Voices from ‘One Vision One Voice’
Powerful stories were heard during province-wide public consultations with advocates, black families and young people with first-hand experiences with Ontario’s child protection system.
Here is a selection of voices included in a draft of the report obtained by the Star.
“They tell our kids to call children’s aid if you don’t like what your parent is doing . . . But they don’t tell the kids what happens afterward. How they will come in and break up your family. So kids think that they will come in and help fix things, but they don’t. They make things worse.”
“CAS sold a dream to my daughter. They stole my daughter at age 15.”
“I’ve lost my culture. I don’t know anything about my black culture because I’ve only been in white homes.”
“One white foster parent said, ‘You are like our chocolate chip!’ ”
“I feel like the staff are scared of us black kids, so they try to get rid of us quickly. They don’t try to understand us.”
“Black children are being used as a means of revenue.”
“Our children are not the same when they come home. They are never the same again.”
“They should create a black-care 101 book for foster parents and group homes so they understand our culture, and our hair and our food.”
“It’s like putting a lion, a tiger and a bunny rabbit in one room and thinking they’re going to get along. It doesn’t work. Group homes should be shut down.”
“I’ve seen how the one white kid in a house full of black youth gets treated better.”