Out of Darkness: 7 Part Series: Indigenous Solutions for Child Welfare

In This Series

How Canada Created a Crisis in Indigenous Child Welfare

Part one of a series: from residential schools to the Sixties Scoop, governments set out to undermine Indigenous families.

By Katie Hyslop, 9 May 2018

How Poverty and Underfunding Land Indigenous Kids in Care

Part two of a series: governments falling short in fixing Indigenous child welfare crisis, say critics.

By Katie Hyslop, 14 May 2018

Lessons from Care: ‘If the Government Hadn’t Done All Those Terrible Things’

Part three in a series. Who better to ask for solutions than Indigenous youth who have been in government care. First up, Ashley Bach.

By Katie Hyslop, 16 May 2018

The Kelowna Accord, Racism and the Child Welfare Crisis

Part four in a series. Former PM Paul Martin says an opportunity was lost; Cindy Blackstock isn’t so sure.

By Katie Hyslop, 22 May 2018

Changes Coming — Slowly — to Indigenous Child Welfare in BC

Part five of a series. Now that governments are finally acknowledging the problem, here’s what is changing.

By Katie Hyslop, 24 May 2018

Lessons from Care: ‘The Only Flaw in This System Is that Some of Us Survived’

Part six in a series. Jaye Simpson on lessons from a childhood in care.

By Katie Hyslop, 28 May 2018

Closing the Gap Between White Schools of Social Work and Indigenous Families

Part seven of a series. Indigenizing social work, one school at a time.

By Katie Hyslop, Today

 

Keep Dancing: We are NOT Victims

THIS IS AN EARLIER POST from this blog

By Trace L Hentz (blog editor)

“I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile I keep dancing.” That is a line in the book “Bird by Bird” by Ann Lamott.  Her comical book offers instructions on writing and life and so far -- I’ve had good belly laughs. Yep, Ann made a funny book!

In part two, Ann was fighting herself over jealousy of another writer friend. She wrote, “Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic - jealousy especially so - but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime poisoned by it."

Poison is nothing to mess with.  I spoke with an adoptee friend last night and Levi is sure we adoptees need to create new ceremonies, even some just for us adoptees. I was nodding at every word Levi said.  A lifetime of isolation from what we know to be ours, our blood rights as Indigenous People, our language and culture and the healing offered by participating in ceremony, it was not ours growing up white and adopted and assimilated.

But we adoptees are not victims, Levi said. No, we are changed by adoption but not its victims.

I thought about ceremony, what ceremony I missed growing up, and what other Indian people probably took for granted growing up. That does make me jealous. I didn’t get to meet my grandmothers in flesh, only in dreams.

I am sad I do not how to make my own regalia. I see others dance at powwow and wish someone had time to teach me what I need to know.

I can think of a million things I’d like to know. When I met relatives in Illinois last year, I was over the moon happy.  My Harlow cousins filled many holes in my heart.

I am in reunion. Jealousy is not my poison.

For those not in reunion, their hearts ache.  We need to find a way to heal them.

How Foster Care Has Stripped Native American Children of Their Own Cultures

“Some envision themselves as saviors, maintaining that Native children are better off growing up in white homes.”

Removal didn’t just happen through boarding schools. Native children were also taken from their families and communities and placed with non-Natives. Lost Bird was among the first. She was found as an infant under her mother’s frozen body after the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, when more than 150 unarmed Lakota were slaughtered by the U.S. Cavalry. She was adopted by Gen. Leonard Colby. Her life was difficult and marred with rejection and abuse: Her adoptive father was indifferent to her existence, and her adoptive mother attempted to raise her as white, but society would not accept her. No one could erase her desire to learn about her Lakota roots, either.
By the 1970s, research found that approximately 25% to 35% of all Native children in the U.S. were being placed in foster homes, adoptive homes, or institutions, and 85% of these children were being placed outside of their families and communities, even when fit and willing relatives were available to care for them. Research has shown that Native children in foster care who stayed connected to their culture did better, and those who weren’t were at greater risk for behavioral and mental health problems.

MUST READ: The Foster Care System Has Failed Native American Youth

Coming Up: Native America Calling: Tracy Rector

Tuesday, May 15, 2018 - Native in the spotlight: Tracy Rector

Tracy Rector's (Choctaw/Seminole) films have been seen by audiences at the Cannes Film Festival, ImagineNative, the Toronto International Film Festival, and PBS. Her latest work, Dawnland, follows Maine's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the removal of Native children from their homes. The other films she's worked on include Teachings of the Tree People, March Point, and Ch'aak' S'aagi. Rector describes herself as a mixed race urban Indian, filmmaker and activist. We'll talk with her about her passion for filmmaking, social justice and what is next for her career.

 

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Native America Calling is joining ProPublica's Documenting Hate project, working to collect, analyze and report on crimes motivated by hate and bias. The project is building a database of tips for use by journalists, researchers and civil-rights organizations. If you're a victim or a witness to a hate crime, click here to fill out an online form. The information will be shared with partners in the Documenting Hate project, but no one else will see the information you share without your permission.

 

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Native America Calling is a national call-in program that invites guests and listeners to join a dialogue about current events, music, arts, entertainment and culture. The program is hosted by Tara Gatewood (Isleta Pueblo) and airs live each weekday from 1-2 pm Eastern. Join the conversation by calling 1-800-996-2848.  LISTEN

 

 

This blog will be on hiatus until June... email: laratrace@outlook.com

The Navajo Nation is committed to the protection of all its children #ICWA

Texas Attorney General Kenneth Paxton – NPR Photo

Navajo Nation Seeks to Dismiss Texas’ Challenge to Indian Child Welfare Act

Published April 30, 2018

WINDOW ROCK – On April 26, 2018 the Navajo Nation filed its Motion to Intervene and Dismiss with the federal district court in Texas v. Zinke. The case is a constitutional challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) by the states of Texas, Indiana, and Louisiana. It relies on a Texas state ICWA case concerning the placement of a Navajo child with a non-native family. In its motions the Nation argues that a decision for Texas would negatively affect the Nation’s relationship with this child and numerous Navajo children throughout the country. The Nation asks the court to dismiss the case because it is not a party, and it cannot be made a party, due to its sovereign immunity.

ICWA was passed by Congress in 1978 to stop the mass removal of Indian children from Native families and facilitated placement of those children with non-Natives. Congress found ICWA to be necessary because Indian children are the future of their tribes, and so their removal threatens the very existence of tribes. ICWA provides tribes and tribal members rights to protect their interests in their children.

In the Texas case the Nation located a Navajo family to adopt the Navajo child. However, the non-Native foster parents refused to allow the removal of the child, filing multiple court challenges to the placement of the Navajo child with the Navajo family, including the Texas v. Zinke challenge. The actions by the foster parents have prevented the Navajo child from growing up in his Navajo culture, language and community, and has prevented the Nation from maintaining a vital connection to one of its members.

“The Navajo Nation is committed to the protection of all its children, wherever they may live” commented Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye. “We want all Navajo children to have the opportunity to know their people, their traditions, and their language. As this lawsuit shows, we will continue to fight for them. We want them to know they are not forgotten, no matter where they may live.”

“Our children are the future of the Navajo Nation,” noted Vice-President Jonathan Nez. “They are the ones who will take our elders teachings and pass them down for generations to come. I am disappointed by the actions of the plaintiffs in this case who are attempting to sever the connection between Navajo children and our way of life teachings.”

“Keeping our children with Diné families keeps our language and culture with our most valuable children” stated Navajo Nation Council Delegate Nathaniel Brown. “The future of our Nation depends on our children. They are the ones who will carry on our traditions and our ways. The actions taken by the foster parents and the State of Texas have deprived this precious Navajo child of a connection to his Navajo culture and tribe.”

“ICWA was meant to prevent the exact situation in this case: the wresting of an Indian child from his people” noted Attorney General Branch. “ICWA’s entire purpose is to maintain and preserve the connection between an Indian child and her tribe. This year is ICWA’s 40th anniversary; we should be celebrating the success of ICWA, not having to defend ICWA and the basic human right of Navajo families and communities to remain intact.  There should be no question to our right to remain distinctly Navajo through the passage of our culture, language, and treaty and sovereign rights to our children.”

CLICK HERE to read court filing.

Dawnland documentary premier #TRC

We mention this important documentary in the anthology STOLEN GENERATIONS (book 3 in the Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects book series)...

“They tried to kill the Penobscot part of us,’’ Dawn Neptune said. It didn’t work.

By Thomas Farragher Globe Columnist  April 19, 2018

BANGOR — She was a 4-year-old kid named Dawn Neptune, who lived not far from here in a place called Indian Island, a reservation of the Penobscot Nation, a cultural touchstone that shaped — still shapes — who she is.
Her mother, then still a teenager, drank too much in those early days. It was an open family secret, part of an intergenerational trauma that, like her Penobscot heritage, was a critical and governing rhythm to her young life.
And then Dawn Neptune was gone. A baby sitter took her and a younger brother to a grocery store a half-hour away from the reservation. And then abruptly drove away, a cruel abandonment that served as the little girl’s entry into life in foster care, where she promptly learned a hard lesson no kid should be forced to absorb: Forget about your mom. Forget about Indian Island. Forget about being Penobscot.
And then one day she spoke briefly in her native tongue and suffered swift and ugly punishment she has never — can never — forget.
It also echoes through a riveting new documentary film, “Dawnland,’’ which makes its East Coast premiere on April 28 at Independent Film Festival Boston at the Somerville Theatre.
It’s an 86-minute journey of raw and recent history told through the eyes of those who have lived through it. Who have survived it. Who are determined to bear unstinting witness to it.


READ: Reclaiming a culture, reclaiming a life - The Boston Globe

WEBSITE: http://dawnland.org/

When Terrorism is Personal #BabyVeronica

AMERICAN INDIAN ADOPTEES: When Terrorism is Personal #BabyVeronica #FlipThe...:

Guest Post by ellecuardaigh

This post needs to read again and again.

So now children are taken for these reasons:

• Poverty, or, just not having as much money as the prospective adoptive family
• Asking for a second opinion after a medical diagnosis is made regarding your child
• Being Native American
• Being short
• Considering adoption then deciding against it
• Going to the ER for any reason
• Using medical marijuana
• Being a single parent
• Disagreeing with anything a teacher or other authority figure says about your child
• Not adhering strictly to the recommended vaccine schedule
• Being exceptionally attractive
• Not putting your child into preschool
• Allowing your child to play in your own yard
• Having an unusual birthmark
• Your neighbor or some awful relative just wants to hurt you
• CPS meeting their “children in care” quotas
• And I’ll say it again, because this is the #1 reason: You don’t have the money to fight back.

CLICK HERE

Stories for a Lost Child

Author's late discovery of Native heritage was a 'cosmic blessing'

Arts & Culture Euan Kerr · Apr 18, 2018

1. Listen Story audio

   4min 10sec

2. Listen Carter Meland reads from 'Stories for a Lost child'

   3min 58sec

Stories for a Lost Child, by Carter Meland Courtesy Michigan State University Press

Most people consider it helpful to know about their cultural heritage. Minneapolis author Carter Meland argues it can be a burden not to know — especially if you have Native heritage.
Meland's book "Stories for a Lost Child" is a finalist in the best novel category at this weekend's Minnesota Book Awards. It's fiction, but reflects Meland's own experience.
Growing up, he said, there were gaps in his family history.

"My dad never knew his biological father," he said. "And we never knew much about him. My grandmother was reluctant to talk about him, and we tried to respect that."

But that changed one day about 25 years ago, when Meland was "getting close to 30," he said.
Meland recounted some Minnesota history: Back in 1985, Congress passed the White Earth Land Settlement act. It was designed to resolve longstanding disputes over land ownership on the northern Minnesota reservation.
Originally tribal members were allotted land on the reservation, but thousands of acres were illegally sold to nonmembers in the early 20th century. Under the act, the search began for heirs of people originally allotted land to give them compensation.
"And my dad was one of their heirs, through his father. So he gets a phone call one day," Meland said. The family had no idea of its Anishinaabe heritage.
But, as Meland tells it: "In my world of cosmic coincidences, or perhaps cosmic blessings, I was already in grad school beginning to study Native literature. So I kind of feel like somebody was telling me stuff."
Meland's studies took on new significance. He learned a little of the Ojibwe language. He also began writing short stories. Some were based on traditional characters, and others just sprang into his mind.
"Stories about Indians in space, and Bigfoot, Mesabe or Sasquatch or whatever you want to call him. We say Mesabe in Anishinaabemowin," said Meland, using the Ojibwe word for the language. "And other stories, including one about a 17th century missionary to the Anishinaabe."
Eventually he connected the tales, and they became the novel "Stories for a Lost Child." It's about a teenage girl called Fiona who receives a mysterious box filled with writing. It's from her grandfather, a man who abandoned her mother years ago.
"But wanting some kind of contact, and sending this box of stories to Fiona, perhaps 18 years after he died, through an intermediary," he said.
It's a surreal collection, linked by letters from her grandfather, which are also in the box. In one he admits he's a con man and an unreliable guide. However, in time — and through a few misadventures of her own — Fiona begins to understand her heritage.
"And what I realized, as I was reading the book and talking to people about the book, is what motivates my writing was what does it mean not to know you have Anishinaabe heritage, right?" said Meland.
When he taught Native literature he discovered that his experience of learning late about his heritage was not unusual.
"I have had many moving conversations with students who know they have Anishinaabe heritage, or Dakota heritage or Cree heritage, or what have you, but they don't know what it means," he said.
And he's likely to have more of those conversations now that he's up for a Minnesota Book Award on Saturday evening. The other nominees in the best novel/short story category are Louise Erdrich for "Future Home of a Living God," A. Rafael Johnson for "The Through," and Lesley Nneka Arimah for "What it Means when a Man falls from the Sky."
Meland says it's significant that none of the nominees comes from what he calls the majority culture.
"The literary community is very hungry for stories from under-represented voices, or slightly less misrepresented voices, and it's really exciting," he said.
When you read a really good book, Meland said, you become the protagonist in that book. When you are of a background different from that of the protagonist, that can be a good thing, he said.
He will read from his novel at Subtext Books in St. Paul at 7 p.m. May 9 and at the Brown Bag Lunch with Author series at the Brainerd Public Library on June 18.

'She died coming to try to find me' #60sScoop

'She died coming to try to find me:' Sixties Scoop adoptee pieces together tragic story of separation

Robert Kalkman was adopted at age 2, and his life shattered at 9 after discovering his true heritage

Jorge Barrera · CBC News | December 23, 2017 SOURCE

Robert Kalkman, aged about 3, in Fort Frances, Ont., after his adoption. (Submitted by Robert Kalkman)

Robert Kalkman's memory of the woman standing outside the window is like the frame from a negative burned too hot by light.
Among the shapes of things in this memory is his adoptive father leaving the house in Fort Frances, Ont., to speak with this woman who kept coming back to stand outside the window.
"I remember as a child looking out the window and seeing this lady standing on the street and the commotion of my dad going out and begging her to leave," said Kalkman, 53.
"I was like three years old; it's the last thing I can remember."
Later in life, he would come to know the woman in the window was his biological mother, Kathleen McGinnis.
There is only one photograph of McGinnis that remains. It's from the 1952 edition of the magazine Northern Sportsman and published above an article headlined, I Write About Indians. The photograph is of an Anishinaabe family having a picnic. The caption does not identify anyone in the photograph, but Kalkman's biological family told him that it is her, as a baby, swaddled and fastened to a cradleboard.

This is the only surviving photograph of Kathleen McGinnis. She is the baby attached to the cradleboard in the upper right-hand side of the photograph. (Submitted by Robert Kalkman)

There are other documents about Kalkman's biological mother — coroner and police reports from April 1978. There are witness statements about the accident, how she seemed dazed waving cars down on a highway near Calgary when she was suddenly struck and killed on April 3. The impact severed one of her legs and the circumstances that led to her death remain shrouded in mystery.
Kalkman was out in northern British Columbia a few years ago in a work camp when he came across a website listing missing and murdered Indigenous women. He first noticed the name of a woman he once went to school with and then he noticed his mother's name, along with that of her two sisters, Edith Quagon and Sarah Mason, who were both separately murdered by men plunging a knife through their hearts.
"I was like, 'wow.' I was just overwhelmed," he said.
"I wish whoever the police was, or whatever, spent a little more time investigating and looking into it. If it was a white person, they would be all over it."

Kalkman would later learn that his biological mother was hitchhiking to British Columbia from Thunder Bay, Ont. McGinnis had heard one of her two children — seized in 1966 from her father's house on the Manitou reserve portion of Rainy River First Nation while she shopped in Fort Frances, Ont. — had been adopted by a family that had moved from Fort Frances to B.C.
"She died coming to try to find me," said Kalkman.
"It's an identity you lose, the moment she is gone."

Aftershocks 

McGinnis's family, along with Kalkman's sister Diane Geissler, testified in Thunder Bay in early December during three days of hearings held by the national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. Kalkman didn't make the hearing.
Kalkman's story is also one among thousands of aftershocks still reverberating from the Sixties Scoop when child welfare agencies across the country would seize Indigenous children and quickly adopt them out into the care of non-Indigenous families.

• 'A lot of mixed emotions': MMIWG inquiry to begin hearings in Thunder Bay

His story also connects the Scoop with residential schools, which McGinnis attended, and reveals the systemic discrimination that led state agencies to repeatedly seize Indigenous children.

Robert Kalkman, aged 2, is held by the caretaker of the foster home where he was placed after he was taken by child welfare agents. (Submitted by Robert Kalkman)

Ontario's child welfare agents determined the teenage mother — who had Geissler at 14 and Kalkman at 15 — didn't have the financial means to raise her children despite the fact she lived with her parents.
"It was because she was Native and lived a traditional lifestyle. She couldn't prove that she had an apartment or a house. It wasn't in her name, it was in her parents' name," said Geissler, who lives in Thunder Bay a few blocks away from where McGinnis lived before she left hitchhiking, looking for one of her children.
"She couldn't prove income because they hunted, trapped — they had a trapline — and fished for food. They grew their own vegetables, they picked berries, they picked herbs. They didn't have a nine-to-five job. They lived on the reserve."

Seized by child welfare

Kalkman and Geissler don't know the exact date or the details about the circumstances leading to the moment when they were seized. There is a story about a snowstorm stranding their mother in Fort Frances on the day they were taken. There is another about an uncle who hid them in a closet until a child's cry gave them away. Kalkman said one of his aunts confessed to him in 1991 that she had called child welfare because she was worried about the care the children were receiving.

• Opinion
  Sixties Scoop survivors victimized twice, columnist says

Geissler was immediately adopted by a family that remained in the Fort Frances area. Kalkman remained in foster care for about a year until he was adopted at age two by a Fort Frances doctor who had treated him for various ailments.
"I think as a family we thought we were ... helping out someone who has a need," said Peter Kalkman, Robert Kalkman's adoptive brother.
"I think we did it for the right reason."

From left to right: Robert Kalkman with his adoptive family Klari Kalkman, Johannes Wilhelmus Kalkman and Peter Kalkman. (Submitted by Peter Kalkman)

Peter Kalkman remembers as an eight-year-old going to the courthouse with his parents to finalize the adoption on Feb. 24, 1967.
"It was very serious circumstances where the judge is saying you are taking on this person to be part of your family," said Kalkman, a radiologist who now lives in Abbotsford, B.C.
"It's a very large responsibility and commitment and we all felt that way."
Robert Gary Shebageget became Robert William Kalkman that day.
The family then moved to Vancouver.

'You're an Indian'

Throughout his early years, Robert Kalkman said he didn't contemplate differences with his adoptive home's older brother and sister, who were the biological children of his adoptive parents. He never noticed his darker skin or wondered where he came from. He liked to dress up like a cowboy.
Then, at the age of nine, he noticed one of his friends in the Vancouver neighbourhood where he lived had stopped playing with him. When he asked him why, the answer shattered his world.
"He said, 'Because you're an Indian. My dad said you are an Indian,'" said Kalkman.

Robert, aged 12, and his adoptive father Johannes Kalkman, when they lived in Vancouver. (Submitted by Robert Kalkman)

When he got home, his adoptive mother Janet Kalkman was cooking.
"I asked her, 'Mom, am I an Indian?' She said, 'Don't talk to me right now, I'm cooking,'" said Robert Kalkman.
"I went to my room and looked in the mirror."

• Woman cancels public MMIWG testimony in Thunder Bay over fears for her safety

A little while later she came into his room and put down a book. Kalkman said the book had about 40 pages of black and white photographs depicting Ojibway people from Minnesota and Ontario.
"That is when I started rebelling," he said.

Robert Kalkman, around age 17, in Vancouver. (Submitted by Robert Kalkman)

"I had an identity crisis."

His life became a series of conflicts with his family, with his school and with the law. Eventually his adoptive parents turned him over into the custody of the courts at age 13. He became a ward of the state, again, and bounced between foster homes and juvenile detention centres.
"I was so angry at the world because I didn't know who I was, where I came from or what was going on," he said.
"I despised the fact I was Native. I would fight every Indian I could fight."

The girl at the bus stop

The anger may have totally consumed and eventually destroyed Kalkman except for a girl he saw from a city bus window standing at a downtown Vancouver bus stop in 1987. He wouldn't see her again for several months. In that time he would end up serving 80 days in jail for failing to pay a $548 fine for drinking and driving in a car stolen from his adoptive parents.

Robert and Kathleen Kalkman on their wedding day, Aug. 3, 1991. (Submitted by Robert Kalkman)

When he got out, he decided to try and make a go of it and enrolled in a college where the girl from the bus stop also attended. They fell in love and married on Aug. 3, 1991.
Robert and Kathleen Kalkman, who is from the Tahltan Nation, now live in Chetwynd, B.C., and they have four sons, aged 27, 25, 17 and 15, along with two grandchildren aged three and five.
Kalkman, a journeyman carpenter, made a career working in gold mines and oil fields throughout northern B.C..

Robert and Kathleen Kalkman, centre, with their children, from the left: Dakota Kalkman, Kross Kalkman, Trey Kalkman and Jeremy Kalkman. (Submitted by Robert Kalkman)

Still there was a piece that remained lost.
His adoptive father, Johannes Wilhelmus Kalkman, who died from cancer about two years ago, "harboured quite a bit of anger for many years" over the adoption, said Peter Kalkman, 59.
And Janet Kalkman, who is 85 and living in an assisted care home, remains "a little bit ambivalent about the whole thing," said Peter.

"My wife, she has brothers and sisters, a mother and a father. My kids look at me and say where is your mom? Where is your dad? You got to look at them and say, 'All you got is me,'" said Robert Kalkman.
"Every time I wake up in the morning I tell them, 'I love you.' I tell them in their face, 'I love you.' That is the connection I have to have because this is all I have. I won't let anybody try to take what I have now."

Kids for Sale: Adoption Trafficking

A CNN exclusive investigation uncovers what could be a child trafficking scheme for adoptions after one mom blew the whistle.

By the time the call ends, Mata's radiant smile has turned to sobs. "My mom was tricked," she says. "My mom was tricked."

Her mother told her it was never her intent to give Mata up for good -- that she'd been deceived. She had been told that Mata would be given a great educational opportunity if she was sent away but that she would one day return. That Mom would always be a part of her daughter's life.

At the time of that call, the Davises now believe, Mata wasn't an orphan at all but was still living at home with a mother who loved her. They believe she was pulled from her home and placed in the orphanage after the adoption agency found an American couple -- buyers, in a sense -- with money to adopt a child.

An investigation by CNN into this alleged trafficking scheme found that children are being taken from their homes in Uganda on the promise of better schooling, placed into orphanages even though they aren't orphans, and sold for as much as $15,000 each to unsuspecting American families. CNN's investigation discovered that multiple families were duped this way.

WATCH: Kids for sale: 'My mom was tricked' - CNN

An apology will not bring back the dead children

(Residential school survivor Evelyn Korkmaz, left, Senator Murray Sinclair, and NDP MP Romeo Saganash at a news conference in Ottawa)

Catholic bishops news conference only adds confusion around Pope’s apology to residential school survivors

National News | April 18, 2018 by Kathleen Martens

A news conference to clear the air about the Pope’s apology to Indian residential school survivors only seemed to confuse things further.
Bishop Lionel Gendron told reporters in Ottawa Wednesday the Catholic church is a “decentralized” organization and Pope Francis can’t be held responsible for what others have done.
But Senator Murray Sinclair called that “a failure” and said the apology demanded by his Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is needed by survivors to heal.

Senior leaders of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops addressed the media in Ottawa in front of an NDP motion to be tabled in the House of Commons calling on Pope Francis to apologize for residential schools. The motion failed after one MP voted no. It’s not clear who voted against it, but in a scrum prior to Question Period, Conservative Indigenous Affairs Critic said it has no place in parliament.

“We like to keep a separation between church and state in terms of Parliament directing specific actions,” she said. “And I think we also believe that that’s an important distinction to keep, which the other parties don’t believe.”

The bishops said the Pope may apologize in person if he came to Canada and met with Indigenous peoples.

But according to Richard Gagnon, Archbishop of Winnipeg and vice-president of the CCCB, the church has already done so, said “The pope never said he wouldn’t apologize,” Gagnon said. “What the Holy Father did say was he would not personally respond to (TRC) call to Action 58.”

Does that mean Yes or No the Pope will apologize?

“Our concern is that it’s important to clear up any misconceptions that are out there and correct any inaccuracies,” Gagnon added.
The answer confused reporters who continued to yell questions as the black-robed religious figures left the room.

---

Sinclair was accompanied by NDP-MPs Charlie Angus and Romeo Saganash (Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou), who bashed the bishops’ behaviour.
“I am disgusted,” said Saganash, a Cree politician from Quebec who survived 10 years in residential school.

“To state ‘the Catholic church as a whole in Canada was not associated with the residential schools’ pushes this church towards very irresponsible, historical, revisionism,” added Angus (Timmins-James Bay), a Catholic.

Sen. Murray Sinclair, who chaired the TRC, said it was sad to see the church try and distance itself from the issue now.
“They’re not taking responsibility and that’s a shame,” he said.
It took survivor Evelyn Korkmaz, who shared the stage with the politicians, to clarify the subject.
“The church has acknowledged wrongdoing,” she said. “So all we’re asking for is a verbal apology.”
Korkmaz attended notorious St. Anne’s residential school in Angus’s riding, whose survivors are battling Ottawa for the same compensation offered other survivors.
Angus, who has been championing their fight, said the church has to apologize and noted he was “distressed” Canadian bishops weren’t insisting he do that.
But Gagnon defended the head of the church.
“I agree with the way the Pope is handling this in waiting for an opportune time,” he said.
“He has been invited to Canada from the prime minister, from three of our presidents of the Catholic conference of bishops of Canada…His response had to do with Call to Action No. 58 and its rather strict confines.”
Pope Francis has apologized to Indigenous peoples in Bolivia for the impact of colonialism and said sorry to survivors of priestly sexual abuse in Ireland.
“We have a track record with this Pope who is not afraid to confront the hard issues,” Gagnon added.
kmartens@aptn.ca

Indian Lawsuits on School Abuse May Bankrupt Canada Churches ...

Indian Lawsuits on School Abuse May Bankrupt Canada Churches. By JAMES BROOKE NOV. 2, 2000. ...

A history of residential schools in Canada | CBC News

CBC News answers frequently asked questions about residential school abuse ...

An apology will not bring back the dead children or end the cycles of oppression we are still healing and dealing with... The Vatican still holds us hostage....an apology will never do...  Trace

 ...

‘When the pope announced that he wouldn't apologize, I was of course, as a survivor, very disappointed and after hearing what they said today… now, I'm disgusted’ https://t.co/HhGMmTBbd3 pic.twitter.com/Se97tviPr6

— APTN National News (@APTNNews) April 19, 2018

@TorontoPolice Child Exploitation News Conference Project Mercury

Too many black, Indigenous kids in Ontario child-welfare system, report finds

Called Interrupted Childhoods: Over-representation of Indigenous and black children in Ontario child welfare, the report calls on child welfare authorities to examine whether they are engaging in practices that might violate human rights rules.The Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies said it was undertaking initiatives to address the issues.

"Historical and current child welfare practices have resulted in over-representation of Indigenous children in child welfare," Mary Ballantyne, the association's CEO, said in a release. "Those practices have also led to cultural genocide for the Indigenous people of Ontario."Ballantyne also said the over-representation of African-Canadian children was unacceptable.

Source: Too many black, Indigenous kids in Ontario child-welfare system, report finds | CBC News

‘Indian Horse’ tells painful story of Canada’s residential schools

Indian Horse Movie Trailer

Navajo Nation judge weighs jurisdiction of sexual abuse lawsuits against Mormon church

Gallup, N.M. • A Navajo Nation judge is weighing whether sexual abuse lawsuits against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should proceed and where the cases should be heard.

Judge Carol Perry heard arguments Monday after lawyers for the Utah-based LDS Church filed a motion to dismiss five lawsuits, the Gallup Independent reported Tuesday.

The suits filed in tribal courts allege Native American children were sexually abused while enrolled in the church’s Indian Student Placement Program. The first suit was filed in 2016 on behalf of two adults who said they were abused when they were students in the program.

Source: Navajo Nation judge weighs jurisdiction of sexual abuse lawsuits against Mormon church - The Salt Lake Tribune

How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime | Nadine Burke Harris

Chief Arvol Looking Horse Speaks of White Buffalo Prophecy

'I Wanted Someone to Love Me for Even a Second'

'I Wanted Someone to Love Me for Even a Second'

Girls make up only a small fraction of the incarcerated juvenile population, but girls often land in detention because they have experienced some form of trauma: abusive families, bad experiences in the foster care system, and especially sexual abuse. Policy experts even use the term "sexual abuse to prison pipeline," and they say it’s why incarcerating a young girl perpetuates more negative behavior and makes it harder to exit the system.
Desiree is a young woman who has bounced between foster care, detention centers, and residential treatment centers since she was 10. Even though she has been the repeated victim of abuse, she says she's been made to feel like she's the problem...and she's angry about it. But she has her own ideas about how to make things better and she’s making her voice heard.

Caught: The Lives of Juvenile Justice is supported, in part, by the Anne Levy Fund, Margaret Neubart Foundation, the John and Gwen Smart Family Foundation, and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

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Indigenous film draws attention to #60Scoop survivors

Birth of a Family the fifth and final movie screened during the Wide Awake series

A film sharing the story of three sisters and a brother trying to rebuild their family after it was torn apart during the Sixties Scoop was shown at the University of Windsor Thursday night.
Birth of a Family was the fifth and final movie screened during the Wide Awake series put on by the university's Aboriginal Education Centre in partnership with the Arts Council Windsor and Region.

• Creator of Sixties Scoop adoption program says it wasn't meant to place kids with white families
  

It follows the journey of Betty Ann, Esther, Rosalie and Ben, who were adopted as infants into different families across North America and are just meeting again for the first time.

"I think that the policies in place were very systematic in how they were targeting First Nations people," said Kathryn Pasquach, the Aboriginal Outreach and Retention Coordinator for the university. "It was very unfortunate that the cultural importance and the belief system that Indigenous people hold were not valued."

Anthony Saracino is a university student who felt it was his duty to see the film

"I think just being a citizen of Canada — a citizen of the world — it's important to know the ground you walk on and I'm just doing my due diligence with that," he said.

• 'Naive but a good intention' — adoptive parents grapple with fallout of Sixties Scoop
  

Ostoro Petathegoose is an Indigenous woman who attended all of the screenings.
"I grew up with a lot of anti-Indigenous racism in my life and I have found when talking to a lot of people they are not educated on the history of Indigenous peoples in this country," she explained. "So I feel that movies like this are really relevant and people should be seeing movies like this."
The education centre hopes to run a similar series of films next year.

Related Stories

• An Indigenous family's fight to find the truth about Cleo, their sister taken in Sixties Scoop
• Toronto Sixties Scoop rally pushes back against government settlement
• Sixties Scoop adoptees head across Canada to try to scuttle $800M settlement

Adopt Indian Metis Program

CBC journalist @connie_walker shares the story behind Saskatchewan's Adopt Indian Métis program in the 60s and 70s: https://t.co/mvKiwQZHFD pic.twitter.com/KfZHPg2Xcb

— CBC-The Current (@TheCurrentCBC) March 21, 2018

We also have the Canada and American governments conducting the ARENA programs- transporting First Nations and American Indian children for adoptions cross borders.
Were you adopted into the US from Canada? Do you know?

1966 The National Adoption Resource Exchange, later renamed the Adoption Resource Exchange of North America (ARENA), was established as an outgrowth of the Indian Adoption Project.

READ THIS

Advertised for Adoption #HumanTrafficking #Adoption

It was a devastating day in April 1973 when Lillian Semaganis, a young Cree mother whose six children had all been taken by Saskatchewan social services, opened the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix newspaper to see two of her own daughters advertised for adoption.https://t.co/IXrk5WxEz1

— Connie Walker (@connie_walker) March 21, 2018

As I wrote "What do you call this" on this blog: THIS is genocide. Taking children and selling them in a catalog?  Taking children so they would disappear? Taking children so there would be less Indians to deal with, so governments would not have to honor their treaties? All the missing and murdered Indigenous women? The hunting of these women and their deaths by serial killers or maybe the police?
Think about it. Protect yourself.
Yes, adoption as human trafficking is what happened. Trace




Finding Cleo: CBC podcast solves decades-old mystery of Saskatchewan girl lost in Sixties Scoop (UPDATED)

Siblings separated in Sixties Scoop had been searching for sister for decades when they turned to CBC for help

 

A patchwork of information suggested Cleo Semaganis Nicotine had been killed decades ago while trying to make her way back to Saskatchewan from her adoptive family in the U.S., but no one knew for sure what happened until CBC News began looking into the case.

NEW EPISODES AVAILABLE: MORE

LISTEN: Finding Cleo: CBC podcast solves decades-old mystery of Saskatchewan girl lost in Sixties Scoop - CBC News | Indigenous

Episodes 6, 7, and 8 done. This podcast is just getting better and better. Such incredible (and heartbreaking) storytelling / reporting by @connie_walker and an absolute must listen for all Canadians. Can’t wait for the rest of the episodes. #FindingCleo https://t.co/1LQ4415YCO

— Jimmy Blackwood (@jimmyblackwood) March 21, 2018

Adoptions threaten culture #SNAICC

March 21, 2018

Any move to have Aboriginal children adopted by non-Indigenous families would be a backward step, according to Australia’s peak body representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
SNAICC (National Voice for Our Children) chairwoman Sharron Williams, a Narungga-Kaurna woman based in Adelaide, said all children needed to be safe and cared for but Aboriginal children shouldn’t be separated from their kin and culture.

Ms Williams’ comments came as federal Children’s Minister David Gillespie said permanent adoptions should play a role in finding new homes for abused or neglected Aboriginal children, including adoptions with non-Indigenous families.

Debate on the issue has raged following the alleged rape of a two-year-old girl in the Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek.

Mr Gillespie has described the situation as a child protection “crisis”.

Ms Williams told NIT this week that before upping adoptions, more work needed to be put into helping parents, families and communities care for their children.

“We don’t believe Aboriginal children should lose connection to culture through adoption,” Ms Williams said.

“We know from our history that (approach) has created some enormous problems with our children losing connection to their country, their culture and in many instances their community.”

Asked if she thought non-Indigenous families should be able to adopt Indigenous children, Ms Williams said: “I don’t think they should.”

She said in most states and territories adoption was not an option, but permanent and stability placement was.

“In most states, non-Aboriginal people can become foster carers of Aboriginal children and that happens and in those instances cultural connect plans and stability plans are developed for individual children in care,” she said.

“But adoption is one of those areas where it doesn’t happen.

“I know there is work happening in New South Wales where there is a push to go down the road of adoption.

“I’m unsure how far that’s got, but in South Australia that isn’t something that is on the drawing board.”

Need to look at underlying poverty

Ms Williams said more resources needed to be put into addressing the poverty in Aboriginal families, the lack of employment, difficulties with housing, access to early childhood services and health programs.

“I think if they were better addressed for our communities, we would have a far greater response to better parenting (and) building stronger and more resilient communities, therefore less children would be removed.”

Northern Territory Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation head Eileen Cummings said a bridging program was needed to help keep children who were removed from their homes for their own safety connected with their families, communities and culture and to also help the communities grieving the loss of the children.

“We don’t want the children at risk to be left in their home environment unless there is a safety net there somewhere,” she said.

“But what we want is programs for the parents and the community as well.

“A lot of them are upset because the children are being removed, but you can’t leave them if they are not safe.”

Ms Cummings said when her corporation worked with women who were being subjected to domestic violence, one of the shelters ran an outreach program so that women could work to revisit their families and reconnect with their children.

“I thought that was a good way of reconnecting the parents back with the children because I don’t want our children to lose their identity as young Aboriginal people,” she said.

Children need better home environments

The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples said in a statement vulnerable children should be removed, but they needed to be going to a better place.

“We are troubled by the knowledge from past Royal Commissions of the dangers of neglect and abuse perpetrated within institutions and of the failures of many out-of-home-care alternatives,” it said.

“We desperately need to know where we are removing our children to.

“Their new environment must allow them to thrive.

“Countless Aboriginal children who have missed out on care and support have already been ‘removed’ – they are currently in juvenile detention centres and jails.

“These are the children failed by support ‘programs’, failed by distant policy-makers, failed by families in over-crowded houses and failed by communities where local control and self-determination have been frustrated.”

Meanwhile, more than 100 people last week protested outside Channel Seven’s Sydney headquarters following a segment on Seven’s Sunrise program in which an all-white panel discussed the proposed removal of Indigenous children through an adoption scheme.

The program subsequently revisited the topic with a panel of Indigenous experts, but ignored calls for an apology,

It said it blocked out the protestors with a generic backdrop last week.

“We respect the right to protest as much as we respect the right of free speech,” a Seven spokesperson said.

“Some of the group was holding offensive signage and some began banging on the window and mouthing obscenities.

“To ensure regulatory compliance, and bearing in mind the potential for young children to be watching, the decision was made to utilise a generic backdrop.”

SOURCE
Wendy Caccetta
reporter@nit.com.au

Robby Romero - Who's Gonna Save You

National database for First Nations adoptees | #60s Scoop Peer Support Line #NISCW

reblog: March 2018

60s Scoop

Eleanore Sunchild, a Cree lawyer who specializes in Aboriginal law and has represented Sixties Scoop adoptees, says, "a lot of times, they were so young they don't remember their family, they don't know what community they come from or even what tribe they belong to."

Sunchild says that loss of Indigenous identity coupled with separation from family is often devastating.

"The whole loss of being raised in a different home and not exactly knowing why, why they were removed — there's something wrong with them? Or was there something wrong with their family? And in a lot of instances it was just because of the policy that was in place at the time," she said.
Kicknosway says some people don't necessarily want to return to their communities.
She says they "only want to know they belong somewhere" and "have validation that they were alive" and that maybe someone missed them when they were taken away.

Author and Sixties Scoop survivor Raven Sinclair, an associate professor of social work at the University of Regina, has written extensively on the subject. She is in the midst of a five-year study with the aim of creating a national database of adoptees.
Her goal is to create a network that can provide practical, long-term support similar to what is available to some of the people affected by the residential school system.

Cree lawyer Eleanore Sunchild, who represents survivors of the Sixties Scoop, says it's hard for adoptees to track down their biological families because many of them were so young when they were taken that they don't remember any details about their relatives or their community. (Connie Walker/CBC News)

"An adoptee you know here in town could call up a therapist who's been approved by us ... and get some help," she said. "For some, it's been a lifetime of abuse, so it's going to take a long time for them to recover."

NOT WORKING:  NISCW has set up a toll-free number to help adoptees searching for family connections and to provide peer support.

• Indigenous children for sale: The money behind the Sixties Scoop
• Missing and Murdered: The unsolved cases of Indigenous women and girls
• LISTEN | Missing & Murdered Season 1: Who killed Alberta Williams?

Meet Melissa Olsen | Stolen Childhoods

The Indian Adoption Project (IAP), which resulted in the out-of-home placement of many Native American children, lasted from 1958 through 1967. It emerged during the U.S. federal government’s ‘Termination Policy’ that sought to assimilate Native tribes into the larger American fabric “as rapidly as possible.” This meant removal of federal protection of tribes and tribal lands and the transfer of civil and criminal jurisdiction to the states, affecting laws around “social services, child welfare, probate, those kinds of civil matters,” Melissa says.



“You’re telling me this thing I’ve lived all these years has a history and that history includes some policy and that policy has been unknown to me? I’m a second year PhD student. To be at that level of study and for that to just be known, it still floors me.”
 Source: Meet Melissa Olson | Pollen - Pollen

Documentary 
Stolen Childhoods, an audio documentary written by Melissa Olson, Ryan Katz, and Todd Melby aired during the Listening Lounge and Truth to Tell. You can listen to the podcast below.

To support the project, visit their
GiveMN page.