Community-Based Child Welfare for Aboriginal Children: Supporting Resilience Through Structural Change

Abstract

Available data suggest that First Nations children, youth and families in Canada continue to experience multiple and disproportionate human rights violations stemming from colonialism. First Nations child and family service agencies began developing in the 1970s to affirm communitybased systems of care and stem the tide of children being placed in nonAboriginal homes. Although these agencies have demonstrated significant success there are key barriers which limit their efficacy, such as the imposition of Euro-western legislation, inadequate access to financial resources and the continued marginalisation of indigenous knowledge within Euro-western social work. This paper describes the contemporary lived experience of First Nations children, youth and families in Canada. It identifies the conditions that support First Nations child and family service agencies to implement community based responses to child maltreatment that honour the strength, wisdom and resiliency embedded in indigenous ways of knowing and being. Future directions, such as mobilising a movement of reconciliation in child welfare as a means of dislocating Euro-western social work values, policies and practice that aggress indigenous ways of caring for children, will be discussed.