Aboriginal foster parents needed

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The Ministry for Children and Families in British Columbia is looking for Aboriginal people willing to open their homes to Aboriginal children in care.

With 30 per cent of the children in care in B.C. of Aboriginal ancestry, the numbers of Aboriginal families to care for them are falling short.

Stan Parenteau is deputy director of Aboriginal services in the child protection division of the ministry for Children and Families in British Columbia.

He said the ministry has been working both to decrease the number of Aboriginal children in care, and to increase the number of Aboriginal foster parents in B.C.

One of the initiatives undertaken has been entering into delegation agreements with First Nations communities, allowing the communities to establish their own child welfare agencies. The ministry currently has 17 agreements in place covering about 115 of the 197 First Nations in the province. The ministry is also negotiating agreements with two urban-based Aboriginal organizations, and will be negotiating with other communities in the future.

Another initiative was the formation of the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents, set up a year ago to support Aboriginal foster parents and assist in recruitment.

"Our legislation itself even speaks to out of home living arrangements, about the need to look at priority placement for Aboriginal children in Aboriginal homes," Parenteau said. "It's just recognizing the need to place children in foster homes that are Aboriginal foster homes. We're looking at extended family first, and we?re looking at their community."

"It's been recognized that by placing Aboriginal children in non-Aboriginal homes, that it's not only had an impact on the individual child, but it's had an impact on their communities as well," he said.

"First Nations people and all Aboriginal people look at members of their community and their children as being, of course - I mean this is just a catch phrase that you hear, but it's true - they look at their children as being their future. And if they lose members of their community by having them placed outside of their community, they're potentially losing not only members of their community, but how their whole community has been structured historically, and how they have cared for their children historically. As you probably know, all Aboriginal communities did have their own type of social welfare, where if a parent wasn't able to care for their child, they had grandparents caring for their child," he said.

"There's been a whole history about the impact of residential schools on the community itself and the cycle that's been created, and a lot of Aboriginal people see that the over-representation of Aboriginal children in government care is just another form of assimilation. So it has a large impact on the community. It has a large impact on their social structures, and it has a large impact on how the community can grow and maintain itself as a unique set of people. Now from the child's perspective again, if we look at it rather than the collective and look at is just as a child, there's a lot of issues that children have faced by being placed in non-Aboriginal homes. Just typically, some of the things are a loss of connection with their community, a loss of connection with their extended family, a loss of connection. When you lose your community and extended family, then you don't have any means of maintaining who you are in your culture, and then if you don't have a sense of who you are as a culture, then it has an impact on who you are as a person, and so you lose a sense of identity. You lose your language, and you lose your culture and you lose your sense of identity,' he said.

According to Parenteau, the advantage to having Aboriginal children placed within an Aboriginal foster care setting is that 'a child is more likely to grow up to be a healthy, functioning member of society, their community, and have a strong se of who they are, and a sense of pride in who they are...I mean everybody needs a sense of who they are, a sense of pride, a sense of belonging, whether it's to a family or a community, and when you have that you have a more well adapted person and a stronger person.'

As a foster parent, Parenteau said, a person needs to be prepared 'to provide day to day care for a child, a nurturing environment for a child so they can grow, and a connection - even if they're from the same Aboriginal community - a connection back to their family...and a willingness to share the child's culture with the child, and, of course, the best way of doing it is someone who practices their own culture.'

"We're not looking for parents or caregivers that can do anything for everybody. We would look at what their skills are, and we would place children with them depending on their skills and what they feel are their limitations in who they can provide care for," he said.

"We really do want to recruit more Aboriginal foster parents and, until they come forward and show an interest, we have a hard time reaching out to them."

Parenteau said anyone wanting more information about becoming a foster parent should contact their local child welfare organization if they live in an Aboriginal community that has one in place, or contact the district office of the Ministry for Children and Families.