Province, STC sign welfare agreements
Work aims to improve services for Indigenous children and youth in care
The Saskatchewan government and the Saskatoon Tribal Council signed three agreements on Friday morning aimed at improving services for children and youth belonging to one of the seven member First Nations.
STC Chief Mark Arcand, chiefs of the member First Nations, Social Services Minister Paul Merriman and Premier Scott Moe signed a new delegation agreement, a Children and Families Reconciliation Partnership Agreement and a First Contact Panel Protocol in Saskatoon.
“Never has there ever been a partnership with the province with First Nations and child welfare. This means we’re equal, we’re equal to work together to make a difference in people’s lives,” Arcand told media after the signing.
“All of this work is about prevention. It’s not about apprehension or protection. We don’t ever want to hear that word. We want to keep families in their homes, we want to keep children safe. We want them to have their culture, their language, their identity. We want to make sure they can have a quality of life instead of being in a foster home somewhere where they don’t get that.”
For the children currently in care, the first goal will be to see what can be done to bring them home.
Arcand said the STC has been running four Ministry of Social Services homes while it didn’t have agency status, and it followed every rule and regulation.
Now they’re up to running six homes, he said.
“I want another 10 homes so we can bring our kids home, so we can repatriate them back to the community.
“We want to bring them back to their families, but it’s not going to be just pick them up and take them there,” he said.
Merriman said the ministry will work with STC to return children from the tribal council’s catchment area to the area so they can be connected to their families, culture and communities.
“So this is step one today, then we’re going to start working further down the road to be able to make sure if there are children across the province that have temporarily been taken into care by the province, we’re going to work to be able to have contact back with their home communities,” Merriman said.
The premier said the province hopes this will be a framework for reaching similar agreements with other First Nations communities, which he said they will be working toward “fairly quickly.”
However, each agreement will need to work for the individual communities, Moe said.
The reconciliation partnership agreement sets out goals including reviewing case plans for children and youth in care to make sure that their cultural, linguistic, identity and community connections remain intact; looking into the possibility of repurposing some Saskatchewan Housing Corporation units to provide services; as well as looking at ways to keep Indigenous mothers and newborns together by improving prenatal supports.
The delegation agreement will re-establish the STC Child and Family Services Agency to provide services to families on member First Nations.
The First Contact Panel Protocol is meant to help resolve child and family issues with a goal to reduce the number of children placed in care and to prevent repeat returns of a child to care.
Former Saskatchewan judge and former B.C. Child and Youth Advocate Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond was the chief negotiator on behalf of the STC.
The signings represent a change in the relationship between the STC and the province.
Earlier this month, both sides ended a nearly three-year legal battle over the files of 67 children living on reserves, which started in 2016 when the province tried to obtain an injunction to access the files, accusing the STC of withholding them, and the STC countered saying the files fell within its jurisdiction.
The turning point was a conversation initiated by Arcand to discuss child welfare with Merriman.
We want to keep families in their homes, we want to keep children safe. We want them to have their culture, their language, their identity. We want to make sure they can have a quality of life ...
Arcand called the events of 2016 “an unfortunate circumstance” and said the STC accepts its mistakes.
Last week, the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations called on the province to work with it on a framework to implement federal legislation, once it passes, to reaffirm First Nations’ jurisdiction over child welfare.
Vice-chief David Pratt said last week that he thinks there has been “a bit of pushback” when it comes to transitioning authority from the social services ministry to First Nations governance.
Moe said Friday he has met with Pratt and FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron recently to discuss a framework to support the proposed legislation.
“What we’re seeing today and the commitment and the effort that needs to come to continue to build capacity of care in our communities, in our First Nations communities across the province, builds towards precisely that. That is important whether the legislation comes into play or not,” he said.