Reports slam youth protection services for Inuit children in Montreal
“Their cultural security cannot be guaranteed”
A street scene in Kuujjuaq. Nunavik children in foster care outside of the region aren’t getting access to education or culturally relevant programming, a new report released Wednesday found. (File photo by Sarah Rogers)
Two recent reports on the services received by the roughly 60 Nunavik children under youth protection in Montreal say that they live largely in isolation from their families, language and culture.
One report, called “The cultural security of Nunavik’s youth placed in readaptation settings” on Montreal’s West Island, looks at the services provided by Batshaw Youth and Family Services, which covers child protection in the western half of Montreal and for Nunavik children sent south.
The report has not been publicly released but was obtained by Nunatsiaq News.
Last March, 39 children from Nunavik were living in Batshaw foster homes and another 19 were housed in its adaptation units and an annex for girls, the report said.
These children remain at risk even while under youth protection, the report states.
“For any Inuk placed in the South, not by their own choice, their cultural security cannot be guaranteed. The practices and ‘ways of being’ differ immensely between the North and South,” wrote Leigh Johnston, an independent consultant who worked previously as director of readaptive services for Batshaw.
Johnston conducted interviews last March for the report.
Batshaw staff cited in the 20-page report said Nunavik youth suffer from “incredible homesickness” and sadness “in being so far away from home, and everything familiar to them.”
Staff said that the youth had been sent south “and then forgotten.”
And the youth are at risk of losing their ability to function in the North, the report said.
They’re also out of touch with their families, rarely seeing them or speaking to them.
Batshaw staff said the home visits were used by youth protection workers “as a means to reward or punish a youth for behaviours.”
“It is difficult for youth to return from a home visit as they often don’t know when the next visit will be, sometimes leading youth to run away at the end of a visit, rather than return to the unit as was planned,” the report said.
And, while in the south, the youth may fall behind academically: only two of the teenagers living at Batshaw were attending school.
The others received tutoring from the Kativik Ilisarniliriniq school board.
That’s because of Quebec’s language restrictions, which mean “southern school boards who offer instruction in English are not permitted, by law, and under pain of financial penalties, to admit students who do not have English eligibility certificates.”
So they receive tutoring.
“What this means is these youth are missing out on their academic education, on the opportunity to learn appropriate school behaviours, and on the social elements of going to school,” Johnston said in the report.
One teenager told her that “part of the reason I am in placement is that I wasn’t attending school. So they send me here, and I am not allowed to go to school.”
While there is no “interdiction on the use of Inuktitut,” English is dominant at Batshaw.
“When asked if she had ever been told not to speak in Inuktitut, one youth responded sadly, ‘They don’t have to tell me not to speak Inuktitut—I have no one here to speak my language to,'” the report said.
The report also describes a huge communication gap between northern and southern youth protection workers and with the children placed into youth protection: only one of the youth interviewed by Johnston knew why she was even placed at Batshaw rather than in Nunavik.
In Nunavik, for children under a youth protection order, there is one open unit for boys, one open unit for girls, two group homes for preteens and a secure unit for boys.
“The demand for placement in those settings outpaces the resources available,” the report noted.
The teens at Batshaw said they didn’t know what the goal of their placement was: only one of those interviewed knew why she was placed at Batshaw instead of in Nunavik.
The report also pointed to a lack of structured involvement between southern Inuit and the Inuit youth at Bashaw, who said they wanted more contact with Inuit adults, sewing and beading programs, and outings to Inuit events.
The report suggested more than 20 ways to improve services at Batshaw.
In a call to Batshaw about what progress had been made on the report’s recommendations, a media spokesperson said the unreleased report by Johnston was still a work in progress.
An emailed statement from social services for the West Island of Montreal, which looks after Batshaw, said that “the report you are referring to was requested by two partner organizations. As such, we cannot respond without our partner.
“Both partners will be publishing the report conjointly.”
A second report, “One step forward, two steps back,” prepared by Concordia University with Indigenous authors, called for decolonizing Montreal’s “colonial child welfare system.”
The report, released last month, outlines many injustices.
This report mentioned how social workers in Nunavik communities become foster families and take one child in a family, but then the rest of the children are sent south to Montreal and separated from their parents, siblings and community.
There are also few Indigenous foster families in the city, the report noted.
Workers also told the researchers that, in many cases, there is a lack of information about the identity of Indigenous families, including their specific cultural backgrounds, nations or home communities, as well as the identities of the children.
The report’s authors made many recommendations. They referenced the recent calls of the Viens Commission on improving youth protection services for Inuit, Métis and First Nations living in Quebec, and mentioned the Laurent Commission on the Rights of the Child and Youth Protection, which is now underway.
They also asked for a progress report by next December.
Last March, Nunavik health officials said they were working with their counterparts in Montreal’s West Island to do a joint review of youth protection services for Inuit youth.
This is ridiculous. But look very close to see who are the ones failing the children. Its inuit who are failing the children. And falling them over and over. First they don’t look after their children. Then they allow their children to go off to the south. They allow people to come into the community to take charge of this ridiculous system of dyp. Inuit are not being courageous in the right way. They sit around passively and let one or two southerners take charge of their life. Inuit don’t stand up and believe in making their world a better place. They wait for someone to do it for them, then they complain too late.
All this on the eve of self government talks. This is self government in action for Nunavik. See what self government is doing. This being a trailer of the real self government. All these senerios are the test for the reality of what self government would be like . If ever, and im a believer it will never be, but if ever self government comes to be in Nunavik, not only the children will be without a future , but Nunavik will cease to be. The leadership, those that are trying to make a government cant even make a choice to help the kids.
Like?? comment above
Don’t worry son. In a few short decades, control of Nunavik will be in the hands of the south. Well it’s already in the hands of the government in the south, so other southern aspects shall take over as well. I’m not kidding here, jokes and riddles aside. We need mayors now from the south, as our population grows from southern infusion. To absorb a culture is not that creative! It’s just facts of one culture allowing its dispirited be so. Fight for your self inuit, , fight. Stop being against each other. Stand up. And identify those among you that are with evil intends! And put them in their place. Look at your abuse of position. Every time someone is voted into some type of power , it’s all about abuse. Look at your landholdings, members who abuse their positions. No one cares but inuit are affected, it’s an otherwise laughing matter to the world.
I want a turkey meal for Christmas. Now, just look at a hunting society. Caribou, all gone, where we don’t know. Turkey, comes with a great cost, both economic and cultural. Turkey? People will fight you for a good priced turkey . God, turkey will be domestic bird of the north soon, more over ptarmigan. We don’t want you, if not in store, turkey. Yes turkey. Anlittle leak of cultural declines
I grew up post world war 2. So proud of my father. Grandfather, uncles , who not only fought overseas, but two of them died. I can tell you up right that if anyone would try to touch or bother our kids, we would fight to the end. That why I find this residential school thing ! A bunch of chickens who didn’t stand up for their kids. I not one to believe all the passively inuit we see today! Not impressed at all.
Image the gift of people coming to the north, to provide care. When no such care would be otherwise provided. Its an adventure going to the north for some. And yet, they are met with a violent welcome. Doctors, nurses, police, clergy, social workers, many many more. Those that go to the north to help, but are met by a resistance that makes no sense. Can inuit think for a moment, who they really are in this world. Depended on outside! South for everything, and yet at war in their minds with their mother providers. If you dont take care of your children, no one will.
Pressure is put on some people to fight a war which benefits
the select elite.
Other people are forced into a situation, like residential school,
or risk losing financial benefits.
” They ” have us all by the short & curlys .
So to all peoples, of all races , get what you can while the
going is good ! !
MERRY XMAS.