Child Welfare In Canada

Children were once seen as important family assets that were “owned” by the head of the household before Confederation (Chappell, 2014). During the late 19th century, children started to be viewed more as individuals in need of protection instead of a piece of property (Chappell, 2014). This resulted in many child-saving policies being developed in order to protect young people from harm (Chappell, 2014). The Canadian Constitution gives the power to all the provinces and territories to create their own child welfare system for assisting abused or neglected children and their families (Chappell, 2014). As a result, ways of approaching child protection differs across different jurisdictional boundaries in regards to legislation, investigative

One of the major political factors that have been influential is the increasing concerns of Aboriginal children and the type of treatment they were getting by the provincial child welfare authorities during the 1960’s (Sinha, Trocme, Fallon, MacLaurin, & Fast, 2006). This led many Aboriginals to become activists, which led to changes occurring in the First Nations child welfare. According to the MCYS (2013), when the act came out in 1985, the Ontario government recognized that Aboriginal people have the right to provide their own child and family services that ties in with their culture, heritage and traditions of the extended family. Traditionally, Aboriginal children were cared for not only by their families, but also their community through their cultural practices (Sinha & Kozlowski, 2013). Many Aboriginal families now face a disconnect from traditional child rearing practices and neglect is the primary reason why these children are removed (McCaslin & Boyer, 2009). The ideological disconnect stems from the beginning of the arrivals of the Europeans where First Nations people began negatively being affected by racism and attacks on their culture (McCaslin & Boyer,