TRC Calls to Action: #1

The first Call to Action comes under the header of Legacy, with the first subheader being Child Welfare.

1. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the number of Aboriginal children in care by:

   i. Monitoring and assessing neglect investigations

   ii. Providing adequate resources to enable Aboriginal communities and child-welfare organizations to keep Aboriginal families together where it is safe to do so, and to keep children in culturally appropriate environments, regardless of where they reside.

   iii. Ensuring that social workers and other who conduct child-welfare investigations are properly educated and trained about the history and impacts of residential schools.

   iv. Ensuring that social workers and others who conduct child-welfare investigations are properly educated and trained about the potential for Aboriginal communities and families to provide more appropriate solutions to family healing.

   v. Requiring that all child-welfare decision makers consider the impact of the residential school experience on children and their caregivers.

First and foremost I'm seeing an effort to make sure people are being educated about residential schools and their trickle-down effect; mental illness, violence, alcoholism, homelessness and other issues facing Aboriginal folks stem directly from the residential school experience. Had Aboriginal children not been taken from their families in an (ultimately successful) effort to expunge their cultural ways, they would be free from these issues today. It is critical that anyone working with Indigenous families understand this, in order to move away from an attitude of "you've done this to yourself, snap out of it," to acknowledging the effect of generational trauma and understanding that the behaviour stemming from such trauma is not the individual's fault. (In fact, it is critical that each of us recognizes how our experiences shape us all, that we are each products of many forces outside ourselves and that we are each deserving of compassion and understanding for these very reasons.)

I'm also seeing emphasis placed upon honouring Aboriginal cultures and allowing those cultures to thrive. Rather than forcing colonial-influenced healing, this Call to Action allows for Indigenous communities to follow their ancestral ways, thereby respecting Aboriginal culture and identity and conceding that the colonial way may not be the only way. (What a concept!) The idea of keeping Indigenous families and communities together is in direct opposition to the aim of residential schools, and is certainly a step in the direction toward decolonization.

How has this Call to Action helped to decolonize my way of thinking?
I am reminded that there are other ways of doing than what I have been taught in my own euro-centric experience and that there is value in these other ways.

How can I implement what I have learned?
When engaging with someone from a different cultural experience (not only Indigenous folks), I will hold awareness of my own colonial conditioning and be very careful not to impose that conditioning on the person with whom I am sharing space.