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 a non-Indigenous organization. 

Mamewpitaw, operated by the GPFC, offered culturally focused intervention support and re-unification programs for Indigenous families at risk. It was the first time GPFC had to respond to a request for proposals to get funding for Mamewpitawn. In previous years the province had not requested proposals from contract holders for family intervention services, says program coordinator Abby Bourque. 

“There were other friendship centres in the communities that we collaborated with in the writing of this proposal. So they were writing proposals for their communities,” she said. 

Proposals went forward from Peace River and High Level, with High Level servicing both that community and Paddle Prairie Métis Settlement. While the Mamewpitaw program would have been new to the others, says Bourque, the proposals saw the friendship centres, including Grande Prairie, sharing Elders, land resources and other supports. She stressed that all the friendship centres had built strong relationships in their communities and had strong foundations. 

None of the proposals from the friendship centres were approved. Instead, all of the region’s funding for family intervention services went to PACE, a non-Indigenous organization in Grande Prairie that focuses on sexual assault and trauma.

“Our program was unique in that everything was embedded in culture. Our participants felt like they belonged here. They felt that connection. We used wholistic approaches to healing and to giving them strategies for parenting and stuff, which is going to be that missing component with that other agency because they just aren’t equipped for that,” said Bourque. “We were shocked and surprised and quite honestly heartbroken because we just really believe in the work that we do.” 

Now GPFC is scrambling to access other funding, both federal, through Jordan’s Principle, and provincial. They had applied for $700,000 through Alberta Children’s Services. “Whatever fits into what our vision is, we’ll be providing proposals for,” said Bourque. 

In a news release from GPFC board, Children’s Services was called out for implementing an adjudication process for the Family Intervention Services funding that “did not include Indigenous representation as decision-makers, nor did it address factors and programming necessary for Indigenous people in its scoring criteria.”