Status of Women committee  We're big business, okay. It costs over $340 per day to maintain a high-needs kid in a group home.

Status of Women committee  It could do an awful lot for the family, but nobody wants to talk about it. You're paying $100 a day to keep a child in foster care. I'm paying some of my foster parents $6,000 a month tax-free to look after four or five children. Just think, if we gave $2,000 to that family and provided some supervision and some guidance and support, how they could survive.

Status of Women committee  Well, I think everybody knows what they have to do to get their act together. As workers with these families, we have to let them decide what they want to do and then support them the best way we can. I find the problem right now is that once the children are apprehended, they forget the families, and the families are allowed to do what they've been doing wrong.

Status of Women committee  We've been running our Choices school program for 17 years now. We have aboriginal social workers. They're in the five highest needs schools in the city, where there are large numbers of aboriginal children. We provide a morning snack, and it allows the children who have issues or difficulties to come and get a snack and maybe talk to the social worker and set up a chance to come back and discuss what's bothering them.

Status of Women committee  We live in the aboriginal community. I think we know just about every aboriginal person we read about in the newspapers. We have to start working with the families. We have to start with the individuals. We have to provide that support to them. We're not doing enough of that. That's where it has to start.

Status of Women committee  I think the biggest thing right now is poverty. I think this is a great sitting, because my boarding school, when I was in care, was just kitty-corner from here. Ironically, that's where they built children's services. I come from a family of residential school survivors. My wife went into residential school when she was six and came out at 14.

Status of Women committee  I will, Chair. Good morning. I am the executive director of the Métis Child and Family Services Society in Edmonton. Our agency delivers 10 community programs to the citizens of this city, specifically to the aboriginal community. Violence against aboriginal women begins at an early age.