African Canadian and Black voices sought to help inform child protection agency
Aim is to improve outcomes for families interacting with Child and Family Services of Grand Erie
Child and Family Services of Grand Erie (CFSGE) invites African Canadian or Black individuals living in Brant, Brantford, Haldimand, Norfolk or Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation to help inform the way the service interacts with local families.
In particular, they’re looking to increase representation by including more voices on a newly formed advisory committee.
Members don’t need to have interacted with the CFSGE system, but those with experience of “what it is like to be acted on by a child welfare system,” are certainly welcome, said Natalie Dixon-Judah, director of service, equity diversity and inclusion for CFSGE.
Black families — and other racialized and marginalized bodies — are historically overrepresented in “the system,” even when they form a smaller population of a community, said Dixon-Judah.
The advisory group aims to address the disparity, help influence policies and practices in the organization, and help inform schools, the police and health-care institutions — the organizations that make the bulk of referrals to child and family services.
In many cases, these bodies operate from a colonial background, even if unwittingly, said Jean Samuel, community chair of the committee.
Samuel moved to Brantford in the early 1980s and said her own children could have interacted with the system — if she hadn’t previously worked in child welfare.
“I knew what to look for, and I could interrupt those aggressions that came towards my own children in the school system,” she said.
But not all families have that insight and there’s a growing number of newcomers in the region.
At the 2021 census, 4,200 individuals in the Brantford-Brant area identified as Black — nearly double that of the 2016 census. Samuel predicts the number has grown since then. Black populations have existed in this area for years — it was one of the Underground Railroad stops, has been a destination for migrant workers from the Caribbean and, at one time, a Black school operated in Brantford as part of the British Methodist Episcopal Church, Samuel said.
Having a space by and for the African-Canadian community, to sit down and talk about it, and share experiences with the system is that much more important, Samuel said. The advisory groups are being implemented provincially by child welfare organizations, based on recommendations from One Vision One Voice.
The program was created in part to support “improved outcomes and equitable services for African Canadian children, youth and families in Ontario’s child welfare system,” according to the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies website.
A system needs to find ways to “interrupt itself, to dismantle, deconstruct and address when racism is happening,” Samuel said.
“And that’s what this group will do. We’re going to keep that system honest about the colonial racist policies and practices that affect African Canadian and Black families,” she said.
CFSGE is looking to include the following African Canadian or Black voices in their advocacy group:
■ Members of the LGBTQ community;
■ Individuals with IndigenousBlack identity;
■ Youth; ■ and individuals in the Haldimand-Norfolk area.
For more information, email volunteering@cfsge.ca.