New CFS mandate for Waywayseecappo

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This article was published 09/11/2024 (490 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A First Nation in western Manitoba has received an official provincial mandate under the Child and Family Services Act, and will be working toward building its own service structure in the coming year as a result.

On Wednesday, dignitaries from Indigenous, provincial and federal governments joined Waywayseecappo First Nation and Waywayseecappo CFS to celebrate what the band called an historic accomplishment.

The event included a pipe ceremony, some prayers and a team of horses pulling a wagon with children into the community to symbolize a mandate being brought into the community.

“Waywayseecappo has long acknowledged that the mainstream CFS system did not work for our people,” Chief Murray Clearsky said in a press release. “We saw the dire need for a system that incorporates Anishinaabe values and traditions. 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.”

Since 2023, Waywayseecappo has been working toward obtaining a CFS mandate. The aim of having child welfare jurisdiction and authority has remained a top priority for the First Nation governance.

An advisory committee was formed in June 2023 consisting of band elders and community members that was tasked with developing a child welfare law framework. The First Nation also collaborated with the Southern First Nation Network of Care and the province of Manitoba for the purpose of obtaining the Manitoba CFS mandate.

The mandate was officially received on Oct. 1.

The process has been a difficult one, said Waywayseecappo CFS executive director Corrine Sylvestre, as it has required a lot of open-forum discussions with members of the community and elders.

“You’re looking for the traditional practices of child care, child rearing and the family roles and responsibilities according to the customs of the community,” Sylvestre told the Sun. As a result, she said, the First Nation’s framework would be operated differently than the provincial model.

“The difference would be that the services will be provided according to the customs and practices of raising a child within a family system, as per Wayway.”

Some of the problems of the current system under Manitoba’s CFS jurisdiction, Sylvestre says, is that the children who enter the system end up losing their identity and cultural awareness, not to mention their language and connection to the land.

Following the acquisition of a mandate, Sylvestre says the next step is to build enough capacity for their legal framework, to define their own laws, and have community meetings to review what those laws will be.

“And then we’ll enter into a co-ordination agreement to determine what part, if any, the province will have.”

The Southern First Nation Network of Care, which operates under provincial jurisdiction, will continue to operate child and family services on the First Nation until the legal framework is complete, likely within the next year.

Another western Manitoba First Nation, Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, is also moving toward having its own child and family services organization that is separate from the Southern First Nation Network of Care.

“It’s going to be a Sioux Valley thing, and it’s going to be our people putting it together,” said Sioux Valley Chief Vince Tacan on Wednesday. “We’re not going to look to the province for guidance on putting that law together. We’re not going to look at the Southern authority, the DOTC (Dakota Ojibway Tribal Council) or anyone. This is going to be our law that we put together, because we’re the ones that have been victimized by this over the years.”

Tacan says unlike Waywayseecappo, Sioux Valley does not need a mandate from the province because it already has a self-government agreement with the federal government.

The work of child and family services for Sioux Valley had previously been under the DOTC’s Dakota Ojibway Child & Family Services before it was moved by the previous chief and council to the Southern First Nation Network of Care.

In 2022, the former band council had said that the community was 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. The move was touted as an interim step for Sioux Valley to gain full jurisdiction over child and family services for nation members.

As the Sun reported at the time, 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. The provincial government supported these efforts by amending provincial regulations to support DTS child and family services on and off the reserve.

But Tacan says the move has not helped the community gain better control over the files of kids in CFS care. At this point, Tacan says the community doesn’t even have a definitive number of how many kids remain in care.

“We still don’t have authority over our children. It’s still, even though it has a Dakota sounding name, it’s not something under our control. The chief and council have no say,” Tacan said.

“We don’t know how many kids we’re supposed to have. We don’t have accurate numbers. We don’t even know if they transferred all the trust dollars associated with these kids over the years.”

At the present time, Tacan says the community is in the middle of drafting its new CFS laws that will conform to the community’s own self-governance. The community, Tacan says, is working to develop a law committee that will review laws and recommend them for passage to the council, with the first law on the table being the new CFS law and a gaming law.

“The only community in Manitoba that has self government with Canada and Manitoba is Sioux Valley. That’s unique for us.”

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