Children’s Advocate calls for government commitment to address care issues

Despite recommendations from the Office of the Child and Youth Advocate, the number of Aboriginal children in care continues to increase.

“That we made a recommendation last year for government to take action in partnership with Aboriginal people to start to change that trend and recognizing that the government has spoken and there has been a number of discussions ongoing that in fact that trend has gotten worse, that is a surprise,” said Del Graff, the province’s Child and Youth Advocate. “I had been hopeful that in fact it would start to move the other way or at least flatten out.”

In Graff’s 2011-2012 annual report, he states that the “disproportionate number of Aboriginal young people in government care increased again in 2011.” That disturbing statistic is a result of more Aboriginal children being taken into care and a decrease of non-Aboriginal children needing government care. Although Aboriginal children account for nine per cent of the population, in March 2012 they comprised 68 per cent of children in care. In 2011, 66 per cent of children in government care were Aboriginal.

Graff says recommendations made by his office are not to be taken lightly.

“We expect the government would take the advice of the Child and Youth Advocate for the province to look at what we’re recommending and in fact develop action on that. I’m certainly not of the view it should be disregarded,” he said, admitting he is discouraged by both the lack of action and the increased numbers. “This is an issue we raise because of its importance to all Albertans. My expectation is that government would act.”

But while the government has continued discussions on the issue, an action plan has yet to materialize. That, says Graff, is a concern for him, especially since the recommendation for an action plan has been made in successive years by both him and his predecessor.

“The information that is available to me, (the government) hasn’t done that sufficiently to make that trend change at all,” said Graff and he is at a loss to say why action has not been taken.

Care for Aboriginal children falls under both provincial and federal jurisdiction, but Graff says he has not made a distinction between the two levels of government in his recommendations.

“The notion (of) the federal and provincial funding jurisdiction is secondary to saying we’ve got to address this issue directly,” he said. “I don’t think that there’s any group that’s looked at the question of children in government care who hasn’t recognized that this is an issue for Alberta.”

Graff notes that any action plan developed by the ministry has to be done in partnership with Aboriginal groups. That does present a challenge because of historical abuse of Aboriginal people by government. However, Graff says the government has developed action plans for complex initiatives before.

Bernadette Iahtail, executive director with the Creating Hope Society, says it is important that partnerships are formed which will lead to understanding, a mandate of her organization when it comes to child welfare.

“We always say that we as Aboriginal people have the answer, the Aboriginal families have the answers. But we have to be able to ask the right questions in order for our families to be able to click, and say, ‘This is the issue that I have, this is what I can work with, or this is what can be done.’ Children’s Services is recognizing that,” she said.

The issues are complex, Iahtail adds, and include intergenerational hurts that have yet to be dealt with by parents. Until that happens, she says, the number of Aboriginal children taken into care will continue to grow. And until child welfare workers understand the underlying issues, trying to help families will be difficult.

“Some of the caseworkers don’t know how to work with our families. They’re making decisions rather than working with the families and trying to find different solutions,” said Iahtail. “If we’re going to be doing some work, we’ve all got to be on the same page.”

Both Graff and Iahtail are encouraged by the creation of a new assistant deputy minister position in 2011 for Aboriginal engagement and strategy. Catherine Twinn, a member of the Sawridge First Nation, is in that position.

“It’s really important in my view to shift this trend from having increasing numbers of Aboriginal children in care to start finding ways to make these numbers start to decrease. It’s just about changing trends and that takes committed and intentional effort,” said Graff.