Yesterday a consultation to discuss the overhaul of the current Child and Family Services was held in Dauphin.
Minister of Families, Scott Fielding, met with Dauphin’s Metis Child and Family Services.
Judy Mayer, Manitoba Metis Federation Minister of Families, notes what they want to see happen:
“From the Metis perspective, we are always about family, keeping our kids in care, within their families for that support. We realize that our families are struggling, so we’re going to go back to our traditional ways of making sure that they are in the community or at least connected to a family member, if it’s not possible for the child to be in the community. And the Minister is supportive of that; he understands that it’s the way to do it.”
Minister Fielding talks about what needs to happen when families can’t be reunited:
“If reunification of families is not possible because of safety reasons, and sometimes that does happen for CFS, providing some kind of permanent, lifelong connections for someone in the system is really important. I’ve heard some stories from youth that have had some experiences where them and friends of theirs that were in the CFS system had gone from many different foster homes and you didn’t have that attachment that was there; so we really need to make some changes and I’ve heard that very clearly and that is why our government is taking this head on.”
Changes to the CFS model are hoped to be in place by the fall.
