Child welfare panel nears final stage

After 11 months of work, countless consultations, meetings on First Nations, tearful and emotional presentations, Alberta’s all-party child intervention panel is beginning to formulate its final recommendations.

That report will guide an overhaul of child welfare and how to deal with the root causes of family involvement in the system.

But change will not be swift, the panel heard Wednesday.

It will take decades for wounds to heal, particularly when it comes to intergenerational trauma among Aboriginal communities.

First Nations kids are vastly over-represented in Alberta’s child welfare system.

Panel member Peter Choate, an external expert in social work, told Postmedia shifting that trend will take two to three generations.

“It has taken 150-plus years to get to this stage in creating the problem, so we’re not going to solve it in six months or a year,” Choate said.

It’s also going to take political will, he said, to set up structures now that can transcend elections.

Members of the panel are hopeful their work will — unlike so many other government reports in the past — make a tangible difference.

“Part of what we’ve heard on this long journey is there are all these dusty reports that don’t get acted upon,” said United Conservative Party MLA Ric McIver, a panel member. “We really don’t want to author one more.”

The panel identified five areas where it will concentrate as it develops its final recommendations:

Supporting families and communities; Supporting the workforce; Cultural connections and wellbeing;

Improving mental health and addictions, Family systems and kinship. It also aims to attach a clear, workable action plan to each one.

The panel was set up after the Edmonton Journal brought to light the case of Serenity, a fouryear-old girl who died in care three years ago.

She was covered in bruises, malnourished and suffering from hypothermia when she was transported to the Stollery Children’s Hospital with a head injury in September 2014. She died a few days later.

The panel completed its first stage of work months ago, delivering its recommendations to Children’s Services Minister Danielle Larivee.

Within weeks, she put forward legislative changes.