Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am going to read the report, the Child and Family Services Act review.

Overview - The Way Forward

The grim legacy of residential schools continues under the current child and family services system.

From Fort Liard to Ulukhaktok, members of the Standing Committee on Social Programs heard these sentiments hundreds of times. Families lose their children instead of getting help to cope; children are sent away to distant foster parents instead of to the homes of extended family. Alcohol and other addictions ravage families and communities but there are few practical avenues for treatment, and little or no local support for those who do strive to break free.

The stories are all too real. Families across the Northwest Territories have suffered incredible tragedy and heartbreak in the past 80 years. First, severe flu epidemics took a terrible toll. Then, as families struggled to rebuild and recover, their children were taken away and sent to residential schools, often hundreds of kilometres away, with no way to get there but dog team. Communities emptied of young children were left to mourn; the children grew up without parents, missing the love and knowledge they deserved. This devastating practice went on for decades. The effects, spanning four generations, are still being felt today.

Testimony from our communities is supported by the shocking fact that more than 90 percent of child welfare cases involve aboriginal children. The causes are rooted in a long history of discrimination, assimilation, trauma and cultural loss in residential schools, social inequality and poverty, poor housing, and the lack of focus on prevention and support for families in need by child welfare services.

Community input is also consistent with the

evidence of professionals in the field, which shows that many parents involved in child welfare cases are victims themselves. A comprehensive 2003 study found that in 88 percent of cases, the female caregiver suffered from a physical, emotional, cognitive or behavioural issue, and was the victim of domestic abuse 73 percent of the time. In 38 percent of cases, the female caregiver disclosed that she was herself maltreated as a child, as did 23 percent of the men. The male parent in child welfare cases is a perpetrator of domestic violence in 41 percent of cases. Alcohol and drug abuse are prevalent among both parents.

But that is not the end of the story. In its review of the Child and Family Services Act, the committee heard that changes must be made both to the legislation and to the way it is delivered. Many objectives of the act are simply not being met. However, Members also heard that there is hope, that the communities want to take responsibility for their children, that a new relationship can be built with the Department of Health and Social Services. It is in this spirit that the committee offers its recommendations for change. In fact, committee members believe change is already underway. In the interest of building stronger families, the

Minister of Health and Social Services assigned child and family services’ staff to tour the communities with us to hear directly from the people.

The committee came away from the tour with great confidence in local leadership and the communities’ ability to play a key role in improving the child welfare system.

We were given a great deal of excellent advice, and there is more of it in the pages that follow. Here are the essential recommendations, from which the rest flow:

Recommendation 1

Focus on prevention and early intervention, helping families stay together and heal; including expansion of the Healthy Families Program into every community.

Recommendation 2

Take the least intrusive measures possible to deliver child welfare services, with increased emphasis on collaborative processes to solve family problems.

Recommendation 3

Set up and fund child and family services committees in every community, as set out in the act, providing resources to communities taking more responsibility for child welfare.

Recommendation 4

Provide alcohol and drug treatment, readily accessible and convenient to all communities.

Recommendation 5

Extend child and family services to youth aged 16 to 19, with provisions to assist young adults to age 23.

Recommendation 6

Improve the administration of child and family services by updating procedures, with particular emphasis on increasing extended family placements, custom adoptions and community-based solutions.

Recommendation 7

Develop a comprehensive Anti-Poverty Strategy that includes coordinating the work and policies of the departments of Health and Social Services; Education, Culture and Employment; Justice; and the NWT Housing Corporation in areas related to child welfare, such as social assistance, legal aid and housing.

Recommendation 8

Develop a strategic plan at the Department of Health and Social Services, incorporating the recommendations of this report, starting with a response to this report within 120 days.

Mr. Speaker, prevention and early intervention have traditionally been given low priority by the Department of Health and Social Services, but some positive steps have been taken in recent years to support families needing help. The Healthy Families Program is available to families, beginning with pregnancy and extending to children up to age five. The program features home visits to promote positive parenting, healthy childhood growth, and parent-child bonding as well as referrals to other community services. This is an excellent example of the direction child and family services should take. Unfortunately, the Healthy Families Program is only running in four large communities. The program is under-resourced and must be expanded and available in all communities.

Only the community of Fort McPherson has ever had a local child and family services committee, although provisions for them were made in the act in 1998. By setting up these committees, the department can rebuild its relationship with the communities, put local knowledge to good use, and shift its focus to prevention and early intervention with troubled families. Extended families will be more likely to be involved in solutions to family problems; some communities will likely work to restore the traditional role of elders. To be effective, child and family services committees must be properly funded and supported.

Current practice has focused much of child and family services’ work on families embroiled in crisis, and on the legal steps necessary when children enter custody of some kind. Far too often, apprehension becomes a permanent “solution,” removing the child from his or her family and community. More than a third of the 600 children receiving child welfare services in the Northwest Territories are in permanent custody. Adjusted for our population, we place more children in out-of-home care than any jurisdiction in Canada. This can, and must, change. Less intrusive measures can keep more families together and keep more children in their home communities.

Time and again, the committee was told that child neglect and maltreatment are rooted in alcohol and drug abuse. When children are removed from a family, it is common for the Plan of Care Agreement to require parents to complete an alcohol or drug treatment program. It is almost a guarantee of failure. Treatment often involves significant waiting times for centres that are far from home, and those who do succeed find little organized support for continued sobriety once they return home. In addition, the disparity of service and support is too great between large and small communities. This too must change.

It is well known that the years of young adulthood can be among the most challenging of our lives. Young people in the child welfare system, from age

16 to 19, are disadvantaged in our current system, to the point that their human rights are compromised. The gap in services for this age group was first raised in 1977 and remains to this day. In this instance, the act must be changed to require the director of child and family services to offer the same services to young adults as children receive, and further, to extend the director’s parental responsibility for permanent wards to age 23.

There are other barriers affecting children and families, falling under the departments of Education, Culture and Employment, Justice, and the NWT Housing Corporation. Many of these barriers can be reduced with coordinated action guided by a comprehensive Anti-Poverty Strategy. It is important that social assistance augments child and family services’ work; that families facing court hearings have good access to legal aid; that a family temporarily losing custody of children has a home to live in when they are reunited. An alarming proportion of child welfare cases arise among tenants of public housing, telling us that we need to look at the circumstances and supports available to families in public housing. The committee heard about problems in all these areas and they must be solved.

The hard truth is that many problems with our child welfare system are decades old, and we have not done enough to address them or their causes. A review by the Child Welfare League of Canada in 2000 is still instructive today: too little was being done to help families, through prevention and early intervention; families were forgotten after children were removed; staff caseloads were too high; there were problems with recruitment and training; and there was a lack of aboriginal staff, especially in management.

That said, without the amazing dedication and good-heartedness of many individual social workers and foster parents, our system would be far worse. These people regularly go beyond the call of duty, and find ways to help children and families. This group of people will be invaluable in improving child welfare in the future. In a small system like ours, even a handful of people can make a huge difference.

Mr. Speaker, most of the changes we advise can be made or started immediately. That is the recommendation of the committee. We also recognize that some of our most important recommendations will require investment. The committee believes very strongly that the future of NWT children and families warrants this investment. Services to protect and build strong families will benefit our children and our communities. As legislators, we must set priorities to see this through. That is what our constituents want and expect.

We thank everyone who assisted us in this review. Thank you to all those who attended the community hearings, who shared their stories and experiences, to those who made written submissions, to the department of child and family services staff who worked with us, and to all those who enabled our work. It is now our aim, and our duty, to begin making the changes required to build stronger families and communities. The people of the NWT deserve nothing less.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker, and now Mr. Bromley will continue reading our report. Thank you.