Thank you.
Good morning.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the standing committee as they consider Bill C-92. I'm going to speak from a technician's perspective as the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations will speak from the political perspective.
I have a master's in business administration with 35 years of experience in human services and 25 years in child welfare. I've worked in first nations child welfare agencies, as well as social services child welfare in Saskatchewan. I've seen children come into care as a result of neglect caused by addictions. Parents are susceptible to addictions as they mask the pain from intergenerational trauma. We have learned that parents need culturally appropriate trauma recovery programs to break the cycles of addictions in dysfunctional families. Kanaweyimik Child and Family Services has stabilized the number of children ending up in care due to culturally appropriate, early intervention services and intensive supports provided to children and families.
We service five first nations communities and we average 50 to 60 children in care at any given time; 85% of these children are either long-term wards or person of sufficient interest orders, meaning they're in care until they're 18 years of age. The remaining 15% are new apprehensions, but we've seen that they come in and out of care in a very short time frame. Too many indigenous children are in care. Many extenuating factors cause these numbers to rise. Many of our indigenous families are suffering from decades of unresolved traumas they've experienced, and this is affecting their ability to be effective parents. Removal from parental homes is very traumatic for children. We can see this will impact the children's lives as they grow up to be parents themselves. These children always end up returning to their families when they age out of care, regardless of the history of neglect.
It's important that we consider ways to keep families together and to work towards reunification in a timely manner with culturally appropriate supports. I am in support of Bill C-92 as it will enable first nations child and family service agencies to expand culturally appropriate services to children and families living off reserve, but we must be careful in the transition of responsibilities to ensure that no child falls between jurisdictions [Technical difficulty—Editor] lead to the readiness of Saskatchewan first nations child and family service agencies.
We have 16 agencies in Saskatchewan, [Technical difficulty—Editor] 20 to 25 years of experience in delivering child protection services. Sixteen agencies have 10 years of experience in developing and delivering a range of culturally appropriate early intervention and intensive supports to children and families. Two agencies from northern Saskatchewan have entered into agreements with Saskatchewan Social Services to assume delivery of child welfare services off reserve to any resident in those areas. Three agencies have entered into agreements with Saskatchewan Social Services to deliver culturally appropriate early intervention and intensive supports to children and families involved with social services. For example, Kanaweyimik has entered into agreements to manage visitation services for children in the care of social services. In North Battleford, Saskatchewan, social services refers all the families requiring family visits to Kanaweyimik. The agency coordinates, schedules, monitors and transports children to and from visits. Kanaweyimik also provides two emergency foster homes to serve children apprehended by social services so they're in a first nations home. We provide culturally appropriate early intervention and intensive supports to children and families involved with social services, resulting in a lot of returns of children in a timely manner.
As another example, we have agreements with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice to deliver family violence treatment for any individuals, regardless of race, who are involved with the domestic violence court in The Battlefords. All our agencies have agreements with Saskatchewan to locate and screen families and caregivers for indigenous children in care of social services. We all have agreements with Saskatchewan, again, to case manage children in care files once children have been placed in homes that have been screened and approved on reserve. All our agencies have been trained by social services to deliver the P.R.I.D.E. foster parent program to potential caregivers, so I believe Saskatchewan is in a position to transition our prevention services to off reserve.
Some critical considerations for Bill C-92 are that it needs to ensure that first nations child and family service agencies' capacities will be sustained, and we need legislation that commits governments to ongoing funding for agencies based on actual needs, not only for on reserve, but also for off reserve. This is a whole new area for us.
We need legislation that addresses liability, such as the Saskatchewan Child and Family Services Act, section 79, which provides for immunity as long as an official is acting in good faith. We need legislation that requires establishment of a process for interjurisdictional transfers, similar to the interprovincial transfer protocol, so that no children fall in between jurisdictions.
Legislation must commit to Jordan's principle on an ongoing basis in order to prevent gaps in services to vulnerable children.
We need legislation that enables agencies to radically change the way child protection is done, such as removing parents versus removing children from the home. Current provincial legislation doesn't allow us to do that, nor does Bill C-92. This is an area that Kanaweyimik Child and Family Services is moving to. We've tried it in voluntary situations and it has been very effective.
Our elders have advised us to concentrate on the children and young people, as they are our future. We need to balance our modern-day techniques and traditional values and practices to strengthen our families.