Aboriginal Child Welfare
This section contains material related to Aboriginal child welfare. Canada has a decentralized child welfare system that consists of 13 Canadian provincial and territorial child welfare systems. In addition, there exist Métis, First Nations and urban Aboriginal child and family service agencies that are to varying degrees affected by federal policies and funding models. Most commonly, Aboriginal child welfare agencies have signed agreements with either the federal or both the federal and provincial governments that authorizes them to provide the full range of child protection services and receive federal funding to do so. For more information about First Nations child welfare, see Kiskisik Awasisak: Remember the Children. Understanding the Overrepresentation of First Nations Children in the Child Welfare System.
For information on the First Nations human rights complaint case against the federal government for under-funding child welfare services on-reserve: www.fnwitness.ca
Aboriginal Child Welfare - Statistics
Child Maltreatment Investigations, First Nations and Non-Aboriginal Children^*
| First Nations Children | Non-Aboriginal Children | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of child maltreatment investigations | 14,114 | 83,650 |
| Incidence of child maltreatment investigations per 1,000 children | 140.6 | 33.5 |
Type of Child Maltreatment Investigations in 2008 for First Nations and Non-Aboriginal Children^*
| First Nations Number | First Nations Rate per 1,000 Children | FIrst Nations Percent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maltreatment incident Investigation | 10,324 | 102.8 | 73% |
| Risk Investigation | 3,790 | 37.8 | 27% |
| Non-Aboriginal Number | Non-Aboriginal Rate per 1,000 Children | Non-Aboriginal Percent | |
| Maltreatment incident Investigation | 62,512 | 25.1 | 75% |
| Risk Investigation | 21,138 | 8.5 | 25% |
Primary Categories of Substantiated Child Maltreatment Investigations in in 2008 for First Nations and Non-Aboriginal Children^*
| First Nations Children | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Category of Maltreatment | Number | Rate per 1,000 First Nation children | Percent |
| Physical Abuse | 560 | 5.58 | 9% |
| Sexual Abuse | 103 | 1.03 | 2% |
| Neglect | 2,781 | 27.70 | 46% |
| Emotional Maltreatment | 559 | 5.57 | 9% |
| Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence | 2,000 | 19.92 | 33% |
| Non-Aboriginal Children | |||
| Category of Maltreatment | Number | Rate per 1,000 Non-Aboriginal children | Percent |
| Physical Abuse | 6,788 | 2.72 | 23% |
| Sexual Abuse | 939 | 0.38 | 3% |
| Neglect | 8,675 | 3.48 | 29% |
| Emotional Maltreatment | 2,589 | 1.04 | 9% |
| Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence | 10,489 | 4.20 | 36% |
Placement in Child Maltreatment Investigations in 2008 for First Nations and Non-Aboriginal Children^*
| First Nations Number | First Nations Rate | Non-Aboriginal Number | Non-Aboriginal Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Informal Kinship Care | 1,032 | 10.3 | 2,218 | 0.9 |
| Formal Kinship Care | 298 | 3.0 | 497 | 0.2 |
| Family Foster Care | 893 | 8.9 | 1,872 | 0.8 |
| Group home/residential secure facility | 172 | 1.7 | 322 | 0.1 |
| Total | 2,395 | 23.9 | 4,909 | 2.0 |
* Source: Sinha, V., Trocmé, N., MacLaurin, B., Fast, E., Thomas Prokop, S., Petti, T., … Richard, K. (2011). Kiskisik Awasisak: Remember the Children. Understanding the Overrepresentation of First Nations Children in the Child Welfare System. Ontario: Assembly of First Nations. Retrieved from http://cwrp.ca/publications/2280.
^ Note: The estimates presented here are from the first national study that collected investigation data from a large number of First Nations and urban Aboriginal agencies. Because the First Nations and urban Aboriginal agencies were purposely, rather than randomly selected, these are not national estimates, and are not comparable to CIS-2003 or CIS-1998. All results must be interpreted with the caution necessitated by a pilot study
Data presented here are weighted estimates; for information regarding the FNCIS weighting procedure, see the executive summary and appendices of Kiskisik Awasikak (Sinha et al., 2011).
Interpretations must take into account the context and structure of First Nations child welfare, see Sinha et al. (2011) for a contextualized summary of the findings.
Aboriginal Child Welfare - Legislation
Aboriginal child welfare services are provided in accordance with provincial/territorial legislation, as allowed by Section 88 of the Indian Act (1985). Child welfare services fall under the jurisdiction of provincial and territorial authorities. As a result, each province and territory has different legislation pertaining to child protection interventions. For more information click here.
Child welfare services on-reserve are funded through Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and subject to the regulations within the First Nations Child and Family Services section of the National Social Program Manual (last updated 2012).
Aboriginal Child Welfare - Links
| Last Name | First Name | Organization | Keyword |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bennett | Marlyn | University of Manitoba | Aboriginal |
| Blackstock | Cindy | First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada | Aboriginal |
| Brown | Jason | University of Western Ontario | Aboriginal |
| Brown | Leslie | University of Victoria | Aboriginal |
| Kovach | Margaret | University of Saskatchewan | Aboriginal |
| Lafrance | Jean | University of Calgary | Aboriginal |
| Sookraj | Dixon | University of British Columbia – Okanagan | Aboriginal |
| Wien | Fred | Dalhousie University | Aboriginal |
| Wright | Alexandra | Canadian Association for Social Work Education | Aboriginal |
| Macpherson | Alison K. | York University | Aboriginal |
| MacDonald | Nancy | Dalhousie University | Aboriginal |
| Carriere | Jeannine | University of Victoria | Aboriginal |
| Bastien | Betty | University of Calgary | Aboriginal |
| Sinclair | Raven | University of Regina | Aboriginal |
| De Finney | Sandrina | University of Victoria | Aboriginal |
| Montgomery | H. Monty | University of Regina | Aboriginal |
| Sinha | Vandna | McGill Unversity | Aboriginal |
| Kreitzer | Linda | University of Calgary | Aboriginal |
| Fast | Elizabeth | Concordia University | Aboriginal |
| Richardson | Catherine | Université de Montréal | Aboriginal |
