Sioux Valley organization taking over CFS

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This article was published 06/07/2022 (1213 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sioux Valley Dakota Nation is one step closer to having full jurisdiction of child and family services in the community after provincial legislation officially mandated Dakota Tiwahe Services as a CFS agency Monday.

The mandate, in accordance with the CFS Act of Manitoba, is an interim step for Sioux Valley to gain full jurisdiction over child and family services (CFS) for nation members. Under the Dakota Tiwahe Services (DTS) mandate, the organization will provide CFS to Sioux Valley members, Dakota Ojibway Child and Family Services will no longer operate in the community and DTS will supply CFS to Dakota families both on- and off-reserve across Manitoba.

The mandate is a stepping-stone toward exercising the community’s jurisdiction over CFS through Sioux Valley Dakota Nation laws and its recognized self-government agreement, said DTS executive director Carol McKay-Whitecloud.

“This was always a priority for leadership. We always wanted to have a say in how our children and families were being serviced,” McKay-Whitecloud said. “There were a lot of concerns and there was a lot of trauma and devastation created by some decisions made over the years.”

The delivery of services was made possible through Bill C-92: An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families, which came into effect in 2020. The legislation was co-developed with Indigenous, provincial and territorial partners with the goal of keeping Indigenous children and youth connected to their families, communities and culture. Under the bill, Indigenous communities and groups can develop policies and laws based on their particular histories, cultures and circumstances to implement and enforce unique policies.

McKay-Whitecloud praised the support offered by the provincial and federal governments in pursuit of the legislation.

The new mandate has taken years of work, McKay-Whitecloud said, as well as an ongoing commitment from Sioux Valley leadership and the community at large.

McKay-Whitecloud cited how residential schools and the ’60s Scoop saw children removed from their communities and families without those affected having a say in the decisions. These historical traumas made it a priority to secure DTS-facilitated child and family services in the community.

“We lost a large majority of children and youth, possibly a generation,” McKay-Whitecloud said.

Communities are hurting from the traumatic history of colonialism in Canada, she added, and healing is only beginning to take place.

“We’re the experts in how we need to see our family units thrive, what we need to work on,” McKay-Whitecloud said. “There’s a lot of trauma that needs to be addressed. There’s a lot of healing that needs to happen and we’re the ones that know how that has to occur.”

A major focus at DTS will be placed on repairing relationships as a service provider, McKay-Whitecloud said.

Part of this will be revitalizing and strengthening values and practices that were present in Dakota culture pre-colonization. While they cannot go back in time, she said, they can bring back these ideologies and values as society evolves.

DTS has been providing prevention services since 2018 based on alternative ways of helping families heal. Another goal is reunifying families.

“We actually will have a say and we will know where our children are placed. We will know who the foster parents are. We will know if they are doing well and thriving.”

The interim mandate for DTS is positive for the community because it allows Sioux Valley to provide support to Dakota families through initiatives led by community members, said Chief Jennifer Bone.

“We’re not part of the bigger organization. The focus is going to be on Dakota culture, Dakota language, kinship — those sorts of things that are important to our community,” Bone said.

The mandate is part of ongoing work at DTS to strengthen families using cultural programming like traditional parenting.

She hopes these initiatives will keep Dakota children out of the CFS system, Bone said, while ensuring Sioux Valley is taking care of its citizens.

“One of the priorities that were identified for the community years back was Child and Family Services. We’ve always had that in the frontline of priorities and wanting to improve those services and provide on our own … having that jurisdiction in the community,” Bone said. “It’s our community and our vision and what we want for the future of our families and our children and how best we can address that for them and how we can advocate.”

Sioux Valley Dakota Nation and the Southern First Nations Network of Care worked collaboratively to establish DTS as a provincial child and family services agency, a provincial spokesperson said in an email to the Sun. The provincial government supported these efforts by amending provincial regulations to support DTS child and family services on and off the reserve.

Discussions between the province, Sioux Valley and the federal government are ongoing regarding amendments to the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation self-governance agreement to support the nation’s efforts to enact its own child and family services law.

“The province sees this as a very important step in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation’s longer-term plan to take over responsibility for delivering child and family services to its members under its own laws,” said the statement.

“The Manitoba government is committed to reconciliation, and it applauds the work that will be done by Dakota Tiwahe Services to provide services to children and families that are rooted in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation’s culture and traditions, and that will help children to maintain ties to their nation.”

DTS will host an opening ceremony to commemorate the interim provincial CFS mandate at 11 a.m. on July 22 at Sioux Valley Veterans Hall.

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