Mothers, substance use, child welfare and the sacred teachings - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Mothers, substance use, child welfare and the sacred teachings

Outline

• Blessing
• Brief review of the history of Aboriginal

peoples and practices of assimilation

• Rationale for our study
• Review of our research methods
• Results

Women of the shining light team

• Cyndy Baskin (Mi’kmaq) Ryerson University
• Carol Strike, University of Toronto
• Bela McPherson (Mohawk) Community
• Diane Smylie (Métis) Jean Tweed Centre
• Trudy Angeconeb (Anishnawbe) Native Child & Family Services of Toronto
• Alita Sauve (Tuhltan & Cree) Native Child & Family Services of Toronto
• Diane McKay (Mi’kmaq) Jean Tweed Centre
• Liz Archer, CAMH
• Wanda Kimewon (Anishnawbe) Jean Tweed Centre
• Lori Ross, CAMH
• JoAnn Kakekayash (Anishnawbe) CAMH

Moving away from the past

• Aggressive practices of assimilation destroyed

Aboriginal families and communities

• Residential schools and 1960s scoop (mass

apprehension of Aboriginal children)

• Wide ranging and profoundly negative impacts:

– Culture, heritage, traditional healing practices – Families and communities – Health and well being – Education, employment and overall prosperity

Aboriginal mothers

• Some are more resilient than others
• Experience intersecting histories of violence,

abuse of various kinds, mental health problems, incarceration, stigma, racism, identity struggles and poverty

• About 25% of Aboriginal people have a

substance use disorder

• Aboriginal mothers have higher rates of

substance use during pregnancy than others

Aboriginal mothers and children

• More frequent interactions with child welfare

– Aboriginal children < 3% of children in Ontario – Aboriginal children ~ 15% of children in CW – Estimated that more children in care of CW than were placed in residential schools

• Interactions with child welfare system,

(criminal justice and social services) often characterised by racism, stigma and

• ppression

Moving away from the past

• Address the root causes of these pervasive

problems

• Need to create a child welfare system responsive

to the needs of Aboriginal children and their families

– 1984: changes to Child and Family Services Act – Recognition of the unique needs of Aboriginal families – Recognize role of customary care – Role of Band and/or community to determine CW services for its people – Creation of six Aboriginal CW agencies in Ont.

Moving away from the past

• Continuing reports of challenges with child

welfare system, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal

• Tx system not well attuned to the needs of

Aboriginal people, including mothers

• Avoid Tx system to avoid child welfare system
• Desire to create a drug and alcohol treatment

system that is more responsive to the needs of Aboriginal mothers

Moving away from the past

• How can these issues be addressed?
• Build collaborative models

– Mothers (and fathers, families and communities) – Tx system – Child welfare – Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal

• Privilege Aboriginal culture and knowledge
• Understand barriers and successes

Project Design

• Adopted an anti-colonial framework
• Privilege the perspectives of mothers
• Direct reference to historical legacy and on-

going effects of colonialism

• Community-based research project – workers,

mothers, grandmothers, researchers

• Adapted research methods to incorporate

Aboriginal culture and teachings

Project Design

• Incorporate ceremony and traditional teachings

into data collection methods

• Capacity building phase: knowledges, ceremonies
• Observe ceremony at all team meetings
• Infuse traditional teachings:

– Data collection methods – Data collection tools – Aboriginal artists – Analytic framework – Dissemination approaches

Eligibility criteria

• Pregnant or parenting woman

– Self-identified as Aboriginal (First Nations, status and non- status, Inuit and Métis) – Past five years had involvement with child protection agency and substance misuse treatment program – Live in Toronto

• Workers in Toronto

– Current worker in child welfare agency or substance misuse treatment program – Past five years worked with Aboriginal pregnant/parenting women

Recruitment

Mothers

• Contacted managers
• Poster advertisements
• CAMH - Aboriginal Services
• Jean Tweed Centre
• Council Fire
• Anishnawbe Health
• South Riverdale CHC
• New Heights CHC
• Aboriginal Head Start (NCFST)
• The Meeting Place
• Scarborough Storefront
• Word of mouth

Workers

• Contacted manager
• Poster advertisement
• Native Child and Family

Services of Toronto

• Children’s Aid Society of

Toronto

• Jean Tweed Centre
• CAMH
• Word of mouth

Story telling method

• Adapted focus group

incorporating Aboriginal teachings and values

• Opening smudge,

prayer, teaching by Grandmother JoAnn

• Purpose of the circle
• Explanation of Medicine

wheel

Story telling method

• Offer medicine bundle to demonstrate value of reciprocity and to

seek approval

– “The act of offering tobacco acknowledges the ethic of reciprocity in First Nations research…. [O]ffering tobacco allows them [participants] to become involved in the research process as equal and respected members…More importantly, offering tobacco is a legitimate and recognized way of seeking approval from participants before conducting a study” (Michell,1999,5

• Asked to speak tell stories about the physical, emotional, spiritual,

and mental aspects

– Substance use and parenting – Involvement with child welfare – Involvement with drug and alcohol treatment – How to improve systems

Story telling method

• Feather passed from one participant to next

– Every woman had opportunity to speak – Self-discipline – Attentive listening – Patience – Memory strength – Respect and caring for speaker

Story telling method

• Closing: summed up what was said

– Teaching connected to something revealed, suggestions for future, words of encouragement – Prayer – Participants shook hands/hugged to recognize value of giving and receiving: reciprocity

• Feast, honorarium, transit tokens,

compensation for child care (reciprocity)

Adapted focus group method

• Opening prayer and teaching
• 5 focus groups with service providers

– 2 groups with substance misuse treatment counsellors – 2 groups with child welfare workers – 1 with our team who were workers

• Closing ceremony and teaching

Participation

• Anonymous: no lists, names or demographics
• 38 mothers
• 11 substance misuse treatment counselors
• 12 child welfare workers
• Story telling circles took place at community

agencies serving Aboriginal families

Thematic analysis

• Identify major concepts and themes
• Connect to Sacred Teachings - Wisdom,

Respect, Humility, Love, Honesty, Bravery and Truth

• Structured findings and interpretation around

teachings

• Team discussed/(re)developed interpretation

and recommendations

Sacred Teaching # 1: A Practice of Wisdom

• Balance, inner vision and clarity
• Perspectives on how to change barriers

Mother: “ The disease of addiction affects everyone in the family. It touches the lives of everyone that we love and I think we really need to have a place where our children could come in with us so that we don’t have to worry about where they are.”

Recommendation: Create family treatment centres

A Practice of Wisdom (continued):

Child Welfare Worker:

“If a woman says ‘I want my children to go to my brother’, then child welfare has this big screening process. Get the brother’s criminal check, get the brother’s this, get the brother’s that. The racist criminal justice system means lots of criminal records for Native populations. Because he has a criminal record doesn’t mean he can’t parent”

Treatment Counsellor:

“I think that we need to really look at whose needs we are addressing and if we are asking women where they want their children to be”

Recommendation: Assist workers and counsellors to understand community

connections

Sacred Teaching # 2: A Practice of Love

• All of us have responsibility to care for all children
• Loving their children and misusing substances not exclusive of each
• ther

Mother:

“My child means more to me than any breath of air that I take. For people to ask me that question [what’s more important, drugs or your child] made me sick. It made me think, am I really out for the drugs more than my kid?”.

Recommendation: Children belong in our communities and

we must all commit to caring for them

A Practice of Love (continued):

Child Welfare Worker:

“Every time I have to bring a child into care, I think to myself, what is the lesser evil because a child, no matter what, loves their parent....I bring a child into care and create trauma. You’re not sure how that child is going to be treated.”

Recommendation: Support extended families to care for children

Sacred Teaching # 3: A Practice of Respect

• Honour all parts of creation
• Develope participatory relationships

Mother:

“I wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital until Native Child and Family Services came. I spoke with the woman from there and told her I’ve been clean and sober and I’m ready to take care of my [child]. I have community members that are supportive of me having this baby and have faith in me and I have faith in myself. She finally said ‘okay I believe you’ and I am really grateful that she believed me because I have been doing good ever since.”

A Practice of Respect (continued):

• How disrespect hinders the collaborative process

Mother: “[CAS] doesn’t ever take back [their words] when they’re wrong. They don’t apologize, but they expect you to do this… You’re wrong [and you have to own up to it]. They should too.”

Treatment Worker:

“First Nation people’s histories are not understood. The incredible amount of family forced separation, the effect of residential schools and how that’s affected parenting over the

• generations. Programming that addresses this is so valuable for healing.”

Recommendation: Respect complexity of healing journey and context

from which women begin and travel along this journey

• Courage for women to talk about their experiences and

pick themselves up after a mistake and trying again

Mother:

“He’s not my son anymore. I cried for two years straight over this. I’ve had to come to a lot of places and say to myself ‘you were unselfish to give him up in the first place.’ The hardest thing I ever did was to admit that I couldn’t help my son. The hardest thing I ever did was to hand my son over to another woman who could do a better job than me.”

Treatment Counsellor:

• “When a woman is ready to take a look at some of the mistakes that she’s made, and the

worker isn’t judgmental, but rather supportive, I’ve seen amazing things happen to the woman’s self esteem and hopefulness to have a healthier family down the road.”

Sacred Teaching # 4: A Practice of Courage

A Practice of Courage (continued):

Child Welfare Worker:

“Do women feel like they have to hide things? I get very frightened about all the things we have to report; that the backlash of that is that women don’t

• talk. We put them in positions where they have to go underground. So if

your partner is beating you up, and you say something about that, then guess what?”

Recommendation: Child welfare and treatment examine their

practices and evolve with them to meet needs of mothers and families

Sacred Teaching # 5: A Practice of Honesty

• Walk our talk
• Actions match our words

Mothers:

“I’ve been working really hard at getting my son back and they [child welfare workers] just keep throwing something else at me.” “I’ve done everything and it’s like every time I’m supposed to get them [children] back, they add something else.”

A Practice of Honesty (continued):

.

• Involving mothers in all steps taken in communicating

information between workers and counsellors

Treatment Counsellor:

“Educate one another around “I’m a substance abuse counsellor, this is what I do. This is what my mandate is, and then hear from you, what is yours?” Where can we come together here? So that each other knows what the other’s responsible for.”

Recommendation: Recognize that child welfare is adversarial in its set up and

work towards changing this by developing and articulating a clear plan from the beginning of contact

• Humiliation is destructive experience common to mothers

as denied identity of motherhood

• Take responsibility for their behaviours and move forward

Mother:

“They treat [you] as if you’re not the mother anymore. It doesn’t matter; they [our children] still come from us.” “Sometimes things get hard and I’ve called Native [Child and] Family Services. I used to feel bad about asking for help and I always did things by myself, but that didn’t work. I’m glad that I’m smart enough to reach out for help for my own well-being.”

Sacred Teaching # 6: A Practice of Humility

A Practice of Humility (continued):

Child Welfare Worker:

• “You don’t just want to be meeting their immediate needs.

Rather we need a good analysis of the overall picture, and what is impacting that client and the children.”

Treatment Worker:

“They’re [child welfare workers] always trying to fit people into boxes. [They] don’t really understand the complexities of the women’s lives and don’t really understand the whole healing process.”

Recommendation: Need for ‘system’ to be humble, to acknowledge faults, be

redesigned to address needs of Aboriginal peoples

• Knowing and understanding all of the teachings and focusing on how

we put them into action

Sacred Teaching # 7: A Practice of Truth

Mother:

“I just celebrated five years [of being free from alcohol and drugs]. Did it on my own. It was my children that made me quit.”

Treatment Counsellor:

“We’re always trying to make her [Aboriginal woman] fit into existing...programs. [When this does not work for her] then we say ‘oh she’s not ready yet.’ But really, she’s just not ready for our idea of a program.”

Recognize who is the client:

“We’re looking at who’s the client, and I find therein lies one

• f the biggest issues for all of us. This one sees the woman

as the client; this one sees the child as the client. But isn’t that creating the silos that we’re saying that we don’t think are helpful? The client is the family. Why aren’t all agencies looking at the family as the unit that they’re trying to assist?” (former CW worker who is a Tx worker now)

Recommendation: End the “one size fits all” notion of dealing with substance misuse

and child welfare concerns