Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have one agency now that already has 14% of their child population in care, so all of their money is going to go immediately to protection services. They have communities in which 40% of their child population is in care. The rest of Canada would be outraged. They couldn't fill the kindergarten class last year because all of those children were in care and out of the community.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Meegwetch.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, if I used the words “best practice”, I apologize, because I don't like that term. It seems to imply that there are some practices that are better than others, and when we're looking at culturally appropriate services, we want good practice. There can be many different practices that are good, and for their communities those are the best practices.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is considerable research out there, specifically around children in care, that says the one variable that makes a difference to reaching good outcomes for kids in care is education, much more than where they're placed, much more than how many therapists see them or how many counselling sessions they have.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Similarly, I think if we were all on a level playing field to start with, then the comparability question might be a bit easier to do, but we're not. We did the same when we were doing the AJI transfer stuff and looking at what services are going to the agencies and what services the province provides to its agencies.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think who's providing the service is a big thing. We have a number of initiatives to do with training. We think a paradigm shift is needed even for how our aboriginal workers approach their work. They are trained in the mainstream social work faculties. They have a protection focus in how they are trained.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can tell you that the main drivers in Manitoba for children coming into care are addictions, domestic violence, and housing. Those are all under the umbrella of poverty. If we had a good anti-poverty organization, that would be key. We know that first nations families are disproportionately poor.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Not that we're aware of. We are aware of a preliminary evaluation that was INAC-driven on the enhanced implementation in Alberta. We don't know what research they used to arrive at 20% of the families, which is very key to the model. We know the 7% in Manitoba comes directly from children-in-care statistics.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  --would not completely support the way INAC is moving ahead with it, and we are wondering why they didn't rely on that research. We also know that in the western region of Manitoba there was a block that was supported and funded by INAC. That block funding pilot was evaluated a couple of times by independent evaluators and has seen some real successes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If you make a recommendation that they do away with Directive 20-1, they will agree with you, because they are saying they're already doing it. So I think we should go a step further and ask, as we're doing away with Directive 20-1, what we are putting in its place. I think it's your job as parliamentarians to keep the spotlight on this thing.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, we were involved. In Manitoba we had a slightly different process. We had a working group that involved the province, because we were at the same time working on a provincial funding model, because our agency is unique: we do on- and off-reserve service there. We did have limitations from INAC.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think, for us, it's the same with Jordan's Principle. None of our agencies has received any instructions or protocols as to how it will in fact be operationalized. We've heard from both the province and the federal government that they've adopted it and it's great, but there's been no direction as to exactly how it will work.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  All right, maybe some of the other issues will come up when you ask the questions. Maybe I'll go to the recommendations then. We are recommending that INAC establish an understood process for reviewing the funding model. At the present time INAC is not prepared to review it for five years.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee this morning. In Manitoba there are 14 first nations child and family services agencies operating throughout the province providing CFS services on reserve. Eight of those 14 fall under the umbrella of the Southern First Nation Network of Care, or what I'll refer to as the Southern Authority.