‘Culturally appropriate’ care target of new pilot project
Grand council, Saskatchewan ministry partner to recruit more foster families
SASKATOON The Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) and Ministry of Social Services are partnering in the hope of providing First Nations and Metis children with culturally appropriate foster care.
The PAGC’S child care and education centre’s community provider program is looking to recruit 50 First Nations and Metis families to take part in a new pilot project that would see them fostering Metis and First Nations children.
Under the project, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Social Services will allow the PAGC to arrange placements for Metis and First Nations children from the Prince Albert area who are taken into care.
“There’s been a lot of discussion around the need to have our children placed in culturally appropriate foster care homes,” said PAGC executive director Al Ducharme. “Where they can learn about or continue to live within their culture, be exposed to language, be exposed to traditions and ceremonies that these parents will go to.”
The project was created in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action regarding child welfare reform and the rights of First Nations to create and maintain their own child welfare agencies.
Ducharme said a community-driven approach is key — PAGC’S existing connections with First Nations in Saskatchewan could help facilitate meaningful foster family connections. Its large staff, many of whom are Metis or First Nations, could also serve as potential parents.
Many of the children the program is already working with are from Prince Albert, Ducharme said. The PAGC would help care for them and find foster parents within the city or the children’s home community.
The recruitment process involves a phone consultation, an in-home consultation, an application with references, a criminal record check and foster parent training program.
Currently, the project is for children between the ages of six and 14, but Ducharme said he hopes to eventually expand it to include newborns to five-year-olds.
“We think that we can make a difference,” he said. “We hope that any changes that happen related to child care could be influenced by what we’re doing.”
In a statement, Tobie Eberhardt, Saskatchewan’s executive director of community services with child and family programs, said the Ministry of Social Services is looking forward to working with PAGC on the project and future activities supporting First Nations youth.
Fewer than 10 per cent of Canadian children are Indigenous, but Indigenous children represent more than half of children in care. That number is significantly higher in Saskatchewan; the Saskatchewan Child and Youth Advocate’s 2018 annual report says about 80 per cent of the province’s children and youth in care are Indigenous.