When cultural return policy fails, First Nations children can die

Reuniting kids with parents admirable, provided adequate supports are in place

It’s impossible to absorb the latest report from Alberta’s Child and Youth Advocate without feeling both pity and despair.

It’s an all-too-familiar story of First Nations children who live the most terrible lives, only to die young.

The difference from previous reports is the shocking number — three children, all of whom perished in separate parts of Alberta under gruesomely similar circumstances.

Advocate Del Graff calls them Sarah, who died at age five, Anthony, who was two, and Mikwan, only one year old.

All three mothers were charged with second-degree murder. Anthony’s and Mikwan’s moms pleaded guilty to manslaughter and are in prison. Sarah’s mother has a preliminary hearing in the fall.

This is the very definition of family disaster and collapse.

And one root cause is a policy that’s supposed to reunite families.

All three children were returned from foster care to their mothers under the policy of kinship care, the worthy goal of reuniting Indigenous children with their birth families whenever possible.

Frequently, it works. “Very, very often, children are returned to their families successfully,” Graf says.

But tragedy can ensue when the parents are not ready, and the government fails to give both parents and kids the support they need after the reunion.

Graf sees time and again that full services go to children entering foster care. But there’s far less help at the crucial moment when the children return to their families.

All these moms were addicts who tried to get clean.

They took courses and counselling.

They loved their children and wanted them back.

But the parents and the kids were heavily damaged. The families were plagued by violence and substance abuse. The children had needs and behaviours the parents couldn’t handle.

All three youngsters were dead within three months of being returned to their mothers.

One case like that should cause serious re-examination. If death isn’t the signal of a flawed social policy, it’s hard to know what would be.

Even more deaths can be attributed to such misjudged efforts at cultural reunion.

Graf mentioned his earlier report into the death of a toddler he named Sharon, who was nine months old when she died in similar circumstances.

There’s also the case of fouryear-old Serenity, whose death became a sensation because Postmedia’s Paula Simons published photos and medical reports.

In that situation, the mother was blameless. She asked that her child be placed with family friends because the alternative would have been permanent adoption.

The details of each case vary, of course. But the common thread is the policy of favouring returns to First Nations homes and culture.

To be clear, that is a completely admirable and essential policy. But policy can never become more important than children’s safety. Yet, sometimes, it does.

Graf accuses the government of failing to respond to his earlier recommendations to resolve the issues. Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, speaking for Children’s Services Minister Danielle Larivee, insists that much is being done.

She gives an assessment that seems accurate, if understated.

“In response to the profound legacy of residential schools in Indigenous families and communities, governments across Canada have been working to reunify families wherever possible.

“In examining these cases, it is clear that we need to do a better job of working with families to ensure complex needs are acknowledged, the right supports are in place and that children are kept safe.”

Then, Hoffman notes that two of the cases involved children being served by delegated First Nations’ agencies on reserves. It’s an aside that comes across as a cheap shot.

There are two key problems here — policy pressure that can make reunion a higher priority than safety; and the lack of support for kids and parents after the reunion.

It’s time for the province to get this right. Too many lives have been lost already.

Many more are at stake.