Cultural Context
"In Canada, 52.2% of children in foster care are Indigenous but account for only 7.7% of the child population according to Census 2016. This means 14,970 out of 28,665 foster children in private homes under the age of 15 are Indigenous.
Results from the 2011 National Household Survey also show that 38% of Indigenous children in Canada live in poverty, compared to 7% for non-Indigenous children."
Post World War 2, “Child welfare law provided a new modality of colonialist regulation of First Nations.” As provincial governments slowly moved onto reserves, prejudice against Indigenous people, widespread poverty in Indigenous communities, and a failure to understand and value communal responsibility for children" ensured high apprehension rates of Indigenous children. From the 1960s onwards, the proportion of First Nations children in care increased dramatically across the country...Indigenous individuals and communities protested not only that adoption into white homes created identity confusion for individual children, but also that removing children from reserves undermined the future of Indigenous nations"
