By working to keep kids in the community, Indigenous-led child protection programs are working to roll back decades of colonialism
set out for reforming the on-reserve welfare system and the $23-billion settlement for those whose lives were shattered by regressive laws that scooped children up and took them far away to be raised by non-Indigenous families.started closing in the 1960s, and it continued even after the last one closed in 1996. Now, Ms. Sutherland believes that Kaa Yaa Me Sta Maa Ket represents a major step toward rolling back years of colonization for the community’s children.
Bringing children home – back to the care and control of the community – is what Kaa Yaa Me Sta Maa Ket strives for. That mandate comes from young leaders like Ms. Sutherland, who was herself removed as a child from Fort Albany to live somewhere else in the “system” – twice. However, by the third time, she “had no choice but to leave” because she had to go to high school outside of Fort Albany – a common occurrence in northern First Nations communities that lack such educational basics.St.
“There is a lot of healing that needs to be done, a lot of trauma, a lot of grief, to the point where death is the only option,” Ms. Sutherland told me. After years of working on the front lines of child protection, including crisis counselling, she can’t bring herself to visit Fort Albany’s graveyard – there are too many young people resting there that the so-called “system” failed.Robert Nakogee, the former Chief of Fort Albany, worked with Ms.
It used to be that extended families – aunties, uncles, grandparents – would take care of their kin. Everyone kept an eye on each other’s children. The way forward for our children is rebuilding that spirit that has been lost.
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