UNITY TEAM FIGHTS TO KEEP INDIGENOUS CHILDREN WITH FAMILIES

INDIGENOUS CHILDREN ARE PLACED IN THE CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM AT A MUCH HIGHER RATE THAN THE GENERAL POPULATION

The generations-long horror of Canada's residential school system and the terrible toll it took on Indigenous peoples and their culture is now burned into the psyche of many Canadians, especially following the recent discoveries of the remains of hundreds of children at former school sites.

More than 150,000 children were removed from their homes and sent to the schools where abuse was rampant.

Many never returned to their families; The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada called it 'cultural genocide.'

Lesser known to many Canadians is the fact that to this day many Indigenous children are removed from their homes and placed into the child welfare system at rates much higher than the general population.

A unique partnership in Niagara involving the Niagara Chapter-Native Women Inc., the Niagara Regional Native Centre, the Fort Erie Native Friendship Centre and Family and Children's Services (FACS) Niagara is helping to ensure fewer of those children are separated from their families through a model known as the Unity Team.

A first in Ontario, it pairs up several FACS social workers with employees from the Indigenous organizations to trouble shoot whatever child protection issues families face, with the goal of keeping families united whenever possible.

The project received funding from the province as a one-year pilot, but that funding has now run out, said Wendy Sturgeon, executive director of the Native Women chapter. She added it's crucial to keep the project going to avoid the toll that removal from their families often has on Indigenous children.

She cited a grim statistic: more than 75 per cent of missing or murdered Indigenous people, most women and girls, were former foster children.

"Many Indigenous people believe that the children's welfare system is an extension of the residential school system," said Sturgeon. "That had a very targeted purpose: to break the Indian in the child."

While being forcibly removed from their homes can have lifelong implications for Indigenous children, it's equally hard on their family members, said Sturgeon. "It also traumatizes the family, the mother," she said. "There's a lot of grief that comes with that, and depression."

In Niagara, the Indigenous community has a long partnership with FACS, said Sturgeon, going back some 20 years, first with volunteers then hiring of an Indigenous social worker with the goal of keeping Indigenous families united.

Anna Bozza, executive director of FACS Niagara, said it requires trust for the Indigenous community to share their expertise with the child welfare sector.

"We have to keep the needs of children at the heart of everything we do," she said in a news release. "By truly listening to Indigenous voices, we can effectively work together to provide Indigenous children and families with culturally appropriate supports that help them to thrive."

Karl Dockstader, executive director of the Regional Native Centre, said it's a harsh reality that Indigenous children are still being separated from the families in Niagara. "It would be easy to condemn the system and walk away," he said in a news release.

But he and others with the Indigenous agencies said it's too important an issue to give up on: in its first year the Unity Team served 128 families and prevented 56 children from coming into care.

Jenn Dockstader, executive director of the Fort Erie centre, said the partnership with FACS is helping to keep families together and not penalizing them for issues of poverty or trauma.

"Thank you to FACS Niagara for being brave enough to engage in this new way," she said in a news release.

Sturgeon said the partners recently pitched the need to the province for continued funding. They're awaiting word on that.

She said funding is key to ramp up diversion from the child welfare system so families aren't torn apart.

"Once those (child welfare) files are open on families, it's so hard to get out," she said. "It follows them often for life."