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Pathways to the Overrepresentation of Aboriginal …

Social Service Review(December 2004). 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights $ to theOverrepresentation ofAboriginal Children inCanada s child WelfareSystemNico Trocme Centre of Excellence for child welfare , University of TorontoDella KnokeCentre of Excellence for child welfare , University of TorontoCindy BlackstockFirst Nations child and Family Caring SocietyThis study compares child welfare services provided to Aboriginal (Indian) and Caucasianchildren in Canada. The findings suggest that child welfare reports involving Aboriginalchildren are more likely to be classified as suspected or substantiated than reports forCaucasian children.

Canada’s Child Welfare System 579 stock 2002). The last residential school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996 (Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Canada 2003).

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1 Social Service Review(December 2004). 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights $ to theOverrepresentation ofAboriginal Children inCanada s child WelfareSystemNico Trocme Centre of Excellence for child welfare , University of TorontoDella KnokeCentre of Excellence for child welfare , University of TorontoCindy BlackstockFirst Nations child and Family Caring SocietyThis study compares child welfare services provided to Aboriginal (Indian) and Caucasianchildren in Canada. The findings suggest that child welfare reports involving Aboriginalchildren are more likely to be classified as suspected or substantiated than reports forCaucasian children.

2 Aboriginal children also are twice as likely to be placed in foster Overrepresentation in out-of-home placement is explained statistically by socioeco-nomic, child , parent, and maltreatment characteristics. In addition, these variables play asignificant role in accounting for higher rates of case substantiation among Aboriginalchildren. These factors may reflect the multiple disadvantages experienced by reports from provincial and territorial ministries of child andfamily services for the years 2000 2002 estimate that 76,000 childrenand youth are living in out-of-home care in Canada (Farris-Manning578 Social Service Reviewand Zandstra 2003).

3 An estimated 40 percent of those children areAboriginal, or children labeled Indian or Native American in theUnited States (Farris-Manning and Zandstra 2003). Indeed, some prov-inces report that Aboriginal children comprise nearly 80 percent ofchildren living in out-of-home care (foster care, group care, and insti-tutional care; Aboriginal Justice Inquiry child welfare Initiative 2001).Yet, fewer than 5 percent of children in Canada are Aboriginal (HumanResources Development/Statistics Canada 1996).1 National statistics onplacement in out-of-home care are available for First Nations childrenliving on repeated calls to develop alternatives to re-moval, the number of First Nations children on reserve placed in out-of-home care increased by percent between 1995 and 2001(McKenzie 2002).

4 3In reviewing Canada s report on the implementationof the Convention on the Rights of the child , the United Nations Com-mittee on the Rights of the child specifically raised concerns regardingthe disproportionate risks faced by Aboriginal children. The reportcalled for Canada to strengthen its efforts to eliminate all forms ofdiscrimination and to address the inequalities (United Nations 2003).Although Overrepresentation is well documented, its explanation isunclear. The 1998 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported child Mal-treatment (CIS-98; Trocme et al.)

5 2001), the first national child welfarestudy in Canada to include a large sample of Aboriginal children, pro-vides an opportunity to explore some of the factors associated withintervention decisions made during the intake investigation BackgroundThe disproportionate number of Aboriginal children placed in out-of-home care is of particular concern in light of the history of assimila-tionist education and child welfare policies in Canada (Royal Commis-sion on Aboriginal Peoples 1996; Blackstock, Trocme , and Bennett2004). For more than a century, education for on-reserve Aboriginalchildren was primarily provided through church-run residential schoolsdesigned to assimilate Aboriginal children into both Caucasian cultureand the churches (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996; Mil-loy 1999).

6 The children were forbidden to speak their own languages,practice their spiritual traditions, or maintain their cultural were usually too far from reserves to enable contact with were separated in residence. Sexual and physical abuse anddeath from disease were common (Royal Commission on AboriginalPeoples 1996; Milloy 1999). Children in residential schools did not en-counter healthy parental role models and, as adults, frequently haddiminished capacity to care for their own children (Bennett and Black-Canada s child welfare System579stock 2002). The last residential school closed in Saskatchewan in 1996(Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Canada 2003).

7 Similarly, child welfare services for Aboriginal families relied heavilyon adoption into non- Aboriginal families. Aboriginal children were of-ten placed outside the province and sometimes outside the 11,132 children of Indian status were adopted between 1960 and1990 (Department of Indian Affairs, quoted by the Royal Commissionon Aboriginal Peoples 1996). The statistic does not include childrenwhose Indian status was not recorded or other nonstatus response to these often quite explicit assimilationist programs, arange of provincial and territorial child welfare policies now acknowl-edges the importance of children s Aboriginal heritage.

8 These policiesgive much greater control over the welfare of Aboriginal children totheir communities. Some provincial and territorial statutes require thatband representatives be party to proceedings in cases involving childrenwith First Nations status ( , the Ontario child and Family ServicesAct [2002] and the Alberta child welfare Act [2000]).5 There have beenseveral landmark cases in which bands sought to repatriate to Aboriginalcommunities Native children living in non- Aboriginal foster homes(Wente 2003a, 2003b; Bala et al. 2004). Aboriginal communities are alsobeginning to receive more control over the delivery of child welfareservices, although this varies considerably from one jurisdiction to an-other.

9 Their level of authority varies from providing support servicebefore and after child welfare investigations to being fully delegatedauthorities with jurisdiction on and, in a few cases, off reserve. To besure, the impact of these changes is limited by the relatively slow paceof implementation, the constraints inherent in provincially developedstatutes and regulations, and the lack of resources to provide familysupport is nevertheless surprising that the number of Ab-original children placed in out-of-home care continues to rise. In fact,more Aboriginal children are placed in out-of-home care today than inresidential schools at the height of the residential school movement(Blackstock 2003).

10 Ida Nicolaisen, a member of the United NationsPermanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, observes that systemic racismand xenophobia in the welfare and justice systems have ensured that indigenous children continued to be removed from their families bywelfare agencies that equated poverty with neglect (United Nations2003, p. 5). Given the disappointing effects of these policy and servicechanges, it is particularly important to examine the factors leading tothe dramatic Overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in Service ReviewPrevious Research on Overrepresentation of CulturalMinorities in CareYear-end statistics from several provinces track the proportion of FirstNations children in out-of-home care.


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