The first thing that needs to happen is to again hear that voice of lived experience from those young people, because there is a presumption that the system is their advocate. In fact, I've had it said to me and, really, I've watched it over four decades. There's nothing more destructive to a community than child welfare bodies, child welfare authorities, because they are literally incapable of understanding or taking a strength-based approach. They talk about it, but they actually don't know how to do it. We developed a family support model that we went to elders with, and the elders told us that's how we talk about it all the time but nobody listens to us. There are natural traditional ways of supporting families, which no one is hearing about, so we have to go back to the community and talk to them about how they naturally support families, because they know how to do it.
On November 19th, 2020. See this statement in context.