Changes to Manitoba’s child welfare system aim to keep more Indigenous children with their families, community

Posted on October 11, 2024 by Peggy

Changes to Manitoba’s child welfare system aimed at keeping more families together are now in effect.

The province has put in place a system that will allow kids to stay out of child welfare by being placed with extended family or people within their home community.

More than 80 per cent of kids in care in Manitoba are Indigenous, and the changes will reduce the number of Indigenous children in the system, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said.

The province is also putting up $10 million for Indigenous agencies to support families and community members who can care for a child through programs called kinship care and customary care agreements.

The changes were outlined in a law passed by the former Progressive Conservative government last year, and they took effect Oct. 1, the current NDP government said.

The changes address recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada to reduce the number of Indigenous children in care and affirm the right of Indigenous governments to establish and maintain their own child welfare agencies, Fontaine said.

“If a child comes in, [an] agency now has the legislative tools to be able to look at grandma, auntie … folks that are in community, that are in the same cultural group that can take this child,” Fontaine said Friday.

“And more importantly, there are financial supports now for these agreements.”