The Saga Continues

The Sixties Scoop

Government involvement in Anishinaabe family life goes back generations. The legacy of removing children from their families and communities, first through residential schools, and then through the child protection system, continues to impact the Anishinaabe.

Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System, coined the term Sixties Scoop. It referred to a time in the mid-sixties when social workers scooped almost all newly born Anishinaabe babies and children into the child welfare system. In most cases, it was done without the consent of families or bands. Johnston said that during an interview with a social worker, who was crying, she told him the phrase and that she was crying because she realized what a mistake it had been.

The Sixties Scoop refers a larger history, and not to an open government history. Removal of Anishinaabe children existed before the 1960s with the residential school system. The high numbers of Anishinaabe children in the child welfare system increased in the 1960s when the children were taken from their homes and placed, in most cases, into middle-class Euro-Canadian families. Residential schools started to phase out in the 1950s and 1960s as the public began to understand the devastating impacts on families. Government authorities believed that Anishinaabe children would receive a better education if they were in the public school system. In 1951, an Indian Act amendment allowed the Province to provide federal services to the Anishinaabe. Child protection was now included.

In the 1960s social workers did not have specific training in dealing with Anishinaabe families. They were completely unfamiliar with the culture and history of the Anishinaabe. Their belief of proper care was based on middle-class Euro-Canadian values. When they did not see food in the fridges or cupboards, they assumed the adults were not providing for the children. They did not see that the families ate a traditional diet of dried game, fish, and berries. The social problems, poverty, unemployment, and addictions, reserve communities faced led the social workers to believe they had a need to protect the children. Most times, Anishinaabe parents who lived in poverty but provided caring homes had their children taken from them with no warning and or no consent. It was not until 1980; The Child, Family, and Community Services Act required social workers to notify the band council if an Anishinaabe child was removed from the community.

Birth records were not allowed to be opened unless the child and parent consented due to government policy. Many children who suspected their heritage were unable to have it confirmed. In some cases, the foster or adoptive parents told their children that they were French or Italian instead. Children moved from home to home or lived in institutionalized care. Physical and sexual abuse was not uncommon, but covered up. The lack of social services and support for Anishinaabe families and the affected children led to reluctance to acknowledge the abuse at the time. The Aboriginal Committee of the Family and Children’s Services Legislation Review Panel’s report, Liberating Our Children, describes the negative consequences for Anishinaabe children: slave labour, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, Anglo-Canadian foster parents are not culturally equipped to create a positive environment for Aboriginal self-image, and children are taught to demean those things about themselves that are Aboriginal. At the same time, an identity crisis emerged from the expectation of emulating normal child development by imitating the role model behavior of the Anglo-Canadian foster or adoptive parents. This identity crisis was unresolvable in this environment. This led to behavioral problems which in turn led to alternative foster care or adoptions relationships to break down. An Anishinaabe child cannot live up to the assimilation expectations of the non-Aboriginal caretaker.

Children who grew up in conditions of suppressed identity and abuse tend to eventually experience psychological and emotional problems. The roots of these problems do not emerge until later in life when they learned of their birth family or their heritage. Raven Sinclair, social work professor, describes these experiences as creating huge obstacles in the development of a strong and healthy sense of identity for the transracial adoptee. Feelings of not belonging to either society can also create barriers to reaching socio-economic equity.

Johnston did the first comprehensive statistical overview of Aboriginal child welfare in 1983. The results showed that there was a high number in of Aboriginal children in child welfare services. In 1985, Justice Edwin Kimelman released No Quiet Place: Review Committee on Indian and Métis and Adoptions and Placements, also known as The Kimelman Report, made 109 recommendations for policy change. He concluded that cultural genocide had taken place in a systematic and routine manner. He found that the policy of wholesale exportation, the Aboriginal children who were adopted out to American families appalled him. He finished his report by expressing his thoughts on his findings: a lack of sensitivity to children and families was revealed. When families approached agencies for help and found what was being described as being in the child’s best interest resulted in families being torn apart and siblings separated. Social workers handled cultural patterns far different that their own without preparation and without opportunity to gain understanding.

In her article, Identity Lost and Found: Lessons from the Sixties Scoop, Sinclair stated that the involvement of the child welfare system is not any less in the current era; the Sixties Scoop has evolved into the Millennium Scoop. Canada helped draft the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, an international instrument that set out minimum standards of human rights for children everywhere. In 2007, UNICEF reported that Canada had been slow to honor its commitment to uphold those rights and ensure the well-being of children. The report addressed the needs of Aboriginal children in particular: improvements are urgently needed to ensure that Aboriginal children have adequate housing, safe food and water, protection from environmental contaminants and access to health care. The intricacies of Aboriginal child welfare cannot be underestimated event though policy continues to be reviewed and revised.

References:

Ball, Jessica (June 2008). Promoting Equity and Dignity for Aboriginal Children in Canada. Institute for Research on Public Policy Choices. IRPP Choices, Aboriginal Quality of Life, Vol. 14, no. 7. Retrieved from: http://www.irpp.org/choices/archive/vol14no7.pdf

Fournier, Suzanne and Crey, Ernie (1997). Stolen from Our Embrace. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.

Hanson, Eric. The Sixties Scoop and Aboriginal Child Welfare. Retrieved from: http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/government-policy/sixties-scoop.html

Kimelman, Edwin C (1985). No quiet place: final report to the Honourable Muriel Smith, Minister of Community Services / Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements. Manitoba. Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements.

Lyons, Tom. Stolen Nation. Retrieved from: www.wrcfs.org/repat/stolennation.htm.

Pivot Legal Society (2008).  Broken Promises: Parents Speak Out about B.C.’s Child Welfare System. Pivot Legal Society. Retrieved from: http://www.pivotlegal.org/Publications/reportsbp.htm

Sinclair, Raven (2007). Identity Lost and Found: Lessons From the Sixties Scoop. First Peoples Child and Family Review.

White, Lavina and Jacobs, Eve (1992). Liberating Our Children Liberating Our Nations. Report of the Aboriginal Committee Community Panel Family and Children’s Services Legislation Review in British Columbia.

Chi-Miigs,

Kimberly