‘Historic accomplishment’ for Waywayseecappo’s child and family services

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A western Manitoba First Nation has cleared another hurdle towards its goal of taking control over its Child and Family Services (CFS) systems, and hopes to have their own independent CFS systems up and running sometime in the next year.

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“Waywayseecappo has long acknowledged that the mainstream CFS system did not work for our people,” Waywayseecappo First Nation Chief Murray Clearsky said in a media release announcing that the community has received an official provincial mandate under the Child and Family Services Act.

Clearsky called the mandate a “historic accomplishment.”

“We saw the dire need for a system that incorporates Anishinaabe values and traditions,” Clearsky said. “Our values and traditions are needed in healing the traumas experienced by the community members and supporting families and children, and connecting them to their home and to their community.”

Passed by the government of Canada in 2019, Bill C-92 gives First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities in Canada the authority to take jurisdiction over child welfare systems.

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In March of 2023, Manitoba’s previous PC government introduced amendments to the Child and Family Services Act to give more control to Indigenous communities and more opportunities for communities looking to take back control of their CFS systems.

In 2023, Waywayseecappo began working to obtain a CFS mandate, work that included the creation of an advisory committee made up of community residents and elders that worked to create a community child welfare law framework.

With the new mandate in hand, Waywayseecappo officials say their next step will be to create their own CFS service structure.

“Waywayseecappo will now embark on the important work of building capacity for their legal framework,” the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said in a media release.

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“This includes defining their own child welfare laws in close collaboration with the Nation’s Leadership and citizens.”

The Southern First Nation Network of Care, an organization that operates under provincial jurisdiction, will continue to operate CFS until the community is prepared to take over which is expected to happen sometime in the next year.

Earlier this year, Peguis First Nation became the first Indigenous community in Manitoba to take back child welfare responsibilities since Bill C-92 was passed, and the province says there are several other Indigenous communities in Manitoba currently pursuing child welfare systems co-coordination agreements with the province and the federal government.

— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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