Happy Jar

• European contact began in the 1600’s which lead to the trading of fur and other goods.
• Soon after, occupancy, conflict, disease and wars took place to destroy the Original peoples.  They were successful in killing many and completely eradicating some cultural groups.
• Pre-Confederation treaties began in 1701.  The intention was to create peace but conflict continued.
• The Indian Act of 1876 established the Federal Government as “guardian” of the Aboriginal peoples..  Aboriginals were considered uncivilized and in need of fixing.  Aboriginal culture needed to be abolished and replaced by Christianity.
• Between 1840 and 1983, over 100,000 Aboriginal children were placed in residential schools.  The purpose was to assimilate, segregate, and integrate them into the mainstream Canadian society.  The majority of these schools were sponsored by religious organizations.
• Separation from family for months and years resulted in children losing their language, culture, and spirituality; as well as, their sense of belonging, community, and nation.
• Children experienced physical, sexual, emotional, spiritual, and psychological abuse.
• Children were denied love and affection, and Aboriginal parents were denied the right to raise their own children.
• As the residential schools started to close (last school closed in 1996), children continued to be removed from their homes by the child welfare system and placed into “Canadian” foster homes or made into permanent wards.  This was called “The Sixties Scoop”.

• Child Welfare Workers were involved in the apprehension and transporting of children to residential schools and during the Sixties Scoop.
• Many child welfare workers today are met with community members’ fear, distrust, anger, and hurt. This continues to influence the ability to form relationships of trust with families, especially when some social workers represent ‘the government’ and are tasked with the duty to remove children from unsafe situations.
• Current government and social systems, which employ social workers, continue to be racist, discrimatory, oppressive, and stigmatizing.

• Intergenerational trauma (IGT), or transgenerational trauma, is what happens when untreated trauma-related stress experienced by survivors is passed on to second and subsequent generations. Direct survivors of these experiences often transmit the trauma to later generations when they don’t recognize or have the opportunity to address their issues. Over the course of time these behaviours, often destructive, become normalized within the family and their community, leading to the next generation suffering the same problems (Shein, n.d).
• Related to Intergenerational trauma is the concept of historical trauma (HT) which has been identified as “…a group of reactions to multigenerational, collective, historical wounding of the mind, emotions, and spirit.  Historical trauma for Aboriginal populations is understood to be linked directly to the banning of cultural practices, policies and institutions of assimilation, and loss of culture.” (Mitchell & Maracle, 2005, pg. 15)

• As compared to the general population, Indigenous peoples have higher rates of:
  • Suicide and self-harm
  • Alcohol and drug addiction
  • Gambling and gaming addiction
  • Depression and other mental health disorders
• Social issues include higher rates of:
  • Family violence
  • Elder/child abuse
  • Lack of familial attachments
  • Incarceration
  • Poverty and food insecurity
  • Loss of culture and identity
• Ongoing systemic issues include:
  • Racism, oppression, and assimilation
  • Lack of resources
  • Discrimination and stigma

• White                          97,269
• Indigenous                    2,121
• Black                             3,607
• Latin American             2,171
• Arab                              1,696
• South East Asian           2,797
• East Asian                      4,574

• While 42.2% of the children in care are white they represent 73.0% of the child population
• Indigenous children only come from 2.2% of the child population but account for 33.2% of the children in care,
• Also, black children come from 5.0% of the child population but account for 9.9% of the children in care

• Disproportionality is the level to which groups of children are present in the child welfare system at higher or lower percent/rates than their presence in the general population.

• Disparity means a lack of equity between groups.  The disparity index is a means of comparing the levels disproportionality among various ethnic groups. 

• Indigenous Leaders Circle
• Two Row Understanding Service Teams
• Development of culturally appropriate services
• Indigenous Services Director (appointed December 2020)
• Self-Governance for Indigenous peoples related to Family and Children services issues

Closing Remarks & Reminders