Foster care information session set for Iqaluit
Event is for prospective foster families to discuss roles, responsibilities and standards of providing care
An information session for prospective foster families will be held by the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Family Services on Oct. 16 in Iqaluit at the Aqsarniit Hotel. (File photo)
Families interested in becoming foster parents can learn more about the process at an information session planned for later this month in Iqaluit.
The session is being organized by the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Family Services at the Aqsarniit Hotel and Conference Centre from 6 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 16, according to a GN news release.
The goal is to have a dialogue between family services staff and prospective foster parents on the roles and responsibilities of foster care, as well as the standards of care and resources available for a health placement.
According to a family services department webpage, foster care in Nunavut is provided by extended family, which is also known as kinship care, and by pre-approved foster homes.
Arrangements for foster care can be flexible. It can be short or long-term, be done during emergencies, until the child’s own home is deemed safe or until the family services department can find a permanent home.
To be a foster parent, a person must be able to provide a safe and caring home for a child or youth. That foster must also be able to fulfill the roles and responsibilities outlined in the foster family manual.
In the spring, Canada’s auditor general Karen Hogan visited Iqaluit to deliver a report that stated the GN was failing to protect vulnerable children and youth.
“It’s an urgent call to action,” Hogan said at the time.
Premier P.J. Akeeagok responded to the report, saying previous governments did not make the investments needed after earlier critical reports came out, but that his government was ready to make them.
For more information on the Oct. 16 meeting, phone the Family Services Office at 867-975-5304.
My wife an I would do this in a heartbeat but our options for housing right now are a one bedroom GN unit or a house that has been REDUCED to $799,000.
Unless we start building you WILL see more vulnerable Nunavumiut being sent south.
QIA is planning to build housing, at $1,400,000 per unit, whatever a “unit” turns out to be.
.
Fostering used to be a way for the GN to pay to get Inuit kids into the extra bedrooms in GN staff housing. It cost about 10 times as much for the GN to support a kid in a foster home, compared to what the GN would pay to support that same kid in a Social Housing unit.