As a regional child welfare service recognizes their foster parents, they're also looking to increase awareness about the need for more.
Tikinagan Child and Family Services is marking foster parent appreciation month in March, honouring more than 370 foster parents in communities across Northwestern Ontario.
But service manager for foster care Greg Moe is also taking the opportunity to highlight a growing gap in urban and rural areas.
Moe said the need for Indigenous Foster Parents is “huge.”
Tikinagan will need approximately 450 to 500 homes to provide a safe and secure home for many Indigenous children within the 30 First Nation communities they serve, along with urban areas such as Thunder Bay, Dryden, and Sioux Lookout.
“When I started here in 2009, we had more foster homes at the time and a lot of those dedicated foster partners were in their middle ages. Now they are in their senior years and they’re aging out. The rising population in our communities is there, but it’s a lot of young folks,” said Moe.
Moe said most homes in Indigenous communities are overcrowded, and the lack of housing to accommodate another person creates an added barrier for people to take on the role of fostering a child.
Moe sadid several children in foster care are high-risk and specialized youth with a wide range of challenges, ranging from mental health, developmental delays, complex trauma, behavioural issues, or disabilities.
Keeping an Indigenous child in a setting that supports their emotional needs plays a vital role in a child’s development, Moe said, which also include their social and cultural needs as well.
Tikinagan's service model operates under the term Mamow Obiki-ahwahsoowin — an Ojibwa/Oji-Cree phrase meaning, “Everyone working together to raise our children.
Moe said the model is designed to ensure children can receive the care they need within their home communities. Whether that care is from immediate or extended family members, an elder, or a family friend, the Tikinagan service model is to protect the child’s well-being from the trauma of leaving their home community.
“We want to keep our children within their communities. Many of them are coming from traumatic backgrounds, but if they end up coming into care and we have to move them to a different community, it adds trauma to them,” said Moe.
If Tikinagan cannot locate a member of the community to take in the child, Moe said a suitable home elsewhere; however, “it’s a last chance scenario.”
Moe said Tikinagan collaborates with foster parents through hands-on training to provide the resources and the support necessary to ensure that high-risk or specialized youth are receiving adequate care.
“The training they receive is based on pride. We add our own cultural touch to that,” said Moe.
Tikinagan provides training for potential foster parents, which include simple household routines like preparing healthy meals to more complex strategies like caring for a child with a disability.
Moe hopes individuals and couples who are considering opening a foster home see the success stories of the current foster parents being honoured during the agency’s foster parent appreciation month.
Moe described the foster parents as “the backbone to Tikinagan with the most important role.”
For the month of March, Tikinagan is honouring its foster parents, culminating with an event on March 31 that will feature foster parent stories and performances by comedian Ron Kanutski, a former childcare worker; and Shabistik, a hip-hop artist.
