Decolonization : moving to inclusive foster care

The Province of Manitoba's child welfare agencies face the dilemma of increasing number of children in care, with the greatest percentage of these children being of Aboriginal ancestry placed in non-Aboriginal foster homes.A quasi-experimental design (N:34) was used to examine if specialized foster parents' attendance at a workshop on 'Perpetuating Colonization of Aboriginal People' decreased negative racial attitudes and increased foster parents inclusive foster care strategies.The intervention was not successfi.rlat decreasing negative racial attitudes and may have had the opposite effect.The intervention was not successful at increasing inclusive foster care activities. in 1988 British Columbia did do this.tn 1988 British Columbia Children's Commrssron fonnd only 2-5o/o of Aboriginal children in care of the Ministry for Children and Family Development were in Aboriginal homes (British Columbia Children's Commission Report, 1998).This reference is out dated but is evidence of the long-standing issue of cross-cultural placements in Canada.If standard 422.1inManitoba (Manitoba Family Services & Housing,2005) were followed at even a marginal level, appropriate cultural placements would be the norm rather than the exception.Section 421.2 of the Program Standards Manual details the procedure for placement priorities, and states that children of Aboriginal ancestry should be placed in culturally appropriate homes. AxnualThis program manual has had limited impact on culturally appropriate placement for foster children.Evident is the gap between the policy manual and the practice of social workers.Attitudes, ideas and approaches to fostering cross-culturally will not change without training, knowledge or understanding of the history and colonization ofAboriginal people.The foster parent must develop sensitivity and understanding as to how colonization is maintained, including an awareness of the relationship between colonization and the helping professions, processes and institutions (Hart, 2002).It is critical that service providers begin to address the significant gap between policy standards and practice delivery.Providing educational opportunities for foster parents to develop knowledge of colonization allows foster parents to foster cross-culturally with sensitivity.Research needs to determine foster parents' views of their own role.Does the self-identif,red role of foster parents' impact or maintain colonizing practices?Training of foster parents in this area will be important, given the upcoming changes derived from the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry.Initially, in this transition, more foster parents will be providing service to Aboriginal Agencies.If foster parents do not understand the colonization process, it may create conflict as they perpetuate the colonization and fail to support a new system trying to deconstruct colonization.Evidence suggests that inclusive fostering increases placement stability and increases reunif,rcation possibilities (Kalland & Sinkkonen,2001; Kufeldt, 1991;Kufeldt & Armstrong,1995; Leathers, 2002).It is essential for the cultural health of foster children that inclusive fostering becomes standard training and that foster parents increase their understanding of the colonization of Aboriginal People.Evidence is needed to support the idea that training foster parents can impact on their selÊdefinition of inclusive or exclusive foster parenting practice.Inclusive fostering practices include the birth family in the care of the child.Exclusive fostering is fostering practice that excludes the birth family (Holman, 1975;Palmer, 1995).Obviously the 'ostrich approach' has not improved the life of foster children and their birth families or foster families.Further neglect and ignorance of how colonization perrneates foster care creates fertile ground for growing racism.Active and immediate interventions parallel to the recommendations of the Aboriginal Justice lnquiry are urgently required.These interventions must be geared toward challenging colonized ideas and attitudes that are embedded in the crurent delivery of child welfare services- History of the Problem Customarily, "boarding out" was one of the care responses for children deemed to be in need of protection and parenting in the 19ú century.The legislation and the term have since shifted to "foster carc" (Zacharias, 1991).Foster care has evolved into one of the primary methods of addressing family problems, requiring out of home placement of children.In200l-2002 Winnipeg Child & Family Services had72o/o of the children in their care placed in foster homes, andTYo placed in residential settings (Manitoba Family Services & Housing,2001).In2007 Manitoba Family Services and Housing Annual report state that the total number of children in out of home care was 7,837 of which 58o/o (4,602 children) were placed in foster care.Of these numbersT}Yo (5,506 children) were deemed to have treaty status, 5.9% (463 children) wereNon-Status, 9.3% (730 children) were Metis, 33% (26 children) were Inuit arñ 14.1o/o (l ,112 children) were Non-Aboriginal requiring services (Manitoba Family Services & Housing,2007-2008).Completing the calculation results in 85.8%of children in care in the year 2007-2008 were of Aboriginal or First Nation Ancestry.It is noted that nowhere does Manitoba Family Services and Housing report how many of the foster homes are Aboriginal orNon-Aboriginal (Manitoba Family Services & Housing, 2007 -2008).2The selection of the foster home as a primary or "ftrst choice" method of placement, where possible, has resulted in agencies in Manitoba, and across Canad4 scrambling to develop foster homes (Manitoba Family Services and Housing,2005Housing, -2006Housing, &,2007Housing, -2008;;Titterington, 1990).This process has developed into a multi-faceted problem in child welfare.Recruitment, licensing, support, training and retention of foster homes are issues that all CFS agencies experience.Theevolution of the foster care t Ethnicity of foster parents is obtained during the foster home study process.Ethnicity of children in care is obtained during the Authority determination process.The data are available; yet not tracked.literature has critically examined the effectiveness, the impact, a¡rd the utility of this training process (Mackenzie, 7994).In2007 the Manitoba Provincial Government announced the Circle of Care Campaign aimed at increasing foster home beds and increasing training opportunities for foster parents.(Manitoba Housing and Family Services, 2007) The Circle of Ca¡e Campaign launched by the Provincial Government in 2006 was a joint all Authority project aimed at recruiting additional foster care beds.In October 2007 the Minister of Family Services and Housing announced that an additional five hundred foster care beds had been recruited (Manitoba Housing and Family Services, 2007).In 1977 , sixty per cent of children in care in Manitoba were of Aboriginal descent (McKenzie and Hudson, 1985).3The Province of Manitoba introduced non-assimilative social work practice by introducing policies that would attempt to ensure that children would not be placed cross-culturally into foster care unless all avenues had been exhausted(Child& Family Services Act, 2005).4childwelfare agencies within the Province developed policies to ensure this practice occurred (Child & Family Services Act, 2005).1n2007 or thirty years later, there were 7,837 children in care in the Province of Manitoba.Eighty-f,rve percent or 6,725 children were of Aboriginal ancesÇ (Manitoba Family Services & Housing,2007-2008).The over representation of Aboriginal children in t ln the 2006 Canadian Census the Aboriginal Population for all of Canada was 1,1-72,78.5 or 3.8% of Canadian population.For the same year in Manitoba Aboriginal people numbered 775,4OO or 15.5% of the total Manitoba Population.ln 2006 33.I% (58,195) of that number were Aboriginal children(Statistics Canada, 2006) o S¡nce the AJI-CWl a vast number of kinship foster care placements have been developed for children in the province of Manitoba.Metis Child and Family CommuniÇ Services has 160 kinship homes as of January 2009.(MetisChild and Family Community Services Kinship Care Department 2009)

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