FIRST NATIONS
Alberta commits to Jordan’s Principle
The province promised to fully implement Jordan’s Principle Thursday as part of its plan to repair Alberta’s child intervention system.
“For First Nations families here in Alberta right now who are facing chronic health problems that aren’t life-threatening but could have enormous impacts on the quality of their life, this is going to be a tremendous relief,” said Children’s Services Minister Danielle Larivee in an interview.
Jordan’s Principle is the concept that a First Nations child should be provided services they need without delay, and any uncertainty over who should pay is resolved later. Requests can range from speech therapy to mental health services to medical equipment.
“The right thing to do is to make sure there’s no gap in services,” Larivee said.
She signed a memorandum of understanding with federal Minister of Indigenous Services Jane Philpott and 11 First Nation chiefs representing the First Nations Health Consortium Thursday to cement the policy.
From July 2016 to Sept. 30 this year, there were more than 165,000 approved requests nationally for services under Jordan’s Principle, according to federal data. That included more than 8,100 requests in Alberta.
“We’ll be connecting families to services ... knowing the feds are going to pay,” Larivee said.
Ottawa set up a $382.5-million national fund to pay for products, services and supports requested under Jordan’s Principle. The fund is available until spring 2019.
Alberta is the first province to sign a memorandum of understanding, Larivee said.
“It was one of our immediate steps in our public action plan,” she said. “We want to make sure that the supports are in place.”
In June, Larivee released the province’s child intervention action plan, a four-year strategy featuring 39 specific actions the government plans to accomplish by 2022.
Jordan’s Principle is named in memory of Jordan River Anderson, who died in hospital at age five. He was from Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba and born with multiple disabilities.
Federal and provincial governments were in dispute over who should pay for his home-based care when he died in 2005.
Of the 10,647 kids currently receiving intervention services in Alberta, 6,547 are Indigenous.
In October, the province introduced legislation to overhaul the child intervention system.
Bill 22 stemmed from work by Alberta’s all-party child intervention panel formed after the death of Serenity, a four-year-old First Nations girl who was a ward of the state living in kinship care before she died. Changes included mandating that First Nations be given legal notice when anyone applies for private guardianship of a child in their band.