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The Current Transcript for January 25, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

JAYE SIMPSON: It's my firm belief that the foster care system is working the way it's designed as a machine to destroy indigeneity.

JANE PILPOTT: We have to disrupt that system and the sooner we can do that the better.

LIFE MOM: There is still many things that I didn't know a mom is supposed to do. [Sobs]

DYLAN COHEN: I just felt constantly hurt and ignored and like a cog in this giant machine.

JANE PILPOTT: Tens of thousands of children across the country have been separated from their families but not only that they've been separated from their communities, their language, the traditions of their people and it needs to change.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: The voices you just heard belong to young adults - indigenous - who spent their childhoods in government care. A young women - indigenous - getting mentored in order to keep her baby. You also heard Jane Philpott, the Federal Minister for Indigenous services, who fully acknowledges that this country is facing nothing less than a humanitarian crisis with its many systems of government childcare. There are more Indigenous children in government care in Canada today than at the height of the residential school system. Eight per cent of kids under the age of 14 are indigenous, and yet they comprise 52 percent of all kids that age in care. It is against those realities that federal officials are meeting in Ottawa with their provincial territorial counterparts, Indigenous leaders, child welfare agencies and advocacy groups. We will hear from the minister today but we will also hear from those who are and have lived in a system so many say is broken. We're devoting our entire program to those voices today. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is a special edition of The Current. In care and in crisis, Canada's indigenous child welfare emergency.

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'I felt like my heart was ripped out': Indigenous mother under 'birth alert' fears she will lose second child

Guest: Anonymous Mother, Sandie Stoker

SOUNDCLIP

We have a buddy system here where if you're a parent that's struggling with child welfare, we will hang out with you and answer questions, help you fill out forms and attend meetings with social worker with you, directly, to be able to help translate some of that CFS into human being language [laughter]. So, that's Fearless R2W. Mary and I have been doing this for about three oh! Years now, eh Yes we're three years old.

AMT: Tonight, as with most Thursday evenings, people will gather at the Turtle Island neighbourhood center in Winnipeg to share stories about a growing concern in their community: Kids in care. They call the group Fearless R2W, after the North End R2W postal code. It's an area where advocates say one in every six families has had children apprehended by Child and Family Services. Michael Redhead Champagne is one of the organizers.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL REDHEAD CHAMPAGNE: Parents sometimes have a fear. Sometimes parents are afraid to ask for help from the medical system or the education system or the justice system for things related to mental health or addictions because they are afraid that if that happens suddenly a case file will be open or will trigger a visit from a social worker.

MARY BURTON: My full name is Mary Burton. I am a community member, helper and as Michael puts it a super granny with Fearless R2W. My first reaction is 'what kind of services does this family need? How can I help them get those services? What else can I do to help them keep their families together?' If everybody thought like that, there would be less apprehensions because it's a strength based approach.

AMT: Well my next guest has her own fears and her own experiences with Child and Family Services. She was a 16 year old mother when her first child was taken into care. Now at 20 she is pregnant and worried that because she is on a so-called 'birth alert list'. Her second child could be seized when she delivers. She's in Winnipeg and we've agreed not to identify her. Hello.

MOTHER: Hi.

AMT: Can we start with what happened with your first pregnancy.

MOTHER: Well everything was going pretty good. I was 16 when I had my first child. I guess because I was a minor, there was an open file with Child Family Services.

AMT: Were you living at the time?

MOTHER: I was living at home with my mother.

AMT: Were you going to school

MOTHER: I was going to school. I was taking my son with me to school.

AMT: So you were making a go of it.

MOTHER: Yes.

AMT: Okay. And so what happened tell me about that day that Child and Family Services came.

MOTHER: Well I was at school, just a regular day. And when I got home I was there for maybe half an hour and CFS workers just showed up and told me that they were apprehending my son. They said that they had safety concerns for him.

AMT: Did you know what they're talking about?

MOTHER: Well because I was with his father at the time.

AMT: They were concerned about his safety in relation to the father.

MOTHER: Yes. Because his father was on the run from the police and they thought that I was taking him around him.

AMT: Had they been in contact with you before that?

MOTHER: Yes. Well they said that they had some concerns about me and my parenting. They wanted me to do programming and stuff but they never offered help me find the programming that I needed to get by.

AMT: And did they have like specifics about your parenting that they wanted you to change or work on

MOTHER: No. The work that I have the time- I am not sure what was wrong with that lady. She plainly said that I teased my son. Like I teased a four month old child. I don't know how you can tease a child. I guess is just because it wasn't up to how she would parent or whatever.

AMT: So the day that they came and they apprehended him, what actually happened that day?

MOTHER: I was at home with my son and he had woken up when they got there. It was about time for him to have a bottle. And he spit up I was close so I gave him to my mother to hold on to. And then when I came back out, he was in the car seat in his snowsuit.

AMT: Like ready to go at the door

MOTHER: Yeas. They were getting him ready to go.

AMT: And what did they say?

MOTHER: Well I guess after I talked to my mom. She felt like they were bullying her into giving her over my son. She told me that they were threatening to call the cops.

AMT: How did you react to seeing your little boy in the car seat ready to go out the door?

MOTHER: I couldn't really wrap my head around it. I didn't really understand why.

AMT: What did you do?

MOTHER: [Sobs.

AMT: It's a hard thing to think about now too, isn't it?

MOTHER: Yes. [Sobs] [Unintelligible] after that I just couldn't really... [sighs] couldn't really do anything for me itself. After being a [sobs] a mom for just that short time, it really was hard on me, because that is basically all that I knew, is taking care of him.

AMT: Was there anyone who could help you to try to get him back

MOTHER: [Sobs] I tried to do what I could from, like what they asked me to do, but at the time I really had no motivation to do anything. It felt like my heart was just ripped down and stepped on because I didn't see him for about a week after that.

AMT: Where did they take him? Where did he go?

MOTHER: He was taken to the foster home that he was in for the last two and a half years.

AMT: You say you saw him a week later. Were you allowed to visit him?

MOTHER: Yes but the visits were supervised. They thought that I was causing some type of safety concerns to my own son. I don't know how that could be because I would never put him in any harm's way.

AMT: Who has legal guardianship of him now?

MOTHER: My mother has legal guardianship of him now.

AMT: So she fought to get guardianship of him?

MOTHER: Yes.

AMT: How long did that take?

MOTHER: Two and a half years.

AMT: And what kind of relationship do you have with him?

MOTHER: I have a great relationship with him. I just - I think it would be a lot better because they ripped him from me and when I was bonding with him. The first year is the most important for a child to be bonding with its mother.

AMT: Do you live with your mom now

MOTHER: No. [Sobs] There is something stating and some type of documents that were in the courts that I couldn't not live with my mother if she had my son. So I was basically just kicked out of my mom's place.

AMT: So now you are expecting your second child. And you are due in March?

MOTHER: Yes.

AMT: Are you on this birth alert list? You know this for a fact?

MOTHER: Yes.

AMT: What does that mean?

MOTHER: The birth alert means that once you've already had a child in care and it's not in your custody, there is automatic birth out on you. I'm not too sure how that all works but that's the most that I know.

AMT: And what's your fear then

MOTHER: I just feel that they're going to isolate me from my daughter.

AMT: You know you are going to have a little girl?

MOTHER: Yes.

AMT: You fear they are going to take her away.

MOTHER: Yes.

AMT: Have you talked to them about it? Are they saying anything to you?

MOTHER: No not really. They just want to see me do what was on the case plan and you know finding programs and stuff that they've asked me to do. And it's kind of hard because things start and you can't just jump into the middle of something.

AMT: What's your living situation like now?

MOTHER: I am currently homeless.

AMT: How long have you been homeless?

MOTHER: For about 10 almost 11 months.

AMT: Where do you sleep at night?

MOTHER: It's pretty much just couch surfing, finding places to go with family or friends.

AMT: That must be really hard when you're pregnant.

MOTHER: It is really hard when pregnant. I just I don't know how to, you know, find the help that I need.

AMT: Do you feel you could take good care of your baby

MOTHER: Yes I can. It’s not that hard to take care of a child. I did it and they just took him from me.

AMT: Can you understand, from a social worker's point of view, that you might not be in the best position to have a baby and take care of a baby if you are homeless

MOTHER: Yes. I can see why it. But you know it's not like I have asked for this. They really got to look at it from how I am struggling in life and at least try and help me better.

AMT: What would you need to be able to raise your baby in a way that you could feel confident?

MOTHER: I just - I'd rather really be at home with my mother. She is one of my biggest supports. She is my biggest support. I don't know where or what I would be doing right now if it wasn't for her.

AMT: And they don’t want to live with your mother, is that is what it is ? Or your mother doesn't want you to?

MOTHER: They do not want me live with my mother but I think she was trying to get that fixed.

AMT: Do you know why?

MOTHER: They were worried before and I guess they had a bunch of calls - like Child Family Services - they were getting calls that I was using hard drugs in her house and that wasn't the case.

AMT: Were you using drugs in the past?

MOTHER: Yes. I was using hard drugs in the past. It was just because I spiralled down into depression after my son was taken from me. I was such a different person back then.

AMT: What kind of drugs were you using?

MOTHER: I was using Xanax and crystal meth.

AMT: And you are not anymore

MOTHER: No.

AMT: You get yourself out of that.

MOTHER: Yes. And I didn’t have anybody's help. I did it all on my own.

AMT: They are telling you they're afraid that you will go back to that?

MOTHER: They are afraid that's in I don’t have the coping skills to stay clean or whatever. But they've sent me for a drug test or a drug screening by hair and I felt really disgusted because I don't know how anybody can use drugs and be pregnant at the same time. It is not right

AMT: What would it mean to you to be able to raise your daughter and your son>

MOTHER: It would mean the world to me. Honestly. I am a great mother. I am really good with kids and I'm really good with my son. I visit him every day.

AMT: How do you think Child and Family Services can work with you better?

MOTHER: I think that maybe if they would just come at me with an open mind and not be trying to base everything on my past, then we could work together and work past everything, so they can help me get to where I need to be.

AMT: Do you think if you were not indigenous you would have faced some of those same struggles with your child?

MOTHER: No. Honestly I can say that I don't think that I would have had any problems.

AMT: So you're literally weeks away from giving birth to your second child.

MOTHER: Yes. I am seven weeks away.

AMT: And what do you think about?

MOTHER: I get really stressed out right now, because I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Like I have been doing what I can to find housing and to you know stay sober. It's not hard to stay sober but it's just the stress and everything. It just makes me makes me - it makes me think a lot. It was so much easier just to be a drug addict but I can't do that. I can't be that person anymore.

AMT: Are there any community workers? Is there anybody who's trying to help you find the things you need right now?

MOTHER: Yes I have this place called AMC and they're really helping me with a lot of stuff; housing resources and programming and whatever else. They're a really big place for advocacy too. I honestly wish that they had that back when I was 16. This probably could have all been prevented.

AMT: Will they try to help you get back to living with your mom, maybe?

MARY BURTON: Yes I hope so.

AMT: Okay. Maybe we should stay in touch with you. Thank you for speaking with me today

MOTHER: Okay.

AMT: I've been speaking with a Winnipeg woman who is expecting her second child in March. Sandie Stoker is the executive director of the Child and Family All Nations Coordinated Response Network, which responds to the birth alerts in Winnipeg. And we reached her there. Hello.

SANDIE STOKER: Hi.

AMT: What do you make of the story we just heard?

SANDIE STOKER: Number one and like to say I was impressed by that young woman and her ability to articulate her experiences and some of her frustrations. It's our duty when someone is wanting to parent, to support them in being able to do so.

AMT: When a birth alert issued by a child welfare agency is the newborn baby always taken into care

SANDIE STOKER: No. a birth alert is a way of alerting the system that an assessment needs to be done because there is been either current concerns or previous concerns regarding the person's ability to parent, which have been unresolved.

AMT: So how would you assess whether a child does need to be taken into care in those cases?

SANDIE STOKER: The first step is to complete a safety assessment which looks at the ability of the parent or parents or the caregiver to safely parent the child and prevent that child from coming into any harm's way. If that's determined the child is not safe, then it's our responsibility to work with the parents and the family, whoever they consider their family to be, and develop a plan which we would call a safety plan to try and ensure that child's safety to prevent them from coming into care. Part of I think this struggle is our ability to engage with families.

AMT: How so

SANDIE STOKER: Well traditionally there is a lot of history in child welfare in Manitoba and that's had a lasting impact. So it is challenging for families to trust us.

AMT: So we heard that this mother was concerned that her past dealings with the child welfare system will make it more likely that her baby will be taken from her.

SANDIE STOKER: Someone's historical involvement our system is one factor in what we consider a risk assessment, which speaks to what's the likelihood of this child being harmed in the future, if nothing changed for that family. So if someone has had a history where we felt that they were unable to parent safely, if they've got issues that they're struggling with, drug addictions, transiency, that would play a role in terms of what the risk is. But that doesn't mean that those risk factors can't be overcome.

AMT: What's your response to her concerns that being an Indigenous woman more harm her chances of keeping her baby?

SANDIE STOKER: Well it is well known that here in Manitoba indigenous people are overrepresented in our system. So I can understand why she would feel that way. I think definitely things have progressed. We now have over 20 mandated First Nations agencies. We have indigenous authorities here in Manitoba which oversee those agencies to ensure that we're doing their best to provide culturally appropriate service, and to help us to ensure that there is no systemic racism or discrimination occurring in our system.

AMT: I see the number here 11,000 kids in care in Manitoba now.

SANDIE STOKER: Yes that's correct.

AMT: Why so man

SANDIE STOKER: I think that, one, it's a sign of some of the struggles Manitoba's society is having. We continue to see drug use escalate, violent crime escalate, poverty escalate. Manitoba also has one of the highest rates of child poverty. There is a known connection between poverty and neglect or how we define neglect. It's a very complex issue and people ask why are there so many kids in care. There is no easy answer to that.

AMT: It's interesting you mention poverty because those who argue that there are too many apprehensions would say poverty is not a reason to apprehend a child.

SANDIE STOKER: I can tell you that I would never authorize an apprehension or do apprehension when poverty is the main reason, but poverty shows itself in many different ways like homelessness. So if a person doesn't have a home where do they bring the new baby home to

AMT: Sandie Stoker thank you for speaking with me today.

SANDIE STOKER: Thank you.

AMT: Sandie Stoker executive director of The Child and Family All Nations Coordinated Response Network. She joined us from Winnipeg. The CBC News is next and then we'll hear from three young people who grew up in government care. I am Anna Maria Tremonti. You are listening to a special edition of The Current on CBC Radio One, In Care and in Crisis: Canada's Indigenous Child Welfare Emergency.

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The Millennium Scoop: Indigenous youth say care system repeats horrors of the past

Guests: Reina Foster, jaye simpson, Dylan Cohen

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: We are devoting today's entire program to indigenous child welfare, as an emergency meeting on that subject gets underway today in Ottawa. Still to come my interview with the Indigenous services minister who called that meeting Jane Philpott. But first growing up in the system, as we continue our special in care and in crisis.

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AMT: When the Indigenous services minister Jane Philpott called today's emergency meeting last fall she called the situation a humanitarian crisis. More than half of the children under age 14 in government care in this country are indigenous, even though they barely make up eight percent of the kids that age. It is their voices that are rarely heard in this conversation but we'll hear from three of them now. Dylan Cohen is 22 years old and originally from Winnipeg. He is now a youth organizer with First Call, a child and youth advocacy coalition in Vancouver. Also in Vancouver, jaye simpson, a 23 year old university student, poet and artist. And Reina Foster just turned 19 years old. She is a youth leader and former youth chief in Lac Seul First Nation in Northern Ontario.

DYLAN COHEN: I came in to the care of Child and Family Services in Manitoba in my early teens. My first home was with my twin sister and it was quite a frustrating place to live in that I expressed a lot of abuse emotionally and spiritually while I was there, and like I felt abandoned. I knew that it was better than living with my birth parent. But for me I just felt constantly hurt and ignored and kind of like a cog in this giant machine.

JAYE SIMPSON: My care experience has been across the province of British Columbia a lot of homes I was placed in were predominantly Christian or have that background and there is very little cultural support in regards to my identity. A lot of my experiences as well were quite queer phobic and indigenous. So I couldn't really explore who I was as a person and if there was any exploration of that it was often looked down upon and shamed. So a lot of my time in care - except for the first home and the last home - was quite abusive.

REINA FOSTER: I was the tender age of two when I was a case at the Canadian child welfare system. I was placed in childcare if my brother who was not yet a year old and this was with a non-indigenous childcare agency, CAS, Children's Aid Society. We spent most of our childhood in childcare. Actually recently about a year and a half ago we had decided amongst ourselves that it was the right thing to process back in the childcare because we saw that our mother couldn't care for us again.

AMT: How difficult was it for you because you were back with your mom. How difficult was it for you to make that call to say "We can't be here right now."

REINA FOSTER: I was really hesitant. I remember shaking. I remember how many huge [unintelligible] roads. And all the memories from my childhood had rushed up and I wasn't too sure what was going to happen to my brother and I wasn't too sure how we will be on processed I guess. I didn't know what was going to happen but I knew that our safety and our protection mattered most. So I went through the call.

[Music]

REINA FOSTER: Back into the system we went. The childcare system was familiar and although the childcare system insure its children the protection from any possible abuse from the parents, their protection can only go so far. I was abused emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

DYLAN COHEN: My social workers will always speak about the high caseload and their limited number of foster homes and from that meant you know 'we respected that this home isn't good for you and that you're actually in a really bad place here, but it's probably the best' and that hurt a lot. I felt like I really just didn't matter more than the paycheck that I was to my foster parents and the case file that I was for my agency.

JAYE SIMPSON: There was one home that had sent me to a Christian camp in hopes that it would shift my current behaviours at the time.

AMT: What was that like?

JAYE SIMPSON: The foster home didn't do enough research because the church was affirming [laughter] which is hilarious to me because it ended up the church - like the second I walked into the camp they knew and they were very clear about giving me some space. But it was also really interesting how this foster parent was able to disguise their own... Their own- What is the word - discrimination. And the social workers went along with it because it was socialization. It was something for me to do. So I actually had my file from foster care. So it was really interesting seeing the social workers' notes and the emails.

AMT: Did you read anything in there that then explained, either good or bad, why certain things happened to you when decisions were made about you

JAYE SIMPSON: There was a lot of justification for abuse. There were justifications for the locks in the cupboards, locks on my door, locks on the fridge, locks on the bathroom. There is justifications for not having access to the telephone.

AMT: How does a legal guardian write down justification for abuse?

JAYE SIMPSON: They framed me as dangerous and violent which if anyone knows me is quite the opposite of who I am. Even as a young person I hardly ever raised my voice. If there is an expression of emotion that was an extreme, that was pushed to its end. Oftentimes what was written was the 'foster parents feel unsafe.

AMT: And then locked the fringe.

JAYE SIMPSON: They locked the fridge. They locked the pantry.

AMT: Because?

JAYE SIMPSON: Well what had happened was in one foster home we weren't getting fed properly. So I had started to hide food. So me and my sister would be able to eat if we got hungry and when we moved to foster homes I wasn't able to kick that habit. There was still a primal fear of not having food and instead of seeing that as an outcome of previous circumstances, the foster-mom saw it as an insult and saw it as me slating her in disrespecting her. So what had happened was the cupboards and fridges were locked and then they started to control my diet so I wasn't allowed to - I never put anything I might on plate for two years. They controlled what I eat and when I ate.

AMT: Reina, what was it like for you? What kinds of things did you think about when you were a little girl going through all this

REINA FOSTER: I only started all future possibilities. I had a small amount of hope that my life was now going to be defined and confined in childcare. I felt that I had to protect my brother because I was myself as my brother's keeper, essentially, and that if I was going to make it through this it would have to be by his side.

AMT: That sounds like a heavy burden for a little girl.

REINA FOSTER: It was.

AMT: Dylan what would have made things better for you when you were growing up?

DYLAN COHEN: IT is such a complicated question but I know that a well-resourced child welfare system would have meant that I could be in a home, with my sister, with my twin, for an indefinite amount of time not just the first foster home. And that if my social workers had more time then there could have been more energy spent in the relationship and the understanding of what my needs were and trying to respect the things that I was going through. I know that, with enough foster homes, I could stay in my own community and stay in the same high school instead of moving to three different schools during some pretty formative years. And I know that if there weren't 11,000 others of me that were going through such terrible times as well that I would have confidence in my ability to do well.

AMT: Dylan, you moved from city to rural. You moved all over, right?

DYLAN COHEN: Yes my first foster home was 45 minutes outside of my home community in Winnipeg and I think that's really common for youth to get just into the suburbs, where there is really well-meaning white foster parents that want to provide some care for kids while they live on their country. And yes I mean the home on paper is great, but we see these as really far away from the things we know and need to survive after we exit care. Right.

AMT: So were you able to stay connected to your culture in care

DYLAN COHEN: I struggled with that a lot. I mean this is a bigger conversation in that my mother wasn't very connected to our culture. So for me to not be placed in an indigenous home was a reflection of poor case planning and from the 60s. But I was placed into a family that often put forward anti-indigenous sentiments and that carried forward to my early teenage years for sure.

AMT: jaye simpson, what about you? Were the foster homes you lived in indigenous?

JAYE SIMPSON: No. For me it's really interesting to see how displaced indigenous youth are in urban areas. For me, my ties are two Sapotaweyak Cree Nation in Manitoba. So when I was apprehended by M. Safety initially there was a push in the 90s for delegated Aboriginal agencies to have the cases with Indigenous youth and I was sent to Metis family services. Although there are family ties to Metis, that isn't the only thing in my identity and in my family. So being on unceded Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, Sto:lo land, oftentimes we were sent to those ceremonies and told that those were our cultures when in actuality I have no claim to that. And I was hardly ever sent to those anyways because oftentimes foster parents would say 'well that's an Indian event we don't want you there, not with the other Indians'. So, they use the term Indian instead of Indigenous or Metis.

AMT: You are only 23. That's modern times and they are still using that language.

JAYE SIMPSON: Yes. Well a lot of times in my experiences is that they wanted to take in youth because of their Christian beliefs. Oftentimes they said God made them do it. It was a very religious, religion based for them to take youth in. And oftentimes that came with ties to religion. So it was like you know going to churches on Sunday, going to Bible study - which in my experience was very much so residential school 3.0, being shamed for participating in a culture that wasn't mine and also being forced to go to church.

AMT: In those 16 years that you were in in the system, jaye, was there ever a time when you wanted to be adopted, any time that you wanted a permanent home

JAYE SIMPSON: When I was younger, yes. I wanted to be adopted. I learnt in my file that I was put up for adoption twice and that a family wanted to adopt me and my two siblings which is unheard of, oftentimes. And the foster home I was staying with didn't want that. So they put in adoption papers for me but never completed them for a multitude of reasons. The foster father who passed away from cancer. What that did was the family that wanted to initially adopt me and my siblings moved on. So there were times where I was actually you know I could have been adopted and I feel like that could have changed some aspects of it but also I'm very glad to be where I am today with my experiences because it means I can safeguard the next generation.

AMT: Do you have a relationship with your birth mother now, jaye?

JAYE SIMPSON: She passed away when I was 13 so unfortunately I was never given visitation with her to develop a relationship.

AMT: Reina if you could have would you have wanted to be an adopted or have had a more permanent home

REINA FOSTER: Honestly know because I always knew about some way or another we would always be reunited with our own parents. My attachment to them was very strong. I always knew that we would be back with them. I always broke my heart to be taken away from them when we were allowed visitations and to see them. Our relationship and bond as a family was really strong. But it was the addictions that had brought us into childcare.

AMT: Dylan, I am wondering if you can talk to us a little bit about the challenges that young people who have been in care for years face as they age out of the system.

DYLAN COHEN: Yes. I think it’s important for us to say that ageing out is a concept that really only happens to youth in care. And across the world or across Canada we don't see the supports of parenting and all of the relationships that go in to 18-19 years of care evaporate because of an arbitrary age or birthday. But for the youth in care population we do.

AMT: How old are you when you are no longer in care, is it 18 or 19, it depends on the age of majority

DYLAN COHEN: It depends on the province but it really depends on the age of majority most of the time. In B.C. where I am now it's 19, in Manitoba it is 18. Hitting the age of majority means if you're in a good foster placement you have to leave. If you've had a good relationship with your social worker that has to end. If you have counselling through your agency that has to end. And all of the support that go into ensuring that somebody is ready to transition to independent are gone because of that age.

AMT: Well it just evaporates?

DYLAN COHEN: Certainly yes. There has been a lot of good advocacy in trying to make sure that there is a continuum of support after the age of majority. But the reality is that many of us experience this cliff, that 18 or 19 means no more supports and accessing the world like we are completely independent, years before any of our peers.

AMT: Well tell me a little bit more about what it was like for you, Dylan.

DYLAN COHEN: I think I had a atypical experience in that I turned 18 and I was ready to go to university, even after transitioning in between three different high schools and having all of these placements and homelessness during my high school years. But I'm really lucky that there were supports available for me to get my tuition funded and have some of the same sorts of funding and that my peers not from care had. Most of my friends in Winnipeg lived with their parents but I had some of my rent paid for, but we know that only four percent or so of youth in care end up getting their university degree. So when we look at that support system being limited to tuition, limited to housing support while you're in school, we really see a gap in the services provided.

AMT: You're talking about services and the financial stuff. But when you wrote an essay or you did a major hurdle who did you run home and hail? Who was there for you?

DYLAN COHEN: Even just having that number to call. That's something that I've spoken a lot about, the idea that we just don't have a person to ask about an emotional issue or career advice or checking in about an apartment lease. If our landlord is doing something sketchy we are totally on our own. And that opens us up to vulnerability and exploitation.

AMT: When you graduated, who told you they were proud of you, Dylan?

DYLAN COHEN: That's a tough question. I know that one of my social workers did, and some of my professors. But I look at my time in university as the relationships that I had there have existed for a few years and they were really meaningful and I still have relationships with some of them, but almost none of the relationships that I had as a kid or a teenager continued on.

AMT: So as we talk about all of this and I hear your ideas and I hear your pain from what you've been through, I am wondering now how you try to structure and work on your own lives and try to move forward with your lives. jaye, have you found a community in Vancouver

JAYE SIMPSON: I have found a community. I am lucky enough to share community with Dylan, in the end in Vancouver there is a strong community of youth in from care who are advocating for more equitable services and resources. There is a strong indigenous community in British Columbia. I have the poetry community. I have the queer community. I have so many aspects and facets of community and I get to pick where I get to participate. I am very privileged with the people who were in my life right now and I get to pick them.

AMT: Reina what about you? What1145924163663s your relationship like now with your mother? What goals do you have for your future?

REINA FOSTER: Me and my mother are very close. She is my best friend but I can speak in the most ominous terms that I grew up way too quickly than I should have. I feel as though I almost [unintelligible] of loss as a child but I am recovering, healing. I think the way that I heal is through my culture. I depend on my culture. Growing up I was questioned religion when I was forced to go to church. I was little but I knew that was wrong for me. I knew that I was meant to be with my culture and not any religion.

AMT: And Dylan Cohen, what about you? What was it like for you now

DYLAN COHEN: I am really lucky to find myself in community and, as jaye said, there is a really strong sense of youth advocates in B.C. but I want to highlight that when you ask that question of what successes we've had, we are the folks that can come up to an interview and be found by CBC producers right. There are so many youth on the margins of our communities and in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and all of these really isolated places that don't have the support and resources that they need to be able to speak about their experiences in a safe way, and to intellectualize or analyse their experiences from a systemic or colonial understanding. So I am doing well and I am really proud of where I've come but I know that for the vast majority of youth in care, we are not getting the support we need to do well.

AMT: And I get the feeling, Dylan, that is why you choose to do what you do now. You want to make it better for other people.

DYLAN COHEN: Yes I think we all owe our lives to ensuring that the next generation and seven generations after us are living the best life they can.

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JAYE SIMPSON: It's my firm belief that the foster care system is working the way it's designed, as a machine to destroy indigeneity. And we need to look at restructuring and we need to look at how the system is removing an indigenous children from indigenous mothers. When you know an indigenous mother may have received six hundred dollars on welfare to feed her children the foster care system can say 'that's not good enough. Take the child and put it in a home and give that home 1800 dollars to feed those children.' So they're giving more money to non-indigenous parents to feed indigenous children and then not supplying indigenous parents with any support.

REINA FOSTER: The child welfare system today is a form of cultural genocide for Indigenous children, uust like the residential school system as well as the 60s scoops. Today's child welfare system is known as the millennials scoop. It's the same legacy as to what the goals of residential school were.

DYLAN COHEN: For me in my role as an advocate for former youth in care I have noticed a pattern and an acknowledged that many indigenous kids that are being apprehended and taken into the child welfare system and have this like legacy of inter-generational trauma and all the experiences that they'll have in care, are having their own children and having challenges while they try to parent. And those kids end up getting taken into care too. So we need to make sure that there is really adequate support provided for parents before their kids come into care. And then also when children are in care that they're given every opportunity they can and they need to succeed and really just the same opportunities that kids not in care get.

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AMT: Dylan Cohen, youth organizer with First Call BC: Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. He's in Vancouver. jaye simpson, a University student, poet and artist also in Vancouver. Reina Foster, youth leader and former youth chief in the Laks Seul First Nation in Northern Ontario. If you want to share your views on Canada's child welfare system and your thoughts on what you just heard and the crisis amongst indigenous children and families, if you have your own personal experience to share please email us. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecorrect. Click on the Contact link. You can also find us on Facebook, weigh in there, or go to Twitter. We are @TheCurrentCBC. In our next half hour and my conversation with Jane Philpott, Canada's indigenous Services Minister. I'm an Anna Maria Tremonti. This is a special edition of The Current, In Care and in Crisis: Canada's Indigenous Child Welfare Emergency.

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We must disrupt the foster care system and remove perverse incentives, says Minister Jane Philpott

Guest: Jane Philpott

AMT: Canada's Indigenous services minister Jane Philpott called for this week's meeting in Ottawa. She's compared the number of Indigenous kids in care today to the residential schools situation and she's gone as far as to call that a humanitarian crisis. Jane Philpott joined me from Ottawa yesterday to talk about her expectations for this two day meeting.

JANE PHILPOTT: Well we want this to be a very solutions focused conference. It's not going to be about finger pointing, we will be very clearly saying I am not here to blame people but I am here to say can you help and who is prepared to step up take action? How can we change their perverse incentives in the system? How can we, as the federal governments, certainly were prepared to make additional investments to be able to achieve equity and justice for our children. And how are we going to, as quickly as possible, change the direction so that in fact children are reunited with their families and we dramatically decrease the numbers of children who are apprehended from their homes

AMT: Perverse incentives.

JANE PHILPOTT: Well I say perverse incentives, that is a term that others have used before me. What that means is that rate now dollars flow into the child welfare system according to the number of kids that are apprehended so more children in care the more money comes out of government coffers. If instead of that we were to change it so that you actually were incented and the money flowed according to how well we prevented that, how many children we were able to keep in homes, how well we were able to support families then in fact there would be no financial reason why the numbers would escalate.

AMT: Can you share some of the solutions you want to bring to the table moving forward then

JANE PHILPOTT: Well I indicated already that we recognize that there are still funding gaps. We are, as you may know, involved in orders that the human rights tribunal have made to the federal government. I will certainly be speaking to our commitment to fully implement the orders of the human rights tribunal including addressing the funding issues and making funding more flexible.

AMT: What can governments do to support families and communities to prevent kids from being taken into care, or having to be taken into care

JANE PHILPOTT: Well as I said you know you have to look at what the reasons are for why children are being apprehended. You know as some of the worst reasons are poverty and so we look at even simple things like the fact that the Canada Child Benefit exists, that's something that our governments have been very proud of. But there are many children across the country that are not getting that Canada a child benefits. Or our governments doing work to make sure that that money gets to families. We're looking at things like housing. Some provinces have rules that you know if the house doesn't have a certain number of rooms or enough windows that children can be apprehended for reasons like that. Of course those rules need to be locked at but we also need to make sure that were investing in housing so that families can care for their kids in that way. Some of it has to do with things like parents who have health issues. So we know that problematic substance use and parents as one of the reasons why it might be deemed that children have to be taken from them. There are a few ways you can address that one is of course making sure parents will get the health services that they need and get treatment if they have problematic substance use. But the other thing is what about looking at options so that maybe any actor a grandmother could care for those children. Or there could be support for something that's called kinship care where people of the same culture can look after children whose parents are unsafely able to care for them. So it's really a matter of changing their headspace the policy space to say let's not have a system that's prioritizing and funding apprehension. Let's have a system that's prioritizing and funding prevention.

AMT: What have you heard from young people who are in the system or who have been through the system

JANE PHILPOTT: Well we hear incredibly agonizing stories from young people. I actually think you know that we had the privilege of meeting with a wonderful group of First Nations Inuit and Metis young people earlier this week at the We Matter gathering here in Ottawa. Some of those children address the issue of children in care. And we heard terrible stories about what happens when kids get separated from their culture and the pain that they have from not understanding who they are, the difficulty that they have trying to reintegrate back into their communities can lead to a whole range of additional challenges including substance use and including really broken spirit experience. So they're traumatized and can take years in a lifetime to heal.

AMT: It's tough to hear sometimes.

JANE PHILPOTT: It's very tough to hear but we have to face the reality and we have to - this is essential not just for these children but for all of Canada that we address the trauma that these young people are facing and their families and that we change our approach to do better.

AMT: Well I spoke to three people, young Indigenous young adults who have spent a lot of their lives, a lot of their childhood in care. I want you to hear from one of them. This is jaye simpson's view of the child welfare systems in place right now.

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It's my firm belief that the foster care system is working the way it's designed as a machine to destroy indigeneity. The system is removing Indigenous children from Indigenous mothers when you know an indigenous mother may have received 600 dollars on welfare to feed her children, the foster care system can see that's not good enough. Take the child and put it in a home and give that home. 1800 dollars to feed those children. So they're giving more money to non Indigenous parents to feed Indigenous children and they're not supplying Indigenous parents with any support.

AMT: Jane Philpott, jaye believes that foster care system is working the way it's designed as a machine to destroy indigeneity. How do you respond to that person's view of the system that they went through?

JANE PHILPOTT: Well I would say that that person is speaking the harsh truth. That is a great description of what I said earlier about perverse incentives that are absolutely directed in the wrong way. And this person points out very clearly that it's not that the system is broken, the system is doing what it's been designed to do. We have to disrupt that system. We have to change those incentives and the sooner we can do that the better.

AMT: Where does adoption fit into all of this? Do you see that as part of the solution?

JANE PHILPOTT: Well that's a challenging question and it's certainly one that I think would defer to Indigenous peoples to respond to. But I think it's worth noting that some of the problematic policies of our past that indigenous peoples have spoken to have been policies that have been associated with adoption. We just reached a settlement in principle in terms of the Sixties Scoop and the fact that children were being taken from indigenous homes and adopted into non indigenous families. So this is something which I know some provinces have been raising as a potential solution but I think those conversations need to be entered into very carefully.

AMT: And you know that there are those who would disagree with that. We reached out to Laura Eggertson on this. She is non-indigenous, the mother of two adopted First Nations children. She is also executive director of the Adoption Council of Canada. She's worried that permanent placement of children will not be discussed at your meeting. Listen to her.

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We absolutely support the idea that you need to prevent these children and youth from coming in care by supporting their birth families in their communities. However in Manitoba for example 60 percent of the children and youth who are already in care have had their parental rights terminated. So they are not going back to their birth families and am worried that permanency is being closed down because it's such a hot political topic. We have a lot of families who can be culturally competent even if they're not indigenous who would embrace the notion of becoming indigenous families as I did with my family.

AMT: Jane Philpott how do you respond?

JANE PHILPOTT: Well I think the point that she's making which is a fair one is that you can never lump all families into the same generalizations. And so it's not to say that it's impossible for adoptive families who are not indigenous to make the appropriate effort in finding appropriate supports to be able to raise children to understand their indigenous culture, and I certainly am happy to see that some organisations are increasingly making efforts in that direction. But this is not the first choice for what I hear when I speak to First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. And when we’re talking the kind of numbers of children that are have been apprehended from their homes- we're hearing every single day of babies being taken from their birth mothers without a guarantee that they're there will be a commitment on the part of the family taking those children into care that they will maintain those cultural connections. We have to find ways to make sure that those issues are addressed.

AMT: You know I am really struck before you got into politics you spent years doing humanitarian work in other parts of the world. As a doctor doing humanitarian aid and humanitarian medicine, did you ever think you'd have to face a humanitarian crisis as you call it, and in your own country

JANE PHILPOTT: Well you never quite know what next steps you're being prepared for but you know the things that I learned as a family doctor certainly have helped me in this particular role. And it helped me to realize that when you recognize that there is a distinct problem in front of you that you have to develop a plan. You have to figure out what the next steps are. And I am honoured to be part of how we're going to address this issue. As I said it matters because of these children tens of thousands of children across the country. It matters to their family and future generations and it matters to all Canadians.

AMT: Jane Philpott thank you.

JANE PHILPOTT: Thank you for taking such attention to the topic.

AMT: Jane Philpott is Canada's minister of Indigenous services and she joined us from Ottawa.

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Solving the puzzle: Indigenous groups offer solutions to foster care crisis

Guest: Jay Lomax

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to a special edition of The Current, In Care and in Crisis: Canada's Indigenous Child Welfare Emergency.

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FELIX WALKER: The elders looked at me and said 'Mr. Walker why are you removing children from home? The children are not the issue. The parents are the issue.'

AMT: Felix Walker is the chief executive officer of the Family and Community Wellness Center on the Nisichawaysihk First Nation. That community came up with an innovative approach to child welfare: Remove parents, not kids, from homes where children are at risk. They've been doing it with success for more than a decade.

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FELIX WALKER: You need to find a way to remove parents so that you can help parents become parents again. Once we receive a referral our worker will go and assess the situation. If it seems that we need to remove the parent, we will call in the assistance of the local ban constables or the RCMP. The parent or primary caregivers will be removed from the residence and placed with extended family within the community. We will bring in a respite worker who will take care of the children for the initial 48 hours. If it's longer than 48 hours, we will bring an extended family members who will take over that role of providing service to the children.

AMT: Solutions such as that may be on the table today, in Ottawa, at a two day meeting called to address problems in Canada's child welfare system. Another innovative approach is being piloted by the Yukon government. This month it's launching a foster care pilot program to keep foster children living in the same home as their biological parents. The idea is based on a program created by Winnipeg's Metis Child and Family Services Authority. It's called LIFE program - short for a Live in Family Enhancement - and it's become a lifeline for some Winnipeg parents who need extra support in raising their children. It places children and their parents in a foster home for usually up to eight months. At the home they learn from a mentor or a life Mom about parenting and about themselves. CBC Manitoba producer Suzanne Defresne visited one LIFE family this week.

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[Sound: Children making noises]

VOICE 1: We've just become a family and that's the easiest way to put it. I think that's the only way to succeed. That's my opinion. To succeed is just make them part of your family and live your life as normal as you can. So attachments first, develop the attachment between the mum and child and then get them working on their routine. And that's really where we are right now, still just building her routine. Then we'll start bringing cooking into it, and we work on finances and then we work on grocery shopping. You know then I start giving her the money that's for. So it's kind of three steps that I walk in front of her first and show her what to do. And then I walk beside her and just help her when she needs help. And when I'm walking behind her is when we know it is time for her to start getting out on her own.

VOICE 2: [To child] Tickle monster. [To producer] I'm a 20 year old mom. I've been staying here for two going on three months with my LIFE-Mum and my daughter. She has turned in January. There is so many things I didn't know a mom is supposed to do. [Sobbing] I grow up without routine, it was always something different happening every day and it has gotten worse over the years. I love living here. I am learning to build my attachment with my daughter, how good it is for her to know that Mummy is here, and that she can depend on me until she's old enough to do it herself. She got reprehend at two months for. And for the whole six that she was in with me for six months, just getting visits twice a week and being once a week - because I was going through a selfish period, I guess. Within that time I realized how much I needed her, as much as she needs me. [To child] Say mama

AMT: Were listening to a LIFE-Mom and a young parent. That part of the live in family enhancement program run by the Metis Child and Family Services Authority in Winnipeg. We've heard a lot from Manitoba throughout today's program. 11,000 kids are in care in that province. 90 percent of them are indigenous. Manitoba's seguing a number of steps to reform the system but as we just heard Indigenous services minister Jane Philpott has been critical of one proposal on the table. The province has plans to expand subsidies to help foster parents seeking permanent guardianship of foster children. Some child welfare advocates are concerned that this will lead to an increase in Indigenous children being permanently placed in non-indigenous homes. My next guest has considered these questions from all sides. Jay Lomax is a 70s Scoop survivor who is now an adoptions and permanency planning worker at Native Child and Family Services of Toronto. And he joins me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

JAY LOMAX: Hello.

AMT: What do you think about the idea of adoption as being part of the solution?

JAY LOMAX: Well as a 70 school survivor I went through the system myself at a early age, between the time I was three weeks or two three years old. And you know my experience you know was a good experience. But there were a lot of times when I felt that I needed the spiritual aspects of far of our culture and it was something that was really missing in my adoption. It was something that my adopt parents didn't quite fully understand. And I think that if I felt that I think that a lot of other children would feel that also.

AMT: Well let me ask you just a little bit more about your own story then. You were adopted by non indigenous parents?

JAY LOMAX: Correct. British family.

AMT: And what was life growing up like as a little kid?

JAY LOMAX: It was good at the very beginning and traumatic too in terms of transition I was abroad overnight from Portage La Prairie Manitoba to Toronto Pearson International. And yes met with those flash cubes on the old camera and those are pretty bright back then and not like the phones that we have now, the soft flashes. So you know I think a lot of our children went through that too, being the first you know child in the family and going through a transition so quickly. It was like a big bright flash of shock and trauma, at the beginning.

AMT: But as you got older you were kind of a happy kid, weren't you?

JAY LOMAX: Yes. Part of the reason for that was that my adopt parents led me to my reserve in Manitoba and led me to my culture.

AMT: When you were a teenager.

JAY LOMAX: Correct.

AMT: Did you ask them to do that? Did you express to them that something was missing?

JAY LOMAX: Yes and they identified that. And they always did their best to let me know about the culture in their own way. They also let me know that I was adopted at an early age. So that for me that provided a lot of grounding but also left me with that with that giant puzzle that adoptees are trying to put together. And I don't think anyone should go through their life trying to put together their own puzzle.

AMT: So they helped you because you ended up living then in your original community did you not, for a while?

JAY LOMAX: Yes I lived there for a couple years and then lived in city in Winnipeg for a couple of years.

AMT: So y you experienced all sides in a family that was willing to work with you for it. So I'm wondering how that how that allows you to go forward in the work that you do now with children who are in government care and foster homes.

JAY LOMAX: Well what I wanted to do was make a difference and try and get into the belly of the beast, and work in child welfare and try and switch and change up what indigenous adoptees were going through such as myself. So when I do work with adopted children I am looking at longer transition times, five six weeks, lots of visitations. And you know I get parents telling me look I am putting 10,000 kilometres on my car going back and forth and I say 'Well that's what you need to do.'

AMT: So how many adoptions have you over seen?

JAY LOMAX: Probably up to 30 now.

AMT: Whats the ratio of Indigenous kids to non indigenous adoptive parents

JAY LOMAX: I think in the past we did some adoptions where they were non indigenous but were strictly focused on indigenous. We search out the communities. We search out and look really sincerely very deeply. We're not just skimming the top. We are right in there. We're looking at neighbours. We're looking at are people that are from the reserve. You know all of our families are looking in the city or going farther into northern reserves, inviting Chiefs in Council come down in support those plans.

AMT: So that your quest to have some permanence for kids. We heard some of the young adults talking about how they wanted to be back with the biological parents. How do you weigh that kind of thing when you have a young child who maybe isn't even sure what they want yet? How do you weigh that, putting them with a permanent family versus getting them back to the other family?

JAY LOMAX: Well as I said we do our best to bring them - the goal is always to return the child home. The last thing that we want is to be in court and to be typing up court documents. And you know the last thing we want is children in care. The first thing we want is to, at the Family Service level of child welfare, is to secure that family and bring in all services that we can. And that's the issue is that we can't get the funding for sorceresses or there is long lineups for services.

AMT: How difficult is it to get other indigenous parents to adopt, given that adoption is sort of a loaded word in in the indigenous community?

JAY LOMAX: We do get first nations and Metis and Inuit adopt parents. But the problem is that the history of CIS within our community is still huge. So even speaking the word adoption causes trauma to some people because of this 60-70 scoop.

AMT: And so you make the point out you are actively searching for people you are trying to connect with people.

JAY LOMAX: That's correct.

AMT: And so all the adoptions you have placed, have you followed up? How is it going with those kids and those families?

JAY LOMAX: I they are going great. Now some of the issues that do come up are we get you know children with developmental issues or things that need services. So we're now supporting children that were adopted out and assisting the parents with subsidies for speech and language services - whatever they need. And that's something that needs to be talked up as something that needs to be looked into is what happens after the adoption. We are getting all kinds of things that we need to cover even after the finalization.

AMT: So we've spent about the last 90 minutes hearing from so many different people including those traumatized by contact with government care agencies. This is emotional. It's complicated. What do you want us to think about it as we see them trying to toss ideas around and come up with some maybe new ways of doing things in Ottawa the next few 60 days?

JAY LOMAX: Well I'll just tell you what I did. You know just a small thing that I've done and it was creating an adoption ceremony within our agency. I didn't have one when I was little. So I thought well what would that look like. So I created in my master’s program a video to promote a healthy attachment from foster care to adoption. We have the entire family there with the foster family and the adopt family there. Everybody gets a chance to speak about their positive interactions with that new child being adopted. And it's so special. It's so gratifying for everybody that gets a chance to be a part of it and I videotape it. I mean sometimes we have kids that are too and they are not going to understand what's going on, but when they see the video they go 'oh yeas! Like somebody actually cared. Somebody actually went the distance for me,' and then we have kind of like a mini baby shower and a feast. That's what we need to do, is include our culture in what is already in there. Just yesterday I did a welcome home ceremony for some children that were returning to their auntie and their grandmother. You know I don't think that's in the CAS institutions right now.

AMT: You're talking about doing it one child at a time.

JAY LOMAX: Right.

AMT: Thank you for coming in.

JAY LOMAX: Thank you.

AMT: Jay Lomax, 70s scoop Survivor and adoptions and permanency planning worker at Native and Child Family Services in Toronto. That is our program for today. Stay with Radio 1 for Q. Tom Power is joined by Canadian singer songwriter Jim Cuddy. If you tuned in partway through today's program and missed hearing any of my conversations you can now find them on our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent or on our podcast or on the CBC Radio app. As we reach the end of today's special edition of The Current time Canada's indigenous child welfare emergency, we're going to leave you with an uplifting message about the next generation.

[Music]

AMT: With indigenous Singer-Songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie and her song Generation from her latest record Medicine Songs. I am Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening.

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[Song: Generation by Buffy Sainte-Marie]

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