Native Children and Foster Care Money

[Toolbox]

What a touching song

Nice

[AmigoKumeyaay]

http://youtu.be/rpNSrqsU1eI

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[Zeke]

Do you have a history of apprehension or adoption in your family circle? Are you considering adopting a child in the near future? Are you a social worker in the field of child protection services? Are you a professional who is required by state or federal law to report suspected cases of child neglect or abuse?
Are you a foster parent or adult mentor to a child at risk?

1. Sure. Going back three generations.
2. Uh, "no." But I am VERY close to people that have.
3. I've managed them and supervised their work.
4. I have been.
5. I have been, readily taking children from unfit mothers and situations.

In nearly every troubling case, the actual issue was apologists.

In this case, "compromise" is so FAR from a solution as to be laughable.

[yaahl]

When they can give better care than the mother.

Can you provide the empirical data/research to back up your assertion?

I'll give you an example from a different perspective. I have a client who is a WWII vet. She's in her early 90s now and although she maintained a fairly healthy lifestyle, she recently developed wet macular degeneration in her eyes. She has a reduced field of vision. Her husband, also a veteran, has a neurodegenerative illness that is attributed to his exposure to chemicals during his war service. Now the Mrs, can look after her husband to a point. He requires assistance in entering the bath/shower and while Mr isn't a heavy weight, he is just a bit much for the Mrs to lift by herself ans she readily admits that if he were to fall, she could not pull him up by herself.

As the boy and mother in the other example, the mother has not said she does not want to stop looking after the child, only that she needs some help.

My clients, after a successful application to VAD, got their home help to come in and help with bathing tasks and they received some funding to renovate their home to provide for hand rails and lifts for accessibility. VAD and the province shared the costs. No one ever suggested the Mr head off to an institution because the Mrs is limited in what care she can provide.

The boy and his mother are simply caught in the red tape of who is going to pay for what. Your solution was not to address the inadequacies of health care for the boy but to default to assuming the mother's care was defective and have the kid shipped off to an institution.

Do you mean the world of equitable reality? Heck, it's better for BOTH parties and the common good.

Define your ideals of a common good? Are they premised on the notions that out of sight out of mind for those who are defective?

I just GAVE you a solution.

No, you regurgitated the recommendations of health folks. A solution would be more in line with considering both sides and wait for it... finding/offering a compromise to meet the needs of both parties.

Then try being one.

Now, you see Zeke, I never laid claims to be an intellectual as you have. I am many things but an intellectual is not on my resume. You on the other hand, have never failed to point out your levels of intellectualism. I'm calling you on that as set out by your incessant habit of defaulting to a level of blame in every discussion you engage in.

Now, let me ask you this; What is your interest in the subject of Native children's adoption/foster care?

Do you have a history of apprehension or adoption in your family circle? Are you considering adopting a child in the near future? Are you a social worker in the field of child protection services? Are you a professional who is required by state or federal law to report suspected cases of child neglect or abuse?
Are you a foster parent or adult mentor to a child at risk?

If none of the above, then explain why your contribution to this discussion should have any more weight attached to it than any other contributor? Please feel free to explain how your insights to bad parenting, institutionalizing and apprehension stem from a place other than a lay person's view and opinon?

[Zeke]

Since when is any child better served in an institution?

When they can give better care than the mother.

Zeke, if you truly believe that an institution over the care by a disabled mother with home help is better for this child... you are in a world of your own.

Do you mean the world of equitable reality? Heck, it's better for BOTH parties and the common good.

Blaming is easy, you've said so yourself. Finding solutions is much harder.

I just GAVE you a solution.

Being open to the opinions of others is the mark of a real intellectual.

Then try being one.

[yaahl]

In the case you mention it would be "incompetent parenting."

Whether or not it is her fault, the child would be better served in an institution.

And?

Zeke, are you deliberately being obtuse? I knew you would default to blaming the parent. Your first action is always to blame something.. see the threads on rape, adoption, gourd dances etc. Your so called analysis is nothing more than what you accuse others of doing and that is to default to blaming something instead of entering into a open minded discussion. Since when is any child better served in an institution? Have you been in a coma for the last two decades while long term care facilities and government have been moving towards home care to reduce the costs to the tax payers? Closures of hospices, institutions, group homes, second stage housing and community independent living centres have been striped to the bare minimum and then closed one by one.

Zeke, if you truly believe that an institution over the care by a disabled mother with home help is better for this child... you are in a world of your own. I can't find one single article or journal/research that supports your conclusion. Remember, this particular child's mother is not saying she doesn't want to stop looking after him only that she needs help. The child, as with most Native kids, is caught in the cross fire of inter-jurisdictional red tape of who is going to help. I can find a plethora of articles that claim quite the opposite. Here's one just to open your eyes. http://www.comeunity.com/adoption/institutionalism.html

Your incessant arguing over spelling and what you consider a non-intellectual dialogue is only overshadowed by your willingness to lay blame at the first convenient target. How is that any different from the action you've stated ad nauseum that you despise? Blaming is easy, you've said so yourself. Finding solutions is much harder. Being open to the opinions of others is the mark of a real intellectual.

[Zeke]

You see Zeke, it's not always about being a bad parent.

In the case you mention it would be "incompetent parenting."

Whether or not it is her fault, the child would be better served in an institution.

And?

[AmigoKumeyaay]

What's Good For The Kids

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[yaahl]

Guys... come on, enough.

Regardless of whether the parents lost the kids because they were bad parents or a bad call from a social worker, there are still thousands of Native kids in foster care.

I said I wasn't going to reel off stats but you two guys have detracted from the intent of this thread with your diatribe.

Canadian Native children are eight times more likely to end up in foster care than any other social or racial group. The foster care system in Canada can barely monitor itself let alone where and what is happening to these kids.

Among top concerns is the fact the federal government funds First Nation-delivered services using a formula dating back to 1988. It assumes that a fixed percentage of all communities served by an agency need that help – whether or not the real number is higher or lower.

In British Columbia, for example, just over half of all children in care are Aboriginal yet they comprise just eight per cent of the provincial population. Poverty, poor housing and addiction lead more often to neglect in aboriginal cases, though rates of abuse are no higher than in non-native homes.

The number of on-reserve kids in care has spiked over the last 10 years along with program costs.

As of the end of March 2007, about 8,300 or five per cent of all native children had been removed from their homes.

A child who has been in care is less likely to complete high school than a child who has never been in care. For Aboriginal children in care, education results are poorer than for non-aboriginal children in care.

Between 1997 and 2001 the number of native kids in care jumped 65 per cent to 8,791 from 5,340 and has hovered around the same level since then.

It was found by the Auditor General that 55 of 108 agencies funded by (Indian Affairs) are providing child welfare services to fewer than 1,000 children living on reserve. Those agencies "do not always have the funding and capacity to provide the required range of child welfare services, and also have difficulties with governance, conflicts of interest, training and management."

We now are seeing a new age that has been named the Millennium Scoop. A major study in 2005 pegged the number at 27,500. Since then, provincial and federal data as well as empirical reports suggest the numbers have risen.

In February 1997 the adoption process for native children in Alberta changed. Under the Ministry of Children's Services' new policy, the chief and band council had to consent to every adoption of a First Nation child.

In mainstream society, the number of children in care dropped suddenly in the 1970s. That's when child welfare agencies switched their focus. Instead of removing children from their home as a first resort, they devoted resources to prevention and help for troubled families. The same approach wasn't applied toward First Nations. It has always been to remove the child. However, many FN Councils have worked toward changing that to a degree. http://www.adoption.ca/031001ytsa.htm

As much as Zeke disputes that returning a child to their home community is not a good idea, it has up here in Alberta been a minor success. So much so, that other tribal councils are using the model of the Yellowhead Tribal Council's Child and Family Services.

More info here:

http://www.fncfcs.com/who-we-are

http://fact.on.ca/news/news0212/gm021221a.htm

http://www.turtleisland.org/healing/children-families.htm

http://media.knet.ca/node/11415

And finally, not all children end up in foster care because of bad parenting. Take the case of a young Mi'kmaq boy who suffers from autism and other health issues. His mother has looked after him until she herself suffered a stroke.

Jeremy Meawasige is on the cusp of becoming the next child in that pile of statistics.

The 16-year-old Mi'kmaq from the Pictou Landing First Nation in Nova Scotia has myriad challenges: autism, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus and a tendency to hurt himself.

But his latest affliction comes courtesy of inter-jurisdictional squabbling.

Ever since his mother had a double stroke last year and was no longer able to give her son the support he needed, she has had to rely on government funded social services.

But with each level of government pointing to the other for support, and his mother turning to band generosity in the meantime, Jeremy is now poised to be sent to an institution far from the only home he has ever known.

"They did an assessment on us, and say Jeremy is at the level where he should be institutionalized. I told them, over my dead body," said mother Maurina Beadle.

"I'm the only person he will eat for. If you put him in an institution, that's it."

But with no one willing to provide long-term funding that would cover the costs of supporting Beadle and Jeremy on reserve, authorities want to send him to an institution outside the province.

His supporters say it's a classic case of what has become known as Jordan's Principle.

"Jordan" was Jordan River Anderson, a Cree boy from Manitoba who died in hospital at the age of five as he waited for federal and provincial governments to agree how to pay for his care.

Ottawa and provincial governments have vowed not to let such a thing happen again. They say a child in need of services will receive the services immediately, and the governments will work out the payment scheme later.

But Jeremy's mother argues that if her son were off-reserve, he would be entitled to far more funding and services than he is receiving now – funding and services that would enable her to keep Jeremy at home where he belongs.

You see Zeke, it's not always about being a bad parent. I suspect you will however, find fault with the boy's mother for not moving off reserve and bowing to the pressure to have the boy shipped off to an institution.

Your debate is about a single facet of child custody and apprehension - bad parenting. Time to expand your arguments to encompass all the reasons for a child needing protection/care.

I'm not listening to Zeke, but he is still talking, la la la la la , Hmm, Zeke STILL talking imagine that

[Zeke]

And ineffectual.

Again, you're just mad.

If you had a relevant retort, you'd -- try -- to use it.

Clearly, you don't.

You're such an embarrassment.

Obviously you suffer from delusions of grandeur. Obliterated, hardly!

On a level you should Identify with,
"I'm rubber you're glue, whatever you say, bounces off of me and sticks back to you."

...and this would be highly rez of me
<img src="http://www.myemoticons.com/images/humor/moonies/butt-dance.gif" border="0" alt="Butt Dance" title="Butt Dance" />

[Zeke]

You're just mad because you're being -- readily and ongoing -- obliterated.

That's not my fault.

But hey, I do admire your persistent alignment with idiocy in the face of reality: it's very rez of you.

That's functionally incorrect, you just do not express yourself well. For example, if you believe white society to be dominant, what are you actually saying? Uh huh, that's what I thought...



No. YOU are the one fixated with the rez, what with trying to de-Nativize me because I am not from one. This is, as I have reported, a Native issue with the fallacy being that you believe Nativeness excuses parental lapses. (It doesn't.)



LAME. Woulda', coulda', shoulda' but circumstances wouldn't allow it. There's that weak-willed thinking again.



Better. What sort of improved lifestyle could you child have had were you accountable in the first place? I'm sure that having a child after achieving academic goals was more "responsible" and "accountable." But hey, it was your choice: just cease whining about it while wearing your red badge like a war wound.



And yet you preach entitlement. Basically, I call b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t.



Like NOT spending $$$ on cigarettes and Thunderbird instead of your kids?



Which is a lot like saying lions at the zoo are getting a great education at being zoo lions.



ICWA, which you stupidly laud.



When you say anything clear -- do you know what punctuation, complete thoughts, paragraphs and even sub-adequate spelling is? -- you won't need to keep clarifying.



That you're racist? I assure you, it's self-evident.



Likely somewhere within your blindingly ignorant and ineffectual excuses for Native community being a panacea?



If you actually think out your short-sighted process, that's what you're saying.



If you willingly exist within crap, you are crap. Again, you don't even understand what you're saying.



What argument? You haven't even laid out a cohesive theory.



Then you should cease polishing or be true to accountability, because you're just a joke to anyone who thinks.

OMG, blah, blah, blah, miss the point, blah, blah, blah, take out of context, blah, blah, blah, find something not even remotely close to the topic to b1tch about, blah, blah, blah.

Zeke, I think you left out, "I know you are but what am I?"