were aboriginal” (Woods and Kirkey, 2013). Clearly these staggering statistics show that almost half of the children in care in Canada are Aboriginal even though Aboriginal people comprise only 3% of the overall Canadian population. There are many reasons ‘defined by government’ why Native children are placed into foster care. The most common rationale for the removal of children is neglect, poverty, housing, and substance misuse. These variables are all areas in which the child welfare system takes action for removal, as articulated by
Indigenous Child Welfare Practice: The Canadian Case
Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada: “What we have here is a very dire statistic for children who, just like their parents in many cases, are being removed from their families because of state neglect”, Blackstock said. “The government is simply not giving these children the same opportunity to grow up with their families that all other Canadian children enjoy.” Quoted in Woods and Kirkey, 2013: np
For over a century, the government of Canada has maintained and enforced laws, which confined Indigenous people to small parcels of land, defined who is or is not a Native person, and outlawed many ceremonies and Indigenous governance systems, which had been in place. Moreover, Canadian law forced Native people to adapt and live according to European standards. Indigenous peoples became subservient to colonial laws and policies, a term described by Antonio Gramsci (1971) as ‘hegemony.’ Hegemony is a way of thinking and being, and it occurs when oppressed groups take on dominant group thinking and ideas uncritically. Hegemonic thinking and living is the definitive way to colonize people; the colonized continue the cycle of colonizing themselves (Smith, 2003). Ultimately, as a result of these laws, Indigenous people throughout the country including those living on their reserves became poverty stricken. Due to this forced assimilation, which marginalized our people further, Native people face racism and stereotyping, which affects our ability to successfully and with confidence to partake in employment, education, and governance.
Interim Measures – A Step in the Right Direction? Over the last half century, Indigenous leaders have confronted both the provincial and Canadian governments and demanded that child welfare for Indigenous children be centered within Indigenous policy, practices, and worldviews. This includes the necessity for autonomy and authority over the governance of child welfare for Indigenous communities. According to Armitage (1995), “The vision of independent jurisdiction with its own laws is clear, but the process of putting it into place and the form that it will take are not yet defined” (p. 131). In the 18–23 years since the publication of Liberating our Children, Liberating Our Nations (Community Panel, 1991) and since Armitage’s identification of First Nations’ vision for independent jurisdiction, the self-determining vision remains unfulfilled. Currently the Provincial government in British Columbia, the Ministry for Children and Family Development (MCFD) provides authority over voluntary services, guardianship, and child protection through a broad range of child welfare services, including services that protect children from abuse and neglect, services for children with disabilities, adoption services, and family support programs. MCFD delegates these services to Indigenous agencies and communities under the authority of the Child, Family, and Community Service Act and the Adoptions Act. Through delegation within this governing system, approximately 140 of the 198 First Nation communities in British Columbia have been delegated by the
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province to provide child welfare for their communities. Communities that choose this type of ‘delegated responsibilities’ provide unique cultural services that meet the needs of their people. Yet, the overall policies and laws are still under the auspices of the provincial government.
Analysis of This Policy Story Today, some Indigenous peoples view ‘delegated’ models of child welfare as a tool of colonialism, based on dominant culture’s assumption that the “values of other cultures are abnormal and in need of correction” (Community Panel, 1991: p. 5). Brown et al. (2002) have also identified British Columbia’s provincial delegated authority as neocolonial and go on to say: Delegated services are founded on the notion of ‘giving’ authority to deliver child welfare services, rather than recognizing First Nations inherent authority to care for their children. Further, it imposes a way of thinking about and practicing child and family services that is based on mainstream concepts, beliefs, and practices. While delegation allows for some adaptation to accommodate culture and promote community empowerment, it doesn’t challenge the fundamental beliefs that construct concepts of child protection. Is delegation wrong? Not entirely. It provides a mechanism for community empowerment .. It is about working inside a box constructed by someone else. p. 146
Although the neocolonial landscape of delegated authority currently persists, First Nations people have, in fact, demanded the recognition of the “rights of our people to take responsibility for our own lives” and the “inherent right of our people to govern ourselves” (Community Panel, 1991: p. 29). There is a strong belief among Indigenous people that jurisdiction and legislation over Indigenous child and family services should be returned to them and that legislation must recognize the paramountcy of family and child law enacted by Indigenous Nations. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) was a federal government research project where a panel of Indigenous researchers visited many Aboriginal communities between 1991 and 1995. The mandate of the Commission was to study the evolution of the relationship between Aboriginal peoples, the government of Canada and Canadian society as a whole. The Commission heard from many First Nations people who expressed the need for Aboriginal-specific legislation at the federal level in the area of child welfare. RCAP noted:
In our view, the authority for legislating child welfare and regulating practices should rest with the First Nations people. Native people argued that with Aboriginal jurisdiction in place, there will be greater flexibility to introduce practices in keeping with Aboriginal culture and community realities. Royal Commission Report, 1997: p. 376
The Spallumcheen Experience In 1980, the Spallumcheen people in British Columbia established the first Aboriginal child welfare agency, through
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a band-by-law model, (Within the Indian Act, ‘Band’ is used to identify a First Nations community in Canada. First Nations Bands are given a Band number that identifies their community. In addition to allocating a Band number, each member of the Band receives their own individual status number, identified by the federal government.) which releases them from provincial laws and standards (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996; Union of BC Indian Chiefs, 2002). Spallumcheen passed a written bylaw, declaring their own jurisdiction over their children. The Minister of Indian Affairs, who has a veto power over band bylaws under the Indian Act, did not veto the bylaw. Spallumcheen people sought out provincial government’s approval by organizing a march and demonstration at the then provincial Minister of Human Resources, Grace McCarthy’s house, where almost 3000 people including children from the Spallumcheen community and surrounding First Nations people attended. This action pressured the province into recognizing Spallumcheen bylaw. McCarthy signed a handwritten agreement stating Spallumcheen children in British Columbia were recognized through the Spallumcheen bylaw. This bylaw was the first contemporary case of an Aboriginal nationgoverning system to reassert its authority and jurisdiction over its children. As of 2009, according to Chief Wayne Christian, Spallumcheen continues to be the only First Nations community in Canada whereby they have their own legislation for the care of their children. In this model, Spallumcheen social workers are authorized by their own community governance to provide child and family services to their membership and to take full protective action when warranted. This is an example of full jurisdictional and legislative authority over child welfare services resting in the hands of Indigenous government. This governance model for child care allows the Spallumcheen people a greater degree of authority over child and family service matters involving their people. Although this form of community governance has been effective for Spallumcheen people, the federal government stated that they would never sign or approve another governing system as this. Hence, Spallumcheen is the only First Nations community in Canada to implement this bilateral agreement. It should be noted, however, that the Canadian government indicated in 1999 that it would not recognize any other First Nation bylaws guaranteeing sole jurisdiction over Aboriginal Child and Family Services in British Columbia to First Nations (Storey, personal communication, 2002). The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (2002) perceives this as detrimental and states: A child welfare bylaw would allow the federal government to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ partial re-assumption of jurisdiction for child welfare without requiring new legislation, and would represent an improvement over the current system where Canada requires that Indigenous Peoples seek delegated provincial authority. p. 38
The Spallumcheen movement led to a number of First Nations communities across Canada looking for more formalized relationships in which they could take over their own child and family services. Green et al. (2012) expand on
the Spallumcheen experience with a call to other Indigenous leaders to rewrite policy in the struggle to reduce apprehensions and reclaim Indigenous children: “It is time for our programs, our leaders, to think outside their ‘policy box’ and outside our circle and to be creative in child welfare development” (p. 110). Clearly, the passing of a Band Bylaw resolution, as was the case for Spallumcheen, led to a return of full jurisdiction and authority over the well-being of their children!
Delegation The province of British Columbia is similar to other jurisdictions in Canada, in that they may delegate their authority for delivering child welfare services to specific groups in accordance with provincial legislation. In British Columbia, this is done so through the Child Family and Community Service Act, (1996) ((CFCSA) or the ‘Act’). Social workers are required to receive provincially legislated training for three designated areas in order to provide the necessary services. Caring for First Nations Children Society (an Aboriginal run agency) trains many of the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal social workers hired by Aboriginal child welfare agencies in British Columbia. The legal authority of the British Columbian government to enter into delegation agreements is expressed in section 90 of the CFCSA. For the purposes of this act, the Minister may make an agreement with any of the following: 1. an Indian band or a legal entity representing an Aboriginal community; 2. the government of Canada, the government of a province of Canada, or the government of a jurisdiction outside Canada, or an official agency of any of these governments; and 3. any person, or group of persons (1996). The acceptance of the delegated model by First Nations agencies, communities may be seen as a capacity building step toward self-determination, one which will allow the Aboriginal agency to develop the infrastructure, services, and human resources to provide quality service for Indigenous peoples. A recurring theme in the document Liberating Our Children: Liberating Our Nations, was that “the paramountcy of Aboriginal law is necessary to properly recognize the inherent Aboriginal right to the care for Aboriginal children” (Community Panel, 1991: p. 18). The Aboriginal people’s council questioned whether the delegation model is a step toward the eventual recognition and affirmation of inherent Aboriginal rights regarding children, or whether it is government’s way of absolving its financial responsibilities (p. 3). In 2002, Ormiston interviewed 16 workers from 4 Indigenous agencies in British Columbia to identify and analyze the effectiveness of the child welfare delegation model currently operating in British Columbia, from an Indigenous perspective. What clearly flowed from the research were the following recommendations: 1. Communities should begin exploring the idea of developing and implementing separate legislation in the area of child and family services.
Indigenous Child Welfare Practice: The Canadian Case
2. Preventative services in Aboriginal communities should be the priority, with a strong emphasis on culture and traditions. 3. More focus on competency-based hiring criteria for social workers; less emphasis on formal education. 4. Providing education and awareness on a regular basis within the community as part of the agency’s mandate. 5. Ongoing awareness/education is essential for ministry staff in terms of how delegation works and the role of Aboriginal agencies. 6. Agencies should be encouraged to negotiate ‘blanket’ funding arrangements, which will allow them more autonomy in choosing how to allocate their funds. 7. There should be a clear division between child welfare agencies and band councils (Ormiston, 2002).
Current and Future Strategies of Child Welfare Resurgence for Our People In 2008, MCFD was in the process of transferring legal authority for child and family services to regional community governance structures. They planned to establish parallel Regional Aboriginal Authorities by the end of the fiscal year 2008–09. While there was strong support for the future establishment of Regional Aboriginal Authorities, these authorities never came to fruition. The government did not have the political will in the end for this to get passed in the legislature. The British Columbia Assembly of First Nations (BCAFN), along with other Aboriginal policy tables, continued participating in the struggle for jurisdiction over Indigenous children in this province. This was stated in their declaration as: That the Ministry of Children and Family Development enter into consultations with regional and provincial planning bodies, duly organized by Aboriginal communities, to begin drafting child welfare legislation specific to Aboriginal children that mandates Aboriginal approaches to child and family development. BCAFN, 2011: np
Paul Lacerte, Executive Director of the BCAFN expands on the importance of this imperative:
We are involved in policy discussions with the Ministry on shifting provincial financial resources from paying non Aboriginal people to care for our children, primarily by way of foster homes, towards investments on family supports, family violence and neglect in our communities. Personal Communication, 2013
Lacerte speaks to the importance of making families resilient and self-determining once again, as opposed to the removal of children, which is what child protection in British Columbia currently does and shifting resources to prevention and early intervention work. The Indigenous Child Welfare Research Network (ICWRN) was developed through the University of Victoria in 2008. Its vision is to “establish a Research Institute in the province of
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British Columbia to ensure our children and families are nurtured with stories, traditional teachings and practices relevant to our diverse territories, languages and teachings” (Indigenous Child Well-being Research Network, n.d.: np). This network provides research training to communities throughout British Columbia. Research training here is defined, developed, and implemented from diverse and distinct cultural teachings. In essence, these training sessions teach that ‘stories’ and ‘cultural knowledge’ is knowledge that can serve to develop programs, policies, and laws to strengthen children, families, and their communities.
In Conclusion We will close with our personal Indigenous teachings that inform the importance of cultural knowledge as a foundation for contemporary child welfare practices. Ormiston who is Tlingit, speaks to how Tlingit values inform best practices. Tlingit people are located in the northern part of Canada and Alaska and for Tlingit people they used the ‘consensus’ process embedded through teachings of the potlatch to honor relations with one another and a method to make important decisions, based on philosophies of respect. When reflecting on traditional teachings and ways of ‘living’ today within community and in the field of ‘social work,’ we realize that Tlingit philosophies are critical when developing and implementing new ideas, relations, programs, and the overarching policies that guide these formations. Westerners may critique this ‘consensus process’ as being time consuming or resource driven, but Indigenous traditional teachings say that it really is the process, the time taken in building relationships and ensuring decisions are made collectively, which is important and reflective of an Indigenous paradigm. Green who is Haisla, speaks to notions of ‘helping’ from a Haisla perspective. For Haisla people who are located in the northwest coast of British Columbia, there is a term used ‘gywaghlaab,’ which means helping one another. The philosophy here is that when a family notices another family faced with challenges or problems, they stop what they are doing to help the family. If there is a community in distress, the Haisla community gathers to help them. A notion of ‘helping’ was and is a way of life – there were no rules of how to or when to help. People knew when to help. For Tlingit and Haisla teachings and philosophies, cultural knowledge and practice was policy that strengthened and maintained Indigenous peoples for many years. There are important Western systems and Indigenous traditional child-rearing practices that can be used ‘together’ to develop and implement appropriate services for Indigenous children, families, and communities. It is essential for all social workers to understand the history of how Canadian laws and policies have confined Indigenous people. In doing so, we must collaborate on ethical and cultural practices to ensure that Indigenous knowledge; ceremony and culture are central to enhancing the well-being of children and their communities.
See also: Child Protection: International Issues; Child Protection; Children and Families in Social Work; Fatherhood; Genetics and Indigenous Communities: Ethical Issues;
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Historical Thought and Historiography: Indigenous Cultures in the Americas; Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights; Indigenous Psychology; Indigenous Rights; Indigenous Social Work; Motherhood; Risk Assessment in Social Work; Social Work Theory.
Bibliography Armitage, A., 1995. Comparing the Policy of Aboriginal Assimilation: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. UBC Press, Vancouver, BC. British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, 2011. Governance Toolkit: A Guide to Nation Building. British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, Vancouver, BC. Brown, L., Haddock, L., Kovach, M., 2002. Watching over our families and children: lalum’utul’ smun’eem child and family services. In: Wharf, B. (Ed.), Community Work Approaches to Child Welfare. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, ON, pp. 131–151. Cardinal, H., 1999. The Unjust Society. Douglas & McInytre, Vancouver/Toronto. Community Panel, 1991. Liberating Our Children, Liberating Our Nations. Queens Printer, Victoria. Finney, S., Green, J., Brown, L., 2009. Towards transformational research for and with indigenous communities: the new BC indigenous child welfare research network. First Peoples Child & Family Review (An Interdisciplinary Journal Honoring the Voices, Perspectives and Knowledges of First Peoples through Research, Critical Analyses, Stories, Standpoints and Media Reviews) 4 (2), 161–164. Gramsci, A., 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. International Publishers, New York. Green, J., Kovach, M., Montgomery, H., Thomas, R., Brown, L., 2012. Witnessing wild woman: resistance and resilience in aboriginal child welfare. In: Foster, L., Wharf, B. (Eds.), People, Politics and Child Welfare in B.C. UBC Press, Vancouver, pp. 97–116. Green, J., 2009. Decolonizing social work practice through oolichan fishing. In: Sinclair, R., Hart, M.A., Bruyere, G. (Eds.), Wicihitowin: Indigenous Social Work in Canada. Fernwood Press. Green, J., Thomas, R., 2005. Learning through our children, healing for our children: best practice in first nations communities. In: Dominelli, Lena (Ed.), Communities in a Globalising World: Theory and Practice for Community Empowerment. Ashgate Publications, Aldershot.
Indigenous Child Well-being Research Network, n.d. University of Victoria. Retrieved from: http://icwrn.uvic.ca/. Istchenko, V., Atkinson, J., 1988. The Mission School Syndrome (Motion Picture). Northern Native Broadcasting, Canada. Johnston, P., 1983. Native Children and the Child Welfare System. James Lorimer and the Canadian Council on Social Development, Toronto. Lawrence, B., 2004. From sovereign nations to “a vanishing race”. In: “Real” Indians and Others: Mixed Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. UBC Press, Vancouver, pp. 25–44. Ormiston, T., 2002. Aboriginal Child & Family Services Agencies: A First Nations Analysis of Delegated Services (Unpublished masters thesis). University of Victoria, Victoria, BC. Ormiston, N.T., 2010. Re-conceptualizing research: an indigenous perspective. First Peoples Family and Child Review 5 (1), 50–60. Retrieved from: http://www. fncaringsociety.com/volume-5-number-1-2010 (accessed 04.10.13.). Powderface, S., 1984. Self government means biting the hand that feeds us. In: Little Bear, L., Boldt, M., Long, J.A. (Eds.), Pathways to Self-determination: Canadian Indians and the Canadian State. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, pp. 164–168. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996. The Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Retrieved from: http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ap/rrc-eng.asp (accessed 03.12.13.). Smith, G.H., 2003. Indigenous Struggle for the Transformation of Education and Schooling. Speech Presented to the Alaskan Federation of Natives (AFN) Convention, Anchorage, Alaska. Thomas, R., 2005. Honoring the oral traditions of my ancestors through storytelling. In: Brown, L., Strega, S. (Eds.), Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous and Anti Oppressive Approaches. Canadian Scholars Press, Toronto, pp. 237–254. Thomas, R., Green, J., 2009. Indigenous children in the centre: indigenous perspectives on anti-oppressive child welfare perspectives. In: Strega, S., Carrier, J. (Eds.), Walking This Path Together: Anti-racist and Anti-oppressive Child Welfare Practice. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax. Union of BC Chiefs, 2002. Calling Forth Our Future: Options for the Exercise of Indigenous Peoples’ Authority in Child Welfare. Union of BC Indian Chiefs, British Columbia. Retrieved from: http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/files/PDF/UBCIC_OurFuture.pdf (accessed 03.12.12.). Woods, M., Kirkey, S., 2013. Tragic’ Number of Aboriginal Children in Foster Care Stuns Even the Experts. Canada.com. From: http://www.canada.com/health/ Tragicþnumberþaboriginalþchildrenþfosterþcareþstunsþevenþexperts/ 8354098/story.html (accessed 05.12.13.).
Abstract This article will explore child welfare practice from an Indigenous perspective. In the article, we begin by centering Indigenous ways of caring for our children. We also provide an overview of how state-controlled jurisdiction over Indigenous children had intergenerational and devastating effects of legislation and policies on Indigenous families. Finally, we review how Indigenous peoples are reclaiming jurisdiction to deliver their own distinct methods of child and family services, in an effort to reclaim, regenerate, and strengthen Indigenous child well-being in British Columbia, Canada.
Introduction This article explores child welfare practice from an Indigenous perspective. Both authors have personal and professional experience within Indigenous child welfare. Both authors have been instrumental in contributing, developing, and implementing Indigenous child welfare courses and programs at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. This article is organized in three sections. Section one provides an introduction to Indigenous ways of caring for our children. Section two provides an overview of state control and jurisdiction over Indigenous children and the devastating effects of legislation and policies on Indigenous families, communities, and nations. Finally, section three examines ways in which Indigenous peoples are reclaiming jurisdiction over ways in which our people deliver their child and family services, in an effort to building healthy individuals, healthy communities.
Traditional First Nations Child Raising (Throughout this article, we will use terminology of First Nations, Aboriginal, and Indigenous interchangeably depending on what we are speaking to. Many communities in Canada refer to themselves as First Nations people. Many other communities and people refer to themselves as Indigenous people and finally, Aboriginal, is terminology defined by the state.) Before settler contact, Indigenous nations (‘Nations’ is closely linked to the modern European concept of a ‘state.’ For Indigenous people, decision-making structure and methods are resolved within Indigenous sovereign states/nation.) were responsible for their own child welfare, and every culture dealt with their child-raising practices differently. There was recognition that children belonged to the community, and that children were the most precious people of the community. For many Indigenous nations, the old people and/or elders sustained and lived traditional and ceremonial practices that strengthened and enhanced the well-being of children and families. For example, rites of passage rituals involved practices that honored all stages of life and in this practice; family members such as aunts, grandmothers, and traditional teachers
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were involved in raising children. Rites of passage have been important for children, because these not only acknowledge varying life stages, but also the child learns who his or her caregivers are and knows that these caregivers will be nurturing and will provide support throughout their life. Another cultural practice important for the nurturing of Indigenous children and families include learning about Indigenous ceremony. In this, learning important ceremonies and rituals were done through storytelling. In this practice, children learned not only about different forms of ceremonial practices, but children also learned about their histories, landscapes, relations to animals, about other Indigenous communities, and about natural resources that sustained their way of life. This way of life and cultural practices were and are Indigenous knowledge, philosophies, and praxes once utilized to enhance the well-being of children and families. Ceremonies were and are methods that encapsulate Indigenous living. Hence, ceremony is a way that our people view Indigenous law and policy. As Indigenous peoples, our belief is that our inherent rights, responsibilities, and laws flow from natural laws of what we refer to as inherent and from the Creator. Inherent knowledge or rights for our people instill our sense of belonging, connectedness to the earth and the responsibilities that we have to care for the earth. Importantly, in knowing ceremony and rights of passage, we understand the importance of connecting natural laws to our social responsibilities to take care of our children, families, and communities. In presettler times, ceremony and inherent knowledge was a method practiced by Indigenous peoples to care ‘holistically’ for children, families, and communities. Prior to settler contact, cultural practices, ceremonies, and rituals strengthened families and the caregiving of children, now known as child welfare.
Commonalities for Indigenous Approaches to Caring for Children Prior to settler contact in Canada, and perhaps for other Indigenous peoples throughout the world, children were and are viewed as precious and the heart of communities. In this, there were common practices about caring for children that
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were nonintrusive to the family and community. For example, if a family were experiencing difficulties in raising their child, another family member would intervene and raise the child. In doing so, the ‘other’ family members who would intervene, would care for the children and this was done to provide space and time for parents to address their issues. For many Aboriginal nations, the first born was always raised by their grandmother and not by the ‘nuclear’ parent. In other situations, ceremony was utilized as a practice method to provide support to the family in need. Ceremony is a method that connects the family to all aspects of their being, such as their spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental state. The belief here is that when we collectively look after all aspects of our being, families recognize where there is ‘unbalance’ and also can see ‘issues’ they may need to work on. Traditionally, Aboriginal peoples in Canada have a broad definition of family membership and our children were cared for and raised by the extended family. Storytelling has also been an important practice historically. Children learned the values of respect, honor, love, sharing through stories. They learned how to act in the world around them. Thomas and Green (2009) remind us that stories provided children with the skills needed to survive. “Traditionally storytelling was the primary source of educating our children. Our children were considered gifts from the Creator and, as such, were protected by all in our communities through stories” (p. 101).
Interruptions for Indigenous Child Caring Disruptions in Indigenous family life in Canada began shortly after contact with European people. During early contact times, the relationships between European and Indigenous peoples of Canada were one of respect. However, over the years and due to development of lands for economic expansions, these relationships began to deteriorate. Relationships succumbed to the notion of ‘power over’ by the Canadian government toward Indigenous people. This power difference is described historically as the ‘protection’ phase of relations between settler Canadians and Aboriginal people. One of the earliest documented legislation intended to ‘protect’ Indigenous peoples is the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The Royal Proclamation (The Royal Proclamation was issued by King George III in 1763 to officially claim British territory in North America after Britain won the Seven Years’ War over the French.) is a document that sought to protect Aboriginal (Throughout this article, we will use terms interchangeably. Indigenous is a term used by international group of Indigenous peoples. Aboriginal is a term used by government and Indian is a term within the Indian Act. Native is also used to describe a group characteristic of indigeneity.) people by providing instructions for European settlement of Aboriginal territories in what is now North America. The Royal Proclamation explicitly states that Aboriginal title has existed and continues to exist, and that all land would be considered Aboriginal land until ceded by what is now known as ‘treaty.’ The Proclamation provided the first policy preventing individual settlers from claiming land from Aboriginal occupants. The Royal Proclamation
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further sets out that only the Crown (Canada) can purchase land from Aboriginal people. By way of this law, the concept of the Crown’s ‘fiduciary’ (One who holds anything in trust, or who holds a position of trust or confidence with respect to someone else.) responsibility with Indigenous people was set in motion, which continues to be in effect today. The Proclamation and its fiduciary responsibilities began to set the framework for the relationship between Indigenous people and Canada. This imposed relationship also affected how Indigenous people related to and learned about land teachings, and in turn affected cultural teachings and practices for Indigenous families. Many more laws and policies emerged in a manner that continued to confine and control an Indigenous way of being. One such act that subjugated and oppressed Aboriginal people was the Indian Act, federal legislation passed in Canada in 1876. The Indian Act collected all “previous legislation pertaining to Indians into a body of law comprising over a hundred sections” (Lawrence, 2004: p. 33). The Indian Act defines who is Indigenous and who is not, according to the federal government. This act also articulated a reserve system where Indigenous peoples would reside and specified policies on how Indigenous peoples would be governed. This act is still in place today. Lawrence (2004) talks of the lingering effects of the ‘Indian Act’ and its policies: The Indian Act is much more than a body of laws that for over a century has controlled every aspect of status Indian life, it provides a conceptual framework that has organized contemporary First Nations life in ways that have been almost entirely naturalized, and that governs ways of thinking about Native identity. p. 34
Ormiston (2010) also contends that this act of colonialism intends to force the “colonized group into dominant society; adopting policies that suppress . transform or destroy Native values . orientations and way of life . manipulation and management of the colonized . justified by an ideology of racism” (p. 2). Within the Indian Act, the goal of Canada was to eliminate traditional teachings, values, and significant cultural ceremonies through the banning of the Potlatch, Longhouse, and Sundance ceremonies as well as traditional governance systems. Cultural knowledge, philosophies, and practices were all outlawed as they provided a threatening opportunity for First Nations people to share their history and ways of doing, knowing, being into the future (Thomas, 2005: pp. 244–245). The federal government exercised jurisdiction and control over Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Affects of Colonial Practices Resulting from colonial governing systems, Indigenous peoples were deemed to be inferior and uncivilized. Nowhere is this more evident than through the creation of residential schools, which resumed the federal government’s role of ‘protecting the child.’ The government of Canada also sought to ‘civilize’ and assimilate Aboriginal people through residential schools.
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Beginning in the late 1800s, the government and the church’s attitude was that European culture was superior to Native cultures. Therefore, every First Nation’s child was deemed to be in need of protection and it became compulsory in 1880 for First Nations children to attend residential schools (Powderface, 1984). Children as young as 5 years of age were removed from their families and communities for 10 months of the year or longer. In residential school, children were prevented from speaking their languages and taught to reject their traditional lifestyle. As Harold Cardinal (1999) wrote: “These schools were nothing less than state sponsored programs of cultural genocide aimed at Indian First Nations. Residential schools were an integral component of a systematic, intergenerational, state planned program of brainwashing aimed at removing the ‘Indian’ from the minds and souls of Indian children” (p. 18). The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. Most Canadian citizens (settler nonIndigenous) are not aware that in some areas of Canada, almost half of the children who attended residential schools died while in those schools (Mission School Syndrome, 1985). Death of young children at residential school was due to tuberculosis, malnutrition, and other forms of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse. The residential school of ideology dictated that religion and domestic duties comprised the ‘education’ deemed important for Native children. In residential schools, the common experience was religious practices, followed by domestic duties. Girls would learn household domestic skills while the boys would learn trades and agricultural skills. Only a portion of each afternoon of a school day was preserved for ‘education.’ Civilizing and assimilating Native people were the goals of this ‘doomed to fail’ law and policy. Protection, civilizing, and assimilating policies in Canada remain a devastating and torturous factor for Indigenous people. Protective and assimilative laws and policies nearly destroyed the cultural knowledge and practices, stories, experiences, and knowledge of the land for First Nations. These laws were harmful, and Indigenous peoples resisted and confronted these injustices. Consequently, throughout the past half century, many Canadian laws have been amended to correct past injustices.
Provincial Involvement Through the Indian Act in 1876, the federal government of Canada exercised jurisdiction over child welfare for Indigenous peoples in Canada. The way they enforced this was through compulsory education for Indigenous children, as articulated above ‘residential schools.’ The provinces in Canada became involved in child welfare in 1951 when revisions to Section 88 of the federal Indian Act extended provincial laws of general application to Indians and lands belonging to Indians. At that time, provinces were not involved in the ‘well-being’ or welfare of Native children. The amendment extended provincial child welfare activities and practices to children on reserves. Without Section 88, provincial legislation would not apply to Indians because Canada’s constitution gives the federal government the exclusive power to legislate laws and policies regarding
Indians. The changes were somewhat controversial, the federal government feeling that any developing provincial laws would be deemed unconstitutional while Indigenous peoples fought against this, feeling that the federal government was reneging on their fiduciary responsibility. By the 1970s, First Nations peoples across Canada had started to confront and challenge these issues. Although amendments were intended to address Native issues, public policy continued to promote assimilation of First Nations children into the dominant culture. The federal government began to dismantle the residential schools in the 1960s and 1970s and replaced them with ‘day schools’ (which are still controlled and operated by Indian Act civil servants). As residential schools were ‘phased out,’ government continued to assimilate Indigenous peoples through practices of child removal, which is remembered by many Indigenous people in Canada as the ‘60s scoop.’ (A term used to describe the highest numbers of adoptions, which took place in the decade of the 1960s. These were so described because, in many cases, children were literally scooped from their homes and communities without the knowledge or consent of families and communities (http://www.originscanada.org/aboriginalresources/the-stolen-generation/).) This government practice marked a dark period of history for Aboriginal people because the adolescents who returned from residential schools never experienced or received love and affection within these schools. The only parenting they knew for up to 10 years was from the religious order (nuns and priests) and they had been deprived of opportunities to develop positive cultural parenting skills. When these residential school survivors became adults and parents, the government ultimately labeled them as incompetent and unable to raise their own children, and deemed them to be in social need. In many circumstances, this was the government’s justification for removing these children and placing them into provincial care. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the government continued to apprehend Aboriginal children in the province of British Columbia. According to Patrick Johnston (1983): In 1955, there were 3433 children in care of B.C.’s Child welfare branch. Of that number, it is estimated that 29 children, or less than one percent of the total were of Indian ancestry. By 1964, however, 1466 children in care in B.C. were of Indian extraction. That number represented 34.2 percent of all children in care. p. 23
Today the statistics are even worse. Newly released data from the National Household Survey suggests that “of the approximately 30,000 children in care in Canada in 2011, 14,225 (48 percent) were aboriginal” (Woods and Kirkey, 2013). Clearly these staggering statistics show that almost half of the children in care in Canada are Aboriginal even though Aboriginal people comprise only 3% of the overall Canadian population. There are many reasons ‘defined by government’ why Native children are placed into foster care. The most common rationale for the removal of children is neglect, poverty, housing, and substance misuse. These variables are all areas in which the child welfare system takes action for removal, as articulated by
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Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada: “What we have here is a very dire statistic for children who, just like their parents in many cases, are being removed from their families because of state neglect”, Blackstock said. “The government is simply not giving these children the same opportunity to grow up with their families that all other Canadian children enjoy.” Quoted in Woods and Kirkey, 2013: np
For over a century, the government of Canada has maintained and enforced laws, which confined Indigenous people to small parcels of land, defined who is or is not a Native person, and outlawed many ceremonies and Indigenous governance systems, which had been in place. Moreover, Canadian law forced Native people to adapt and live according to European standards. Indigenous peoples became subservient to colonial laws and policies, a term described by Antonio Gramsci (1971) as ‘hegemony.’ Hegemony is a way of thinking and being, and it occurs when oppressed groups take on dominant group thinking and ideas uncritically. Hegemonic thinking and living is the definitive way to colonize people; the colonized continue the cycle of colonizing themselves (Smith, 2003). Ultimately, as a result of these laws, Indigenous people throughout the country including those living on their reserves became poverty stricken. Due to this forced assimilation, which marginalized our people further, Native people face racism and stereotyping, which affects our ability to successfully and with confidence to partake in employment, education, and governance.
Interim Measures – A Step in the Right Direction? Over the last half century, Indigenous leaders have confronted both the provincial and Canadian governments and demanded that child welfare for Indigenous children be centered within Indigenous policy, practices, and worldviews. This includes the necessity for autonomy and authority over the governance of child welfare for Indigenous communities. According to Armitage (1995), “The vision of independent jurisdiction with its own laws is clear, but the process of putting it into place and the form that it will take are not yet defined” (p. 131). In the 18–23 years since the publication of Liberating our Children, Liberating Our Nations (Community Panel, 1991) and since Armitage’s identification of First Nations’ vision for independent jurisdiction, the self-determining vision remains unfulfilled. Currently the Provincial government in British Columbia, the Ministry for Children and Family Development (MCFD) provides authority over voluntary services, guardianship, and child protection through a broad range of child welfare services, including services that protect children from abuse and neglect, services for children with disabilities, adoption services, and family support programs. MCFD delegates these services to Indigenous agencies and communities under the authority of the Child, Family, and Community Service Act and the Adoptions Act. Through delegation within this governing system, approximately 140 of the 198 First Nation communities in British Columbia have been delegated by the
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province to provide child welfare for their communities. Communities that choose this type of ‘delegated responsibilities’ provide unique cultural services that meet the needs of their people. Yet, the overall policies and laws are still under the auspices of the provincial government.
Analysis of This Policy Story Today, some Indigenous peoples view ‘delegated’ models of child welfare as a tool of colonialism, based on dominant culture’s assumption that the “values of other cultures are abnormal and in need of correction” (Community Panel, 1991: p. 5). Brown et al. (2002) have also identified British Columbia’s provincial delegated authority as neocolonial and go on to say: Delegated services are founded on the notion of ‘giving’ authority to deliver child welfare services, rather than recognizing First Nations inherent authority to care for their children. Further, it imposes a way of thinking about and practicing child and family services that is based on mainstream concepts, beliefs, and practices. While delegation allows for some adaptation to accommodate culture and promote community empowerment, it doesn’t challenge the fundamental beliefs that construct concepts of child protection. Is delegation wrong? Not entirely. It provides a mechanism for community empowerment .. It is about working inside a box constructed by someone else. p. 146
Although the neocolonial landscape of delegated authority currently persists, First Nations people have, in fact, demanded the recognition of the “rights of our people to take responsibility for our own lives” and the “inherent right of our people to govern ourselves” (Community Panel, 1991: p. 29). There is a strong belief among Indigenous people that jurisdiction and legislation over Indigenous child and family services should be returned to them and that legislation must recognize the paramountcy of family and child law enacted by Indigenous Nations. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) was a federal government research project where a panel of Indigenous researchers visited many Aboriginal communities between 1991 and 1995. The mandate of the Commission was to study the evolution of the relationship between Aboriginal peoples, the government of Canada and Canadian society as a whole. The Commission heard from many First Nations people who expressed the need for Aboriginal-specific legislation at the federal level in the area of child welfare. RCAP noted:
In our view, the authority for legislating child welfare and regulating practices should rest with the First Nations people. Native people argued that with Aboriginal jurisdiction in place, there will be greater flexibility to introduce practices in keeping with Aboriginal culture and community realities. Royal Commission Report, 1997: p. 376
The Spallumcheen Experience In 1980, the Spallumcheen people in British Columbia established the first Aboriginal child welfare agency, through
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a band-by-law model, (Within the Indian Act, ‘Band’ is used to identify a First Nations community in Canada. First Nations Bands are given a Band number that identifies their community. In addition to allocating a Band number, each member of the Band receives their own individual status number, identified by the federal government.) which releases them from provincial laws and standards (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996; Union of BC Indian Chiefs, 2002). Spallumcheen passed a written bylaw, declaring their own jurisdiction over their children. The Minister of Indian Affairs, who has a veto power over band bylaws under the Indian Act, did not veto the bylaw. Spallumcheen people sought out provincial government’s approval by organizing a march and demonstration at the then provincial Minister of Human Resources, Grace McCarthy’s house, where almost 3000 people including children from the Spallumcheen community and surrounding First Nations people attended. This action pressured the province into recognizing Spallumcheen bylaw. McCarthy signed a handwritten agreement stating Spallumcheen children in British Columbia were recognized through the Spallumcheen bylaw. This bylaw was the first contemporary case of an Aboriginal nationgoverning system to reassert its authority and jurisdiction over its children. As of 2009, according to Chief Wayne Christian, Spallumcheen continues to be the only First Nations community in Canada whereby they have their own legislation for the care of their children. In this model, Spallumcheen social workers are authorized by their own community governance to provide child and family services to their membership and to take full protective action when warranted. This is an example of full jurisdictional and legislative authority over child welfare services resting in the hands of Indigenous government. This governance model for child care allows the Spallumcheen people a greater degree of authority over child and family service matters involving their people. Although this form of community governance has been effective for Spallumcheen people, the federal government stated that they would never sign or approve another governing system as this. Hence, Spallumcheen is the only First Nations community in Canada to implement this bilateral agreement. It should be noted, however, that the Canadian government indicated in 1999 that it would not recognize any other First Nation bylaws guaranteeing sole jurisdiction over Aboriginal Child and Family Services in British Columbia to First Nations (Storey, personal communication, 2002). The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (2002) perceives this as detrimental and states: A child welfare bylaw would allow the federal government to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ partial re-assumption of jurisdiction for child welfare without requiring new legislation, and would represent an improvement over the current system where Canada requires that Indigenous Peoples seek delegated provincial authority. p. 38
The Spallumcheen movement led to a number of First Nations communities across Canada looking for more formalized relationships in which they could take over their own child and family services. Green et al. (2012) expand on
the Spallumcheen experience with a call to other Indigenous leaders to rewrite policy in the struggle to reduce apprehensions and reclaim Indigenous children: “It is time for our programs, our leaders, to think outside their ‘policy box’ and outside our circle and to be creative in child welfare development” (p. 110). Clearly, the passing of a Band Bylaw resolution, as was the case for Spallumcheen, led to a return of full jurisdiction and authority over the well-being of their children!
Delegation The province of British Columbia is similar to other jurisdictions in Canada, in that they may delegate their authority for delivering child welfare services to specific groups in accordance with provincial legislation. In British Columbia, this is done so through the Child Family and Community Service Act, (1996) ((CFCSA) or the ‘Act’). Social workers are required to receive provincially legislated training for three designated areas in order to provide the necessary services. Caring for First Nations Children Society (an Aboriginal run agency) trains many of the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal social workers hired by Aboriginal child welfare agencies in British Columbia. The legal authority of the British Columbian government to enter into delegation agreements is expressed in section 90 of the CFCSA. For the purposes of this act, the Minister may make an agreement with any of the following: 1. an Indian band or a legal entity representing an Aboriginal community; 2. the government of Canada, the government of a province of Canada, or the government of a jurisdiction outside Canada, or an official agency of any of these governments; and 3. any person, or group of persons (1996). The acceptance of the delegated model by First Nations agencies, communities may be seen as a capacity building step toward self-determination, one which will allow the Aboriginal agency to develop the infrastructure, services, and human resources to provide quality service for Indigenous peoples. A recurring theme in the document Liberating Our Children: Liberating Our Nations, was that “the paramountcy of Aboriginal law is necessary to properly recognize the inherent Aboriginal right to the care for Aboriginal children” (Community Panel, 1991: p. 18). The Aboriginal people’s council questioned whether the delegation model is a step toward the eventual recognition and affirmation of inherent Aboriginal rights regarding children, or whether it is government’s way of absolving its financial responsibilities (p. 3). In 2002, Ormiston interviewed 16 workers from 4 Indigenous agencies in British Columbia to identify and analyze the effectiveness of the child welfare delegation model currently operating in British Columbia, from an Indigenous perspective. What clearly flowed from the research were the following recommendations: 1. Communities should begin exploring the idea of developing and implementing separate legislation in the area of child and family services.
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2. Preventative services in Aboriginal communities should be the priority, with a strong emphasis on culture and traditions. 3. More focus on competency-based hiring criteria for social workers; less emphasis on formal education. 4. Providing education and awareness on a regular basis within the community as part of the agency’s mandate. 5. Ongoing awareness/education is essential for ministry staff in terms of how delegation works and the role of Aboriginal agencies. 6. Agencies should be encouraged to negotiate ‘blanket’ funding arrangements, which will allow them more autonomy in choosing how to allocate their funds. 7. There should be a clear division between child welfare agencies and band councils (Ormiston, 2002).
Current and Future Strategies of Child Welfare Resurgence for Our People In 2008, MCFD was in the process of transferring legal authority for child and family services to regional community governance structures. They planned to establish parallel Regional Aboriginal Authorities by the end of the fiscal year 2008–09. While there was strong support for the future establishment of Regional Aboriginal Authorities, these authorities never came to fruition. The government did not have the political will in the end for this to get passed in the legislature. The British Columbia Assembly of First Nations (BCAFN), along with other Aboriginal policy tables, continued participating in the struggle for jurisdiction over Indigenous children in this province. This was stated in their declaration as: That the Ministry of Children and Family Development enter into consultations with regional and provincial planning bodies, duly organized by Aboriginal communities, to begin drafting child welfare legislation specific to Aboriginal children that mandates Aboriginal approaches to child and family development. BCAFN, 2011: np
Paul Lacerte, Executive Director of the BCAFN expands on the importance of this imperative:
We are involved in policy discussions with the Ministry on shifting provincial financial resources from paying non Aboriginal people to care for our children, primarily by way of foster homes, towards investments on family supports, family violence and neglect in our communities. Personal Communication, 2013
Lacerte speaks to the importance of making families resilient and self-determining once again, as opposed to the removal of children, which is what child protection in British Columbia currently does and shifting resources to prevention and early intervention work. The Indigenous Child Welfare Research Network (ICWRN) was developed through the University of Victoria in 2008. Its vision is to “establish a Research Institute in the province of
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British Columbia to ensure our children and families are nurtured with stories, traditional teachings and practices relevant to our diverse territories, languages and teachings” (Indigenous Child Well-being Research Network, n.d.: np). This network provides research training to communities throughout British Columbia. Research training here is defined, developed, and implemented from diverse and distinct cultural teachings. In essence, these training sessions teach that ‘stories’ and ‘cultural knowledge’ is knowledge that can serve to develop programs, policies, and laws to strengthen children, families, and their communities.
In Conclusion We will close with our personal Indigenous teachings that inform the importance of cultural knowledge as a foundation for contemporary child welfare practices. Ormiston who is Tlingit, speaks to how Tlingit values inform best practices. Tlingit people are located in the northern part of Canada and Alaska and for Tlingit people they used the ‘consensus’ process embedded through teachings of the potlatch to honor relations with one another and a method to make important decisions, based on philosophies of respect. When reflecting on traditional teachings and ways of ‘living’ today within community and in the field of ‘social work,’ we realize that Tlingit philosophies are critical when developing and implementing new ideas, relations, programs, and the overarching policies that guide these formations. Westerners may critique this ‘consensus process’ as being time consuming or resource driven, but Indigenous traditional teachings say that it really is the process, the time taken in building relationships and ensuring decisions are made collectively, which is important and reflective of an Indigenous paradigm. Green who is Haisla, speaks to notions of ‘helping’ from a Haisla perspective. For Haisla people who are located in the northwest coast of British Columbia, there is a term used ‘gywaghlaab,’ which means helping one another. The philosophy here is that when a family notices another family faced with challenges or problems, they stop what they are doing to help the family. If there is a community in distress, the Haisla community gathers to help them. A notion of ‘helping’ was and is a way of life – there were no rules of how to or when to help. People knew when to help. For Tlingit and Haisla teachings and philosophies, cultural knowledge and practice was policy that strengthened and maintained Indigenous peoples for many years. There are important Western systems and Indigenous traditional child-rearing practices that can be used ‘together’ to develop and implement appropriate services for Indigenous children, families, and communities. It is essential for all social workers to understand the history of how Canadian laws and policies have confined Indigenous people. In doing so, we must collaborate on ethical and cultural practices to ensure that Indigenous knowledge; ceremony and culture are central to enhancing the well-being of children and their communities.
See also: Child Protection: International Issues; Child Protection; Children and Families in Social Work; Fatherhood; Genetics and Indigenous Communities: Ethical Issues;
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Indigenous Child Welfare Practice: The Canadian Case
Historical Thought and Historiography: Indigenous Cultures in the Americas; Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights; Indigenous Psychology; Indigenous Rights; Indigenous Social Work; Motherhood; Risk Assessment in Social Work; Social Work Theory.
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