Navigating Structural Violence with Indigenous Families: The Contested Terrain of Early Childhood Intervention and the Child Welfare System in Canada

Gerlach, Alison; Browne, Annette J.; Sinha, Vandna; Elliott, Diana B.

doi:10.18584/iipj.2017.8.3.6

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The provincial Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) fund urban‐based AIDPs and are also responsible for the provincial child welfare system. As reported elsewhere, this research highlighted concerns about an increasingly close and complex relationship between AIDPs and the child welfare system (Gerlach, Browne, Sinha, & Elliott, in press).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Engaging Indigenous families in a community-based Indigenous early childhood programme in British Columbia, Canada: A cultural safety perspective

Gerlach

Browne

Greenwood

2017

Health Soc Care Community

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This article is part of a larger study that explored how an Indigenous early intervention programme in British Columbia (BC), Canada, known as the 'Aboriginal Infant Development Program' (AIDP), influenced family and children's health and well-being and was responsive to child health inequities. Postcolonial feminist and Indigenous feminist perspectives provided a critical analytical lens to this qualitative inquiry. The study was undertaken with AIDPs based in diverse community organisations located in off-reserve urban municipalities throughout the province of BC. From September 2013 to March 2014, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with: Indigenous primary caregivers (n = 10), Indigenous Elders (n = 4), AIDP workers (n = 18) and administrative leaders (n = 3). The purpose of this article is to examine and analyse the findings that focus on how AIDP workers supported family and children's health and well-being by transforming their routine policies and practices in ways that fostered caregivers' active engagement in their programmes. Findings centre on three main themes: (i) overcoming mistrust; (ii) 'being willing to move a step forward' and (iii) resisting what's taken-for-granted. These inter-related themes are examined and discussed in relation to the concept of cultural safety. The findings have international relevancy for social and healthcare community-based programmes that are questioning how to engage with parents who may be hard to reach as a result of multi-faceted social and structural factors.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Engaging Indigenous families in a community-based Indigenous early childhood programme in British Columbia, Canada: A cultural safety perspective

Gerlach

Browne

Greenwood

2017

Health Soc Care Community

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“…9,[31][32][33] Our study demonstrates additionally that First Nations children and youth diagnosed with FASD were more likely than the non-First Nations counterparts to have been taken into care of child welfare services. The overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care is well documented [34][35][36] and is linked to the multigenerational effects of colonization and systemic barriers to equitable health and social policy, resulting in family, child, and caregiver characteristics that can undermine the capacity of parents to create nurturing environments for their children. Compared to Caucasian families in Canada, Indigenous families have less stable housing, greater dependence on income assistance, younger parents, more parents who were maltreated as children, and higher rates of substance misuse; they are also more likely to be under surveillance for signs of child neglect or maltreatment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health, Social, Education, and Justice Outcomes of Manitoba First Nations Children Diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A Population-Based Cohort Study of Linked Administrative Data

et al. 2018

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Objective:To examine health services, social services, education, and justice system outcomes among First Nations children and youth with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).Methods:In this retrospective cohort study, health and social services, education, and justice data were linked with clinical records on First Nations (FN) individuals aged 1 to 25 and diagnosed with FASD between 1999 and 2010 ( n = 743). We compared the FN FASD group to non-FN individuals with FASD (non-FN FASD; n = 315) and to First Nations individuals (matched on age, sex, and income) not diagnosed with FASD (FN non-FASD; n = 2229). Rates and relative risks (RRs) were calculated using generalized linear models.Results:FN FASD individuals had similar health services use to non-FN FASD individuals but had greater involvement with child welfare (RR, 1.20; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.02 to 1.41) and the justice system (RR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.74) and were more likely to be charged with a crime (RR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.86). There were no suicides/suicide attempts among the non-FN FASD individuals during the study, but the crude rate/100 person-years of suicides among FN FASD individuals (0.22 for females; 1.06 for males) was substantially higher than for FN non-FASD individuals (0.08 for females; 0.32 for males). There were no significant differences between groups in the education outcomes we measured.Conclusions:Young people with FASD are at risk for poor health, education, and social outcomes, but First Nations young people with FASD face comparably higher risks, particularly with child welfare and justice system involvement. The study emphasizes a critical need for appropriate resources for First Nations children with FASD.

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“…Relational accountability in mobilizing the knowledge generated by the research involved translating the findings into a community research summary that was made available on the AIDP website (http://aidp.bc.ca/office-documents/), co-authorship with the AIDP leadership on publications for academic and practice journals (Gerlach, Browne, Sinha, & Elliot, 2017; Gerlach & Elliott, 2017), and joint presentations at community gatherings and early childhood workshops throughout British Columbia and national and international conferences. The continuation of a professional relationship between the author and CRP beyond the end of this study, as they explore further opportunities to work together, is perhaps a testament to the depth of the relational underpinnings of their researching together.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking and Researching Relationally

Gerlach

2018

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

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Decolonizing methodologies are gaining increasing prominence in diverse research contexts in which Indigenous peoples are researchers, research partners, participants, and knowledge users. As political and intellectual allies committed to actively resisting and redressing the colonizing potential of research and advancing social change, non-Indigenous scholars are also enacting decolonizing methodologies. By drawing on the author's experiences as a non-Indigenous researcher partnering with an Indigenous early childhood program in Canada, this article illustrates the interconnected ways in which relationality provides the necessary epistemological scaffolding to actualize the underlying motives, concerns, and principles that characterize decolonizing methodologies. Relationality draws attention to the multiple intersecting influences that shape research and knowledge itself, emphasizes reciprocity, and is compatible with many Indigenous worldviews. This article contributes toward the ongoing international dialogue about decolonizing methodologies and is directed primarily to non-Indigenous researchers and graduate students who are questioning how to "do" community-based decolonizing research involving Indigenous peoples. Keywords community based research, critical theory, social justice, ethical inquiry, methods in qualitative inquiry What Is Already Known? There are historical and ongoing concerns that Indigenous populations worldwide tend to not benefit from research. The principles of decolonizing methodologies are central to undertaking ethical research with Indigenous populations in colonial-settler countries, such as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. How to enact decolonizing methodologies is subject to ongoing dialogue and debate.

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Navigating Structural Violence with Indigenous Families: The Contested Terrain of Early Childhood Intervention and the Child Welfare System in Canada

Cited by 18 publications

References 24 publications

Engaging Indigenous families in a community-based Indigenous early childhood programme in British Columbia, Canada: A cultural safety perspective

Engaging Indigenous families in a community-based Indigenous early childhood programme in British Columbia, Canada: A cultural safety perspective

Health, Social, Education, and Justice Outcomes of Manitoba First Nations Children Diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A Population-Based Cohort Study of Linked Administrative Data

Thinking and Researching Relationally

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