Heather Latter
Gord Mackintosh, the minister of family services and housing in Manitoba, along with others from his office, visited Rainy River District last Thursday and Friday to learn about the aboriginal child welfare system here.
“In Manitoba, we’re always exploring better ways to protect children,” said Mackintosh, who grew up in the Fort Frances area.
“We’ve been able to allow aboriginal people greater control to take care of their own children in child welfare,” he noted. “And at the same time learn that aboriginal ways can enhance child safety and well-being.”
The two-day visit, hosted by Weechi-it-te-win Family Services here, included presentations in the Nanicost gymnasium on Thursday and a trip to Onigaming First Nation on Friday.
“We were told the child welfare agency here has been looked to as an example of how customary aboriginal care has gone to work for children,” Mackintosh said. “And I’m proud to hear that.”
He and his team were in the district to learn about what led to the development of Weechi-it-te-win Family Services and the approach it uses.
They learned that in March, 1982, the Rainy Lake Tribal Area Chiefs resolved to create an “Indian alternative” to child welfare, appointing a native child welfare planning committee to develop a concept, which began work the beginning of the following year to develop the concept for community care among the First Nations of the Rainy Lake Tribal Area.
The mission of Weechi-it-te-win is to “preserve Indian (Anishinaabe) culture and identity among our people; to strengthen and maintain Indian (Anishinaabe) families and through them our communities; and to assure the growth, support, and development of all children within our families and communities.”
It was noted Weechi-it-te-win has a unique service delivery model in that services are decentralized and now are delivered directly at the First Nation level through community care programs that have been established in each of the 10 area First Nations.
In addition to the community care program, Weechi-it-te-win offers a wide array of services to support the First Nations, such as family counselling, intake and assessment, cultural programming, treatment foster care, children’s mental health, tele-psychiatry, and residential treatment facilities.
“We’ve learned about the strategies here,” Mackintosh said, noting he’s become aware that perhaps there are safe places within First Nations’ communities for children rather than having them transported to Winnipeg, for example.
“The local involvement in First Nations has been developed and we can see how that works on the ground,” he remarked, referring to the visit to Onigaming, where a presentation was given on the Onigaming Customary Care Team.
“I’m glad to have taken time out of my hectic schedule to learn about some of the practises elsewhere in Canada,” Mackintosh added.
“I learned a lot of life lessons in this community and was glad to come back for some more.”
Meanwhile, Kathy Kishiqueb, director of Naaniigaan Abinoojii, was thrilled with the visit, noting as an organization this isn’t the first time they’ve hosted such a visit.
“This year we hosted a number of visits of agencies who wanted to learn about our model,” she noted.
“I’m proud because we’re obviously doing things in a way that people would take notice of our model across Canada.”
