Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
“Adopting a lens of structural violence disrupts the notion of neglect as a “personal problem”, refocusing attention on the responsibility of governments to recognize and address underlying structural inequities."
- Alison J Gerlach et al
Throughout our discussions on this blog on child welfare, we have discussed the over-representation of Indigenous children in the child welfare system and the high rates of apprehension over misconceptions of “bad parenting”.[1] In addition, we have discussed the effects of apprehension on Indigenous mothers and childrearing[2] and the need for decolonizing forces to disrupt the patterns of institutionalized and structural violence towards Indigenous children and families and restore connection to their communities and traditions.[3] Today’s post discusses how British Columbia’s Aboriginal Infant Development Program has sought to navigate systems of structural violence with Indigenous families engaging in the child welfare system.
The Importance of Indigenous Early Childhood Intervention
The Aboriginal Infant Development Program (“AIDP”) is a province-wide Indigenous early childhood intervention program in British Columbia that provides early childhood education, home visiting, outreach and/or centred-based early intervention for Indigenous families with young children.[4] The AIDP is unique in that it is characterized by its relational perspective towards family well-being.[5] The AIDP arose in response to the persistent overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care and the calls for proactive, community-based early childhood programs and services from Indigenous communities and children and youth advocates.[6] Increasingly, high quality Indigenous early childhood programs are becoming viewed as “critical sites for pursuing cultural and language revitalization and as pathways to the collective health and well-being of Indigenous families and communities.”[7] According to international standards, “quality programming” includes:
- A grounding in Indigenous knowledges, values, and ways of caring for young children;
- Community governance, involvement, and accountability;
- A broad and relationship view of health and well-being;
- Family and Elder involvement;
- Comprehensive and coordinated programs; and
- Sustainable funding and structural supports.[8]
Because of their focus on relational perspectives, the AIDP workers are able to play two important roles in supporting families experiencing child apprehension. First, the AIDP workers help mothers and children to make sense of the process of child apprehension and help parents meet the necessary conditions to either prevent losing custody of their children or to get their children back.[9] Second, the AIDP workers provide a critical counter-narrative to women’s experiences of feeling “disempowered, judged, and mandated to prove themselves to the state in order to keep, or reclaim their rights, to raise their children.”[10] In this way, the AIDP workers’ “explicit resistance to the child welfare system’s perceptions of Indigenous mothers created a relationship in which mothers could exert their resistance to negative definitions of being a “bad parent”, thereby reaffirming their agency in motherhood.”[11]
Navigating Structural Violence
‘Structural violence’ is a form of social injustice which enacts violence through the operation of structures and social mechanisms which “cause harm, deny human rights, constrain human agency, and/or prevent particular individuals and population groups from having the resources necessary to help them reach their full potential while sparing other groups from the same treatment.”[12] Currently, oppressive structural policies result in high numbers of Indigenous children being removed from their families.[13] It is important to adopt a lens of structural violence in the context of early childhood intervention because it disrupts notions of “bad parenting” and “neglect” as an individual problem and “refocus[es] attention on the responsibility of governments to recognize and address underlying structural inequalities.[14] Gerlach et al call on the government to invest in Indigenous early childhood programs so that they can play a more proactive and preventive role in Indigenous families by providing access to basic determinants of health such as secure food and housing. In addition, education of frontline workers on the history and impacts of the residential school system and trauma- and violence-informed care is necessary for breaking down institutionalized and normalized structural violence.[15]
While early childhood intervention and family support programs have been shown to have a positive effect in breaking down systems of structural violence, underfunding by the government and lack of education of frontline workers puts these very same programs at risk for perpetuating systems of structural violence. It is essential that the federal and provincial governments in Canada move to invest in Indigenous early childhood programming that supports family preservation and the optimal health and well-being of Indigenous children and families if any reduction in Indigenous child representation in child welfare is to be seen in the future.
Until next time,
Team ReconciliAction YEG
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[1] See “Misconceptions of ‘Bad Parenting’ and the Impacts on Child Apprehension” (13 November 2019), online (blog): University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog (ReconciliAction YEG) <ualbertalaw.typepad.com/faculty/2019/11/misconceptions-of-bad-parenting-and-the-impacts-on-child-apprehension.html>.
[2] See “Indigenous Mothering and the Impacts of the Child Welfare System” (12 November 2019), online (blog): University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog (ReconciliAction YEG) <ualbertalaw.typepad.com/faculty/2019/11/indigenous-mothering-and-the-impacts-of-the-child-welfare-system.html>.
[3] See “The De-colonizing Force of Indigenous Girls and Youth” (20 November 2019), online (blog): University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog (ReconciliAction YEG) <ualbertalaw.typepad.com/faculty/2019/11/indigenous-girls-and-youth-as-de-colonizing-force-.html>; See also “The Role of the Indigenous Community in Child Development” (11 November 2019), online (blog): University of Alberta Faculty of Law Blog (ReconciliAction YEG) <ualbertalaw.typepad.com/faculty/2019/11/the-role-of-the-indigenous-community-in-child-development.html>.
[4] Alison J Gerlach et al, “Navigating Structural Violence with Indigenous Families: The Contested Terrain of Early Childhood Intervention and the Child Welfare System in Canada” (2017) 8:3 Intl Indigenous Policy J 1 at 1, 4.
[5] Ibid at 4.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid at 6.
[10] Ibid at 7.
[11] Ibid at 8.
[12] Gerlach at 11.
[13] Ibid at 12.
[14] Ibid at 11.
[15] Ibid.
