BC Child welfare system broken?

The Representative for Child and Youth in British Columbia, Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond, suggests that the child welfare system in her province is broken. She made the comments in a report presented by the ATPN media. One issue that she raises is that, for Aboriginal children, too often funding is linked to the child being in care versus prevention efforts to keep children out of care. Turpel-Lafond has many case examples to back up her worry.

Prevention needs to address issues that child welfare is not set up to manage. Poverty is the main reason that Aboriginal children are in care. Child welfare cannot solve that. They can only respond to the effects of poverty which are typically seen in the form of neglect.

As a new federal government takes shape in Canada, now is the time for at least three core  Aboriginal child welfare issues to be tackled:

1. Start fully funding child welfare on reserves across this country;
2. Implement prevention programs to keep children out of care; and
3. When it is necessary to provide protection to child keep the child within the community and family system by providing needed supports for kinship care to be successful.

In my view, these are priorities. We should be getting them on to the agenda of this new government.

To view the ATPN report, go here.