Support in place to promote well-being of children

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While the ideal place for a child to grow up is in his or her own home with his or her own parents, sometimes, due to child neglect or abuse, that situation becomes less than ideal. When that happens, the children affected are placed in foster care.

Currently about 38 per cent of the children in care in Alberta are Aboriginal. The figure is about the same for the region served by Sakaigun Asky Child and Family Services, which covers northeastern Alberta, and has area offices in Fort Saskatchewan, Bonnyville, Cold Lake, Lac La Biche, St. Paul, Vegreville, and Smokey Lake.

There is a need for more Aboriginal people to become foster parents in the region, so that more Aboriginal children in care can be placed in a more familiar environment, explained Gayle Desmeules, Aboriginal relations consultant for Sakaigun Asky Child and Family Services.

"We look to the community to help us care for children, and families who need support. So when you have a child or children who are experiencing serious neglect or abuse, and it's rather traumatic, and they're removed from their home, and they're placed in a context or an environment that is very unfamiliar to them.

"And what I'm speaking of is how people communicate to each other. Aboriginal people, or any cultures, have little nuances of how they relate and connect. And so, just the environment of that would be unfamiliar, as well as adjusting to what's happened in their family. I think it's less traumatic for young children in care to be put within Aboriginal foster parents, preferably if from the community, that's ideal. Or at least a community that's within distance, and the people know about their home community," Desmeules said.

This becomes even more of an issue when children are in long-term foster care which, according to Kathleen Walker, foster care and adoption specialist with Sakaigun Asky, is when children have been in care for three years or more.

"And that is also when we start, if the child is not eligible for adoption, we start trying to recruit a family who would be willing to commit long-term to the child, until adulthood," Walker said.

To ensure children in long-term care do maintain that connection with their home community and heritage, those requirements are built into the long-term foster care agreements, explained Desmeules.

"If they're in an Aboriginal home, that's a lot easier to facilitate. Because children, to be well-adjusted beings, they need to learn about self and self-identity, and who they are in the world. And so that's a key, critical part of any child developing, whether in foster care or not. You know, you always go through, 'Well, who am I?' So that would be a very critical area, just the self-development of children."

Desmeules has been working on a project designed to help foster children maintain that connection by giving foster parents of Aboriginal children support, and helping them to understand Aboriginal culture.

"What I'm trying as a pilot project is, I'm calling it a volunteer mentorship program. And I have a student from Blue Quills First Nations College, a social work student, and we're just working out the finer details. He actually did my pilot, he served as a resource for Aboriginal children in care to the foster family, and took them to a powwow, and helped explain what it is, in their home community. Helped to explain what it was, and helped the foster parents to learn some of the traditional values and beliefs, so that there is some connection for the kids . . . because the majority of our foster parents are non-Aboriginal right now. And so it will help them, because it's not because they don't think it's important, but they just don't know how to go about doing it."

Desmeules hopes to have the volunteer mentorship program up and running in the new year. Ideally program mentors would come from the home community of the child in care.

If that isn't possible, a cultural guide or Elder from a nearby Aboriginal cmmunity who shares the same cultural background as the child could also serve as a mentor.

"It's what works. So if they can link up to local community resources, then great. And obviously connection with home has to be maintained."

The volunteer mentorship program is just one of the many supports in place to help foster parents, explained Walker.

"We also provide training. We offer an initial 24 hours training over eight sessions, to familiarize parents with our authority and with the foster care program. And then there's ongoing training if they wish to proceed further."

The training covers such things as what types of children are in care, what types of special needs they may have, as well as information about the structure of the regional Child and Family Services office, and the importance of family ties. The last session features a panel, which allows those in training to ask other parents questions about foster parenting.

And in an attempt to better reach out into the Aboriginal community to recruit Aboriginal foster parents, Sakaigun Asky Child and Family Services has partnered with two Aboriginal agencies-the Bonnyville Native Friendship Centre, and Metis Child and Family Services in Lac La Biche. The two agencies have their own foster care programs in place, and can also provide support to the foster parents they recruit.

One of the greatest rewards a person can get from becoming a foster parent, Walker explained, is the feeling of satisfaction, knowing you've made a difference in the life of a child.

"Most people I find, and it really doesn't matter what nationality, is that they're doing it to provide a stable, safe, loving home for a child. That's usually their reasoning, I guess, the satisfaction level that they get."

And that feeling doesn't have to end once the child is returned to their natural parents. In fact, Walker said, most of the time it doesn't, with many foster families retaining their ties to both the child and the natural family ven after the placement is over.

"A lot of them have very good relationships with the natural family. They end up acting as role models. And they usually keep the connection to the child and the family after the child's return home. So I think they would say that's a really positive reinforcement for them," she said.

"They essentially act as role models for the parents, but they also sometimes act as a support for the natural family. Because there are some kids who have special needs, and sometimes that parent just may not know how to deal with that particular behavior, especially when we're placing that child back home. And so they can always phone up the foster parent and say, 'How did you handle that specific behavior?'"

One of the main reasons more people don't become foster parents, Walker explained, is that they think the process is more work than it really is.

"People think that there's too many barriers to go through, but really it's not all that difficult. There are some mandatory requirements, and one would be a criminal record check, and that's a positive criminal record check. So a person may have a criminal record, but it depends on the nature of the criminal record. Also a CWIS, a Child Welfare Information System Check, and again, it's a positive one. They must be in a stable relationship for more than two years. So you can be single, common-law or married, divorced, or that type of thing, over the age of 18. And then we require also a medical, a positive medical, just saying that they're physically able to foster. And then a positive home study . . . we always do a face-to-face home study. In some cases we don't, because there is a language barrier. We don't require a self-assessment report," she said.

"You're required to do the training before your home study, so it can be pretty much over a two-month to three-month process, from the time you first submit your application to the time the training and the home study piece is complete."