Current Problems: Child Welfare (1-5)
Exploring Theme: "Govt. and Institution Issues"
Updates on this page: 38
May 7, 2024
Quebec nixes commissioner role for Indigenous children’s well-being
Amendment allows Quebec commissioner to work alongside First Nations, Inuit First Peoples Law Report: CBC News: Quebec will not be appointing an associate commissioner dedicated to the welfare of Indigenous children, after heeding calls to postpone the decision for months. The role would have been created under Bill 37 — an Act Respecting the Commissioner...
April 3, 2024
The Sensitive and Powerful Act of Reporting on Child Welfare
Journalists can spur needed change but must take care not to add to trauma, say experts. Tracy Sherlock is a freelance journalist and journalism instructor, based in Vancouver. She is the editorial lead for the Spotlight: Child Welfare project. The Tyee: Reporting on the so-called child “welfare” system means working with vulnerable people who carry...
March 20, 2024
Conservatives push motion to ‘axe the tax’ at committee meeting on Indigenous child welfare
NDP MP says motion was ‘disgusting’ considering the issue being studied. APTN News: A committee meeting set to discuss the federal government’s Indigenous child welfare legislation was suddenly thrust into a conversation about the federal government’s carbon tax. The meeting started with witnesses from Indigenous Services and Justice giving an overview of the child welfare...
March 19, 2024
Nehiyaw and Dene Nations of Treaty No. 8 Adoption and Private Guardianship Law
Nehiyaw and Dene Nations of Treaty No. 8 Adoption and Private Guardianship Law NationTalk: Children and youth are a gift from the Creator and as Sovereign Nations, we maintain the true authority over our children, youth and families. I. When children and youth are adopted or taken into private guardianship without the voluntary consent...
March 4, 2024
‘When am I coming home?’: Vulnerable Nunavut kids face loneliness, despair as millions spent sending them south
Global News: Iqaluit, Nunavut — Connie MacIntosh was working as a social service worker in Pond Inlet, a tiny hamlet in Nunavut, when her phone rang. On the line was a representative from a company operating group homes for youth in southern Ontario, more than 3,000 kilometres away. She said the caller had a request: they wanted kids from Nunavut....
February 22, 2024
He felt abandoned in Manitoba’s emergency shelters. Here’s what he says needs to change in child welfare
‘We’re putting these children in a place where I wouldn’t feel safe going,’ longtime foster mom says CBC News: One of the only signs anyone was paying attention to Joshua Nepinak during his teenage years was the black book a group of strangers filled with notes about him as they watched him come and go...
February 16, 2024
Deaths of 2 Nunavut care home residents, aged 12 and 19, trigger multiple investigations
Family services minister says officials working to move the rest of the patients out of Naja Isabelle Home CBC Indigenous: Multiple investigations, including one by the RCMP, are underway at the Naja Isabelle group home in Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut, after two young residents died in hospital. In a news release Friday morning, Margaret Nakashuk, Nunavut’s minister of...
January 30, 2024
Critics say Quebec’s child welfare legislation falls far short
Bill C-92 provides rights for Indigenous people to exercise jurisdiction over their own child and family services. Last fall, Quebec introduced its own child welfare legislation – but critics say it falls far short of the federal law....
November 28, 2023
Death of Indigenous boy at hands of mother, stepfather raises concerns about welfare agency
An Indigenous boy who died at the hands of his mother and stepfather had been returned to them because child welfare agency workers were confident she had made improvements to her life and saw no warnings he was being harmed, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council president says. However, audits conducted by B.C.’s Ministry of Children and...
November 27, 2023
Treaty 8 chiefs suing Alberta, Canada over stolen children’s special allowance benefit
APTN News: Treaty 8 First Nations chiefs in Alberta are suing Canada and the province over the children’s special allowance benefit payments saying the money never made it to the children who needed it. Chiefs say the money from the benefit is transferred from the federal government to the province but never reaches or is...
November 9, 2023
Why Are Ministry Child Welfare Workers in BC Exempt from External Oversight?
Legislation requires social workers to register with an independent regulatory body. Unless they work for the MCFD. The Tyee: When Misty Kelly tried to file a formal complaint against a Ministry of Children and Family Development child welfare worker in 2018, she went to the British Columbia College of Social Workers. Kelly was in a...
November 7, 2023
Cree mother, whose newborn was apprehended, says social worker told her to ‘stop wailing’
Chelsey Woodward has not been able to see her daughter consistently after MCFD took the two-day-old baby from a ‘Surrey’ hospital on Oct. 19 The Tyee: IndigiNews – Chelsey Woodward will never forget the moment her baby was taken from her by a social worker at Surrey Memorial Hospital. It was October 19, and Woodward...
October 26, 2023
Bill 37: A Bill that Misses the Mark
NationTalk: Wendake — In response to the recommendActions of the report of the Special Commission on the Rights of the Child and Youth Protection, unveiled in 2021, the Quebec government is announcing today a bill aimed at creating the Commissioner for Children’s Welfare and Rights, supported by a d eputy c ommissioner dedicated to the...
September 21, 2023
NWAC President: Protests against gender diversity policies in school are putting vulnerable youth at risk
NationTalk: A statement by Carol McBride, President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) As President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), I am appalled by protests that would end policies created to provide a layer of safety for transgender and gender-diverse youth. The organizers of these protests say they are marching...
July 12, 2023
Judge orders MCFD to reveal redacted records in birth alerts case
Ministry must disclose disputed information to privacy commissioner after B.C. Supreme Court justice sides with IndigiNews IndigiNews reporter Anna McKenzie holds her daughter in a moss bag she had made. Photo by Captured Memories Photography First Peoples Law Report: Indiginews – A B.C. Supreme Court judge has sided with IndigiNews in a case involving birth...
June 30, 2023
A Horrific Case Highlights Huge Safety Gaps in BC Foster Care
Two children endured abuse a judge described as ‘torture’ in a Lower Mainland region with abysmally low safety compliance rates. [Editor’s note: This story discusses child abuse and death. It may be triggering to some readers.] The Tyee: A B.C. region where two Indigenous children were horrifically abused in foster care — one of them...
June 28, 2023
Coroner issues wake-up call in report on Inuk teen moved 78 times by the time she died, at 18
Maggie Kimattuuti Padlayat, surrendered at birth, lived with 18 different foster families by the age of 7 CBC News: Before ending her life at 18, Maggie Kimattuuti Padlayat was moved 78 times by Quebec’s youth protection services. The constant moving — living with 18 different foster families by the age of seven — contributed to...
June 26, 2023
First Nations leaders in B.C. call on child and family minister to resign
Ministry did not check on children, who were beaten and starved while in care. Warning: story has disturbing details of child abuse, neglect and death APTN News: First Nations leaders in B.C. are calling on Mitzi Dean, child and family development minister to resign for what they said is “an inadequate approach and ongoing lack...
May 15, 2023
Mother of teen who died in Sask. ministry care still begging for accountability, action a year later
Ministry admits it took 29 days before caseworker went looking for teen, despite warning she was in danger CBC News: Almost one year ago, 14-year-old Stellayna Severight was found dead of a drug overdose in what the coroner’s report describes as an “unkempt” apartment building “with drug paraphernalia found scattered in the living room area.” The...
May 12, 2023
First Nations mothers allegedly told babies died shortly after birth in Saskatchewan hospitals
APTN News: The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) in Saskatchewan has asked the RCMP to investigate a pair of cases from 1967 and 1982 involving allegations that hospital staff falsely told mothers their babies had died shortly after birth to possibly facilitate a deceptive adoption scheme. “The cruelty that was shown is just unthinkable,”...
March 21, 2023
Saskatchewan First Nation comes to B.C. to talk about taking over child welfare
The Globe and Mail: Leaders of a Saskatchewan First Nation are in Vancouver to launch plans to take over control of child welfare services for its members. It comes as the Key First Nation sent a letter to Premier David Eby expressing “heartbreak and outrage” at the loss of one of its teenage members while...
March 15, 2023
Changes needed to cutoff age for Child and Family Services support, Manitoba youth advocacy network says
Too many Manitoba kids aging out of care into homelessness every year, says director CBC News: Every year, hundreds of children in Manitoba age out of the child welfare system, and advocates say too little is being done to offer early transitional support. Now, some want the age cutoff for kids in care scrapped entirely....
March 8, 2023
‘A better way’: An Indigenous alternative to Ontario’s faltering child-welfare system
Global News: Ethan Pokno’s knee shakes nervously as he recalls the moment he says his whole life flashed before him. He was 12 years old. He and his three younger brothers were sent to foster homes and — for Ethan and the second-oldest brother — ultimately a group home a 10-hour drive away. “Still scars...
January 4, 2023
Cree girl who died should never have been taken by Children’s Services, Alberta judge finds
Fatality inquiry examined the circumstances of 4-year-old Serenity’s death Warning: This story contains a graphic image. CBC News: The death of a four-year-old Cree girl in 2014 was the result of her being taken away from her mother by Children’s Services years earlier, an Alberta judge has found. The young girl, Serenity, was living with...
November 28, 2022
Mother of Cree teen who died in B.C. group home testifies at coroner’s inquest
In the days after her son disappeared, Samantha Chalifoux said she knocked on doors and windows of the British Columbia group home where he was living, only to learn later that his body had been found hanging in closet of the same house. Chalifoux was the first witness to testify Monday at the BC Coroners...
June 14, 2022
Anishinabek Nation response to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child report on welfare of Indigenous children
ANISHINABEK NATION HEAD OFFICE (June 14, 2022) – On behalf of the Anishinabek Nation, Grand Council Chief Reg Niganobe and Children’s Commissioner Ogimaa Duke Peltier have issued a statement in response to the recent report released by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child expressing deep concerns about the welfare of Indigenous children...
May 26, 2022
Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs challenge Bill C-92 jurisdiction and provincial amendments to Child and Family Services Act
NationTalk: Treaty One Territory, Manitoba – The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) calls on the provincial government to work with First Nations before any amendment to the Child and Family Services Act (CFS Act) related to First Nations’ jurisdiction. “The AMC has been clear and direct; government officials must support First Nations led jurisdiction over...
May 5, 2022
All funding to support at-risk Indigenous families awarded to non-Indigenous agency
Toronto Star (Windspeaker): After 12 years of successfully supporting at-risk Indigenous families in the Grande Prairie area who have interactions with Alberta’s child welfare system, Mamewpitaw has not received the provincial dollars to keep operating. Worse than that, says Grande Prairie Friendship Centre (GPFC) president Leonard Auger, the money to support Indigenous families has gone to...
April 19, 2022
Indigenous Youth Care in Montreal
NationTalk: Exactly six months after it asked the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission to launch an inquiry on its own initiative into systemic racism in employment and service delivery at Batshaw Youth and Family Centers, the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (NWSM) still has not received any response. The silence is treated as...
May 3, 2021
Laurent Commission Final Report
The Special Commission on the Rights of the Child and Youth Protection (Laurent Commission), released their Final Report. The Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL) and the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission (FNQLHSSC) would like to thank the commissioners, …for their openness to including a chapter dedicated to First...
April 30, 2021
Report on Child Abuse and Neglect
“Mashkiwenmi-daa Noojimowin: Let’s Have Strong Minds for the Healing” is the first report of the First Nations Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect-2018 (FNOIS-2018). Objectives and Scope The primary objective of the OIS- 2018 is to provide reliable estimates of the scope and characteristics of child abuse and neglect investigated by child...
April 9, 2021
Cuts to Child Welfare Budgets
Southern Chiefs Organization (SCO) – criticized the 2021 provincial budget cuts for foster care and child protection, with the budget dropping below $500 million for the first time in four years. The province claims that efficiencies are the reason for the decreasing budget, but for too long, children in care, 90% of whom are Indigenous, have...
June 15, 2020
Birth Alerts
CTV News – The Province of Manitoba has announced it will end the controversial practice of birth alerts on June 30, 2020 and will instead refer vulnerable mothers and their children to social services and programs. Under the new system, Stefanson said Manitoba Child and Family Services (CFS) agencies will now be able to refer...
March 28, 2020
Birth Alerts
Manitoba Families Minister Heather Stephanson announced that there will be a delay in ending the controversial Birth Alert practice due to COVID-19. On Jan. 31, 2020, the government had announced that child welfare and public health systems in Manitoba will no longer issue birth alerts for high-risk expectant mothers as of April 1, 2020. In...
February 12, 2020
Laurent Commission Final Report
The Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL) and the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission (FNQLHSSC) – presented a joint brief to the Laurent Commission (Special Commission on the Rights of Children and Youth Protection) aimed in particular at reaffirming the rights of First Nations to decide on the future...
November 19, 2019
Indigenous Youth Care in Montréal
APTN: Release of “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Child Welfare Services for indigenous clientele living in Montreal” presents a scathing analysis of Indigenous youth care in the Montreal area. Assembled over three years by stakeholders from the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal, Concordia University, Rising Sun Daycare, and the Youth Department of the public...
September 25, 2019
Deaths of Indigenous Children in Child Welfare
72 Indigenous children connected to child welfare died in northern Ontario, where three Indigenous agencies covering most of the territory were underfunded approximately $400 million over a five-year period. The number of deaths jumps to 102 Indigenous children when looking at the entire province between 2013 to 2017. Almost half of the deaths, 48 in...
February 22, 2019
Child Welfare Funding Objections
The government of Manitoba met with the Indigenous Leadership Council (Manitoba Métis Federation, Southern Chiefs’ Organization and Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak) for first time in over two years despite a previous commitment to meet every quarter. The heads of the Indigenous Leadership Council met again with Minister of Families Heather Stefanson on Apr. 3, 2019 over...
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