Children's Welfare in Canada: A SOCIOLOGY 9 SOCIOLOGY Perspective

It has been found out through various research works that the schools of Canada have left an indelible mark on the indigenous and non-indigenous children in the society. There are several disparities between the indigenous and non-indigenous children in the country regarding education and health facilities (McKenzie et al., 2016). Thesis: Lack of child welfare programs in the residential program in Canada has degraded the inclusion policy and educational development for indigenous children in the country The welfare programs for Canadian children have always been

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIOLOGY
The following term paper will be dedicated towards finding out the problems and
challenges in the welfare of childhood welfare programs in Canada. It has been found out
through various research works that the schools of Canada have left an indelible mark on the
indigenous and non-indigenous children in the society. So, it is very appropriate that schools
should adopt some processes that would cater to the overall well being of the indigenous chidren
regarding their educational improvement and classroom behavior. There are several disparities
between the indigenous and non-indigenous children in the country regarding education and
health facilities (McKenzie et al., 2016). This term paper will look to find out the distinctions
between two sets of groups in the Canadian society and their attributes towards the education
problems. Many research works have been conducted on the welfare programs for the children in
Canada for all the indigenous and no-indigenous children. The disparities and facilities given to
the children will be focused on this term paper for better understanding of the topic.
Thesis: Lack of child welfare programs in the residential program in Canada has degraded the
inclusion policy and educational development for indigenous children in the country
The welfare programs for Canadian children have always been a very troublesome matter
for the concerned authorities. The main troubles have come up from the matter of distinctions
between the indigenous and non-indigenous children. Many scholars have identified the issue
through their vast research programs that indigenous children in Canada have become victims of
classroom violence and discriminative steps from the faculty members of the schools (McKenzie
et al., 2016). Most educational experts have criticized this method of education in Canada in a
vast manner. It has been publicly criticized also. Various sources have been used in the previous
annotated bibliography section that reminds about the extent of discriminations that existed in
the school welfare programs in the country (Stirrett, 2015). Most important sectors for public

2SOCIOLOGY
welfare like education and health have gone through reductions in budget in previous years.
Therefore, it has become very important for the government organizations to focus on the overall
welfare of the education system.
However, it has been acknowledged by most politicians in the country that various
policies have been cut off from the budget so the deficits could be compensated to earn the
global advantage in terms of profits. The competitive edge cannot be earned until all these losses
are properly made up. The welfare programs must be applied within the residential schooling
system in Canada so the students can gain maximum benefits in this scenario. The government
must understand that both the cultures of indigenous and non indigenous are the inseparable parts
of the Canadian culture (Stirrett, 2015). So, equal importance must be given on both of these
cultures. Therefore, the challenges in the residential schooling system should be overcome to
establish better policies. According to various critics, it has been noted mostly that disparities in
the health systems among children will affect both their mental and physical well being. The
cultural heritage of Canada has been disrupted through this step also (Nichols, 2017).
The conditions of the health conditions of indigenous children will help to address the
educational welfare programs for the children. The linguistic divisions among the children will
have to be focused in this regard for the valuable outcomes. The resources in the annotated
bibliography have provided depth of knowledge on this topic. According to the critics in this
scenario, children in Canada are taken away from their known atmosphere with their parents to
an environment which they are not accustomed with. They are educated at a place that they do
not know or do not belong to. This will jeopardize their situation and they feel separated from
their rituals and customs (Nichols, 2017). On the other hand, this puts a negative impression on

3SOCIOLOGY
their minds too. Therefore, this education system has not done any kind of welfare to the
children. Rather it has only alienated them from their roots (Abdulwasi, 2015).
Major critics have opined the fact that these education welfare systems must be
developed because it is associated with the future success of these children entirely. Apart from
the discriminations in the education sector, more discrimination has also been seen in health
sector also. The health disruptions have also created barriers for the children to get the education
in schools. It is quite problematic for the indigenous children in Canada to live in a Euro-
Canadian lifestyle. The poor health conditions of the indigenous children are the reflections of
various colonial systems like residential schooling, Indian Act and reserve system (Abdulwasi,
2015). The children fall apart from their own cultures and beliefs in this scenario. This creates a
negative impact on their minds. The risk of abuse is always hanging over the indigenous children
in Canada. It is the ultimate responsibility of the government to protect the rights of every child
so they can get a beautiful future.
All these mistreatments of the children will fall under the Territories, Provinces and the
child welfare organizations of the indigenous community. These institutions will have to find out
the issues that are creating problems in these situations (Abdulwasi, Evans & Magalhaes, 2016).
They have to report it to the government so they will be able to take up some positive steps to
apply new methods and policies. There is a huge need to expand the child welfare programs in
Canada so the situation can be made better. The child development programs will be
implemented in the society to provide them support in education and health. It has been recently
found out that child mortality rates are higher in the indigenous communities.

4SOCIOLOGY
If children are mistreated from an early age, it will definitely create misconceptions in
their mind about the society. They will not like to become educated people with successful
careers in the future. Rather the criminal mindedness will appear in their psychology that will be
very harmful for the society (Abdulwasi, Evans & Magalhaes, 2016). The responsibilities of the
parents are also immense in this discourse too. Parents must be careful about their children and
their likes. In order to increase the facilities of the child welfare programs, Canadian government
will also have to design some systems so parents of indigenous children should be employed
somewhere so they can arrange for education facilities of their children. Mothers should also
carry the responsibilities of child welfare and support the strategies implemented by the
Government (Wright Cardinal, 2017).
The high rates of suicide among the children in the indigenous families should be tackled
very strictly. A whole new system for the child welfare should be designed for the well being of
the children properly. Otherwise, the safety of children will be in deep distress in the upcoming
years. It should be mentioned in this discourse that the chiefs of Manitoba in Canada called for a
meeting so the older system for child welfare must be abandoned because it is only a failure
keeping in mind all its outcomes. The current child welfare system in different provinces of
Canada has indeed failed all the families or children in the indigenous community. The chief
authorities of various provinces have addressed this fact with new things in their head.
They believe that the responsibility of care and prevention could be delivered by some
agencies so the parity in the system could be kept. This fact will definitely be helpful for the
parents as they will know their children will not be taken away from them. The support services
for care and prevention will attend their children at their home environment only. This will create
the positive approach in the minds of children (Wright Cardinal, 2017). In the recent past, it was

5SOCIOLOGY
seen that six lawyers went for the hunger strike for the security of the First Nations children.
They only wanted to secure all the rights of the indigenous children in the country (Carneiro,
2018). This step was taken by the lawyers so they could create the awareness among the
common people all over the country. Few survey reports had been done in various regions of the
country where reports have been compared between the children of different levels like
kindergarten, high school and graduation. Besides, Manitoba Centre for Health policy had
revealed a report very recently that kids were in severe struggling condition because of their
socioeconomic status (Valiquette, 2019). Everyone admits that this should not have been the case
at any cost.
The main problem had been identified from the reports. It revealed that most kids were
not at all ready to join the school classes because most of their physical and psychological needs
were not met (Cardinal, 2016). Kids are not being taken care properly because they are
discriminated because of their ethnic backgrounds. The case is almost similar in provinces like
Ottawa also. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal had even fined the federal government
because they took many indigenous children under their care forcefully (Carneiro, 2018). They
were removed their families and taken under care in a completely new type of environment.
The traumatic conditions of the inter-generational residential school system have been the
main reasons behind taking so many kids under the care system (Fast et al., 2019). This
highlights the failures of the federal government of Canada in dealing with the residential
schooling system. Evil social practices like the mental health issues, substance abuse, violence in
the family and other facts have become very common things regarding children welfare system
in Canada. These are the primary background reasons for poor conditions of children in the
society (Cardinal, 2016). The reasons for the difficulties among the indigenous families should

6SOCIOLOGY
be discovered and it will undermine why the indigenous children do not have the similar
facilities like white skinned non-indigenous people of the country (Di Tomasso & de Finney,
2015).
In the words of the critics, child protection strategies are generally very effective in the
countries of North America. It is the due responsibility of the federal government of Canada to
protect the rights of children so events like Phoenix Sinclair case are not repeated. In this
comparison, the example of Sweden can be given. The numbers of total children in care at
different centers of Sweden are much less than that of Canada (Sinclair, 2016). They have
implemented several family welfare policies that would be quite effective for the families. Here,
one thing must be clarified and it is regarding the equal treatment of children. All the children
should be treated fairly and equally so similar facilities can be attributed to everyone in the
society. Community support should always be important in the Canadian residential school
system because children from multicultural backgrounds will not fear of being left alone
(Gerlach et al., 2017). In this scenario, Canada would have to take the challenges sincerely and
make the proper strategies so they can stop the child neglect and abuse within a very short time.
Otherwise, it would be difficult to integrate the child welfare system for the betterment of the
society.
The Federal Government of Canada will have to find out all the root causes of this child
abuse so they can evaluate their success rate evidently. It can be said without any doubt that the
rate of failure is much higher than the rate of success (Cram et al., 2015). In this scenario, the
event of Sixties Scoop can be reminded that occupies a dark phase in the schooling system in
Canada. During the 1960s, many indigenous children had been removed from their families,
communities and houses. This event created a negative impression among the children and this

7SOCIOLOGY
was criticized by most social critics. This event resulted in the ultimate loss of the cultural
identity. The separation was both physical and emotional. Thus it had affected their well being
completely (Dhillon, 2017). Some critics believe that the child welfare system in Canada is still
the continuation of that event named Sixties Scoop.
The system of the residential schooling has been very much problematic for the overall
well being of the children. If they are separated from their family and communities, it will create
a traumatic situation among them. These provincial child welfare agencies had the authority in
their hands and they could utilize this opportunity to gain the upper hand on the indigenous
communities (Cameron & Levitan, 2014). These children were placed in the foster homes of the
non-aboriginal parents and this step created a negative buzz in the minds of the people. This
residential schooling system still has some very bad and negative impacts on the school children
of aboriginal communities. This practice immediately resulted in the profound factors like family
breakdown, separation of ties between the child and parents after a certain time gap and loss of
self esteem (Kovach, 2015). During sometimes, these children were subjected to alcoholism out
of desperate measures. There were high opportunities that these children could become much
violent because of these situations. This was later confirmed as the Residential School Syndrome
(RSS).
Immense criticism had been stemmed from different levels of the society. After these
criticisms, the federal government of Canada went on to provide an overall extension to their
child extension services. (Nelson & Wilson, 2017). The impacts of this residential schooling
system in Canada were termed as a jurisdictional dispute by many. Therefore, there was an
urgent need to change the scenario and integrate some new policies within the system that would
cater to the well being of all indigenous system into the society. Still, there have been some

8SOCIOLOGY
disputes and confusions within the government itself. The main confusion is regarding which
government department would look into the matter of child welfare systems among the First
Nations communities in Canada (Andersen, 2014). The question of paying for these policies is
also of huge importance.
The implementation of Sixties Scoop eventually changed the entire scenario because one
of the researchers named Johnston showed that less than 1% of the children under the caring
supervision branch at British Columbia belonged to the First Nations indigenous communities.
On the contrary, this number had gone up to 34% by the end of 1964 (Monchalin, 2016). These
practices are still going to a certain extent even now. The situation will become worse if this
situation is not handled properly by the government.
In the concluding section, it must be highlighted that many provinces in Canada like
British Columbia, Manitoba and others have suffered the lack of proper child welfare systems in
the recent times. Most of their systems are continuing from the erstwhile Residential schooling
system or Sixties Scoop as it is historically known. The negative impacts of these systems have
been quite impactful in the overall school system. It is definite that the continuation of this
program will definitely be harmful for the society and emotional attributes of First Nations
children. The child welfare systems in Canada must be organized in entirely new way so the
situation can be changed and indigenous children can enjoy the positive impacts of the child
welfare system.

9SOCIOLOGY
References
Abdulwasi, M. (2015). The Sixties Scoop Among Aboriginal Veterans: A Critical Narrative
Study.
Abdulwasi, M., Evans, M., & Magalhaes, L. (2016). “You're Native but You're not Native
Looking”: A Critical Narrative Study Exploring the Health Needs of Aboriginal Veterans
Adopted and/or Fostered During the Sixties Scoop. First Peoples Child & Family
Review, 11(2), 19-31.
Andersen, C. (2014). Métis: Race, recognition, and the struggle for Indigenous peoplehood. ubc
Press.
Cameron, E., & Levitan, T. (2014). Impact and benefit agreements and the neoliberalization of
resource governance and indigenous-state relations in northern Canada. Studies in
Political Economy, 93(1), 25-52.
Cardinal, S. W. (2016). A Framework for Indigenous Adoptee Reconnection: Reclaiming
Language and Identity. Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education/Revue
canadienne des jeunes chercheures et chercheurs en éducation, 7(1).
Carneiro, S. (2018). Policy, Poverty, and Indigenous Child Welfare: Revisiting the Sixties
Scoop (Doctoral dissertation).
Cram, F., Gulliver, P., Ota, R., & Wilson, M. (2015). Understanding overrepresentation of
Indigenous children in child welfare data: An application of the Drake risk and bias
models. Child maltreatment, 20(3), 170-182.

10SOCIOLOGY
Dhillon, J. K. (2017). Prairie rising: Indigenous youth, decolonization, and the politics of
intervention. University of Toronto Press.
Di Tomasso, L., & de Finney, S. (2015). A Discussion Paper on Indigenous Custom Adoption
Part 1: Severed Connections--Historical Overview of Indigenous Adoption in
Canada. First Peoples Child & Family Review, 10(1).
Fast, E., Allouche, Z. I., Gagné, M. E. D., & Boldo, V. (2019). Indigenous Youth Leaving Care
in Canada. Leaving Care and the Transition to Adulthood: International Contributions to
Theory, Research, and Practice, 243.
Gerlach, A. J., Browne, A. J., Sinha, V., & Elliott, D. (2017). Navigating structural violence with
Indigenous families: The contested terrain of early childhood intervention and the child
welfare system in Canada. International Indigenous Policy Journal, 8(3).
Kovach, M. (2015). Emerging from the margins: Indigenous methodologies. Research as
resistance: Revisiting critical, Indigenous, and anti-oppressive approaches, 2, 43-64.
McKenzie, H. A., Varcoe, C., Browne, A. J., & Day, L. (2016). Disrupting the continuities
among residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, and child welfare: An analysis of colonial
and neocolonial discourses. International Indigenous Policy Journal, 7(2).
Monchalin, L. (2016). The colonial problem: An Indigenous perspective on crime and injustice
in Canada. University of Toronto Press.
Nelson, S. E., & Wilson, K. (2017). The mental health of Indigenous peoples in Canada: A
critical review of research. Social Science & Medicine, 176, 93-112.

11SOCIOLOGY
Nichols, R. L. (2017). From the Sixties Scoop to Baby Veronica: Transracial Adoption of
Indigenous Children in the USA and Canada. In International Adoption in North
American Literature and Culture (pp. 3-26). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Sinclair, R. (2016). The Indigenous child removal system in Canada: An examination of legal
decision-making and racial bias. First Peoples Child & Family Review, 11(2), 8-18.
Stirrett, N. (2015). Re-visiting the Sixties Scoop: Relationality, Kinship and Honouring
Indigenous Stories. Unpublished Masters thesis). Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
Valiquette, S. (2019). Sixties Scoop, Historical Trauma, and Changing the Current Landscape
about Indigenous People.
Wright Cardinal, S. (2017). Beyond the sixties scoop: reclaiming indigenous identity,
reconnection to place, and reframing understandings of being indigenous (Doctoral
dissertation).