English - Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies

The Practice Guide is an invitation to you to improve your capacity as a
child welfare professional. It is also an invitation to change your practice.
By stepping into a First Nations, Inuit and Métis worldview, you will
experience a different way of understanding and being in the world.
As one participant described in a focus group:
Working with Aboriginal people means that you are in an ongoing learning
process. We have to figure out a way to connect with people who are
different from yourself and communicate expectations and roles in a
respectful way. And we need to be open, non-judgmental and hard
working because you are learning (Focus group participant).
The Steering Committee responsible for the Practice Guide
invites you to take a lead role in your child welfare agency. Some
children’s aid societies are working throughout Ontario using
processes, building relationships and seeking new ways to work
effectively with Aboriginal families and communities.
The intent of this Practice Guide is to support you to determine protection
concerns when you are working with an Aboriginal family that is experiencing
family violence. To assume that responsibility one needs to understand the scope of
the issues and the recognition that none of us, regardless of our job, can avoid playing a
role in addressing violence when working with Aboriginal families.
A. IT IS ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS
Child welfare work is all about building and maintaining relationships. As a child
welfare professional, you assess whether the relationship between parent(s) and
children is safe. To accurately perform that assessment, you need to establish a credible
relationship with the parents and those around them to be able to get to the truth.
Ending violence in any relationship requires respectful and engaged action. The
complexity of family violence in First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities does not
offer an easy solution or specific action. Violence has had a profound effect on all of
the relationships in Aboriginal families. The violence is uniquely rooted in
colonization and the actions of others destroying the core family and community
relations that exist within and between Aboriginal families.