First Nations in northwestern Ontario taking ownership of child-family services on road to federal reform

Sandy Lake First Nation is taking back ownership of its child and family services, helping pave the way for other First Nations in northwestern Ontario to do the same.

The remote community with roughly 4,000 members recently celebrated the grand opening of its band representative (band rep) office in Thunder Bay. The program offers wraparound support to Sandy Lake members with children who may be at risk of entering the child welfare system, and acts as a liaison between the family, First Nation, and child and family service agencies.

What makes band rep unique is its focus on preventing children from ending up in the system, says Sandy Lake Chief Delores Kakegamic.

"We're trying to build something where a person who is struggling, especially young people with young families, to give them opportunities, to give them training, to know how to go about trying to improve their way of living," Kakegamic said.

"It starts with the parents. Children are not the problem. Parents need to gain these skills to be able to support their children in a way that the children [can] flourish."

Recent national developments have fuelled the momentum behind band rep in northwestern Ontario:

"It's been a very good opportunity with this new funding for First Nations to actually take a look at our children and family services and have a hand in it, have a say in it — not just be told," Kakegamic said.

Sandy Lake is about 450 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg and 600 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay. Many Sandy Lake members have settled in those cities due to lack of housing and medical services in the First Nation, Kakegamic said.

The First Nation now has band rep offices in Winnipeg and Thunder Bay, which has made services more accessible and helped the community keep track of how many children are in care, she said.

Sandy Lake is part of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), a political territorial organization that represents 49 First Nations across Treaties 9 and 5. NAN recently held a band rep conference in Winnipeg.

Bobby Narcisse, deputy grand chief of NAN, said chiefs are asking for support to develop band rep programs in a way that recognizes their community's distinct challenges.

This would allow them "to build a program that is reflective of our language, of our culture, that is respectful to our traditional ways of bringing up our children," Narcisse said. 

With the current patchwork system in place, Narcisse said, a lot of families don't know their options.

"They didn't know that they could have legal assistance, they didn't know that they could approach the First Nation to really access many of these prevention initiatives," he said.