'It Takes a Child to Raise a Village'

Canada’s residential schools have divided Indigenous families for generations — the human rights abuses in those facilities divided families and contributed to intergenerational trauma and a vast overrepresentation of Indigenous children placed in the so-called child “welfare” system.

Today, there is a wide-ranging network of survivors, advocates and leaders who are working towards a new way forward. They are working to ensure Indigenous communities can assume jurisdiction over their own child and family well-being systems in Canada. Indigenous governing bodies can decide if they want to assume jurisdiction, or partner with federal and provincial governments to ensure no Indigenous child gets left behind.

“Children and women are the heart of community,” Jessica Knutson told The Tyee. Knutson is a survivor of the child “welfare” system and is now a social worker.

“It’s so important and really significant that nations are able to use their own protocols to be able to care for their children.” Indigenous nations should make decisions for their own children, she added, and “that looks different for each nation.”

Traditionally, Indigenous Peoples saw the care of a child as the responsibility of an extended family. When problems arose, the extended family would come together to support the child and try to come to a consensus decision to solve the problem, the 1992 report Liberating our Children says.

The colonial way — separating children from their parents — was different and harsh.

“Your child protection laws have devastated our cultures and our family life. This must come to an end,” the 1992 report said.

Thirty-three years later, the changes the 1992 report called for are gradually underway. Other reports also reference the harms caused by the child “welfare” system, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Grand Chief Ed John’s 2016 National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls on Indigenous child welfare in British Columbia also explored these harms in depth and recommended supporting Indigenous families to stay together and supported full Indigenous jurisdiction over children.

In a special Tyee series partnering with the Spotlight: Child Welfare project, journalist Tracy Sherlock pulls back the curtain on the long fight towards Indigenous jurisdiction, and what the future holds for child services in Canada.

This series steps into the fight for Indigenous jurisdiction over child services in Canada. It was produced as part of Spotlight: Child Welfare, a collaborative journalism project hosted by The Tyee that aims to improve reporting on the child “welfare” system.