Manitoba foster parents gagged, association tells committee

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/05/2024 (537 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nearly half of the foster parents registered to speak at a legislature committee Friday were no-shows — and the association that represents them alleged they’d been warned about voicing their concerns publicly.

“We have been told that if we go to the media, if we show up at the legislative building, if we voice our concerns, we risk having the children we care for removed from our homes,” Jamie Pfau told the committee that’s reviewing the Advocate for Children and Youth Act, which is part of Manitoba’s’s child welfare legislation.

“It is why folks who signed up to speak are not here today,” said the longtime foster parent, researcher and president of the Manitoba Foster Parents Association.

Many of those who did attend the meeting sobbed about the sad state of child welfare, calling it underfunded and poorly staffed. They questioned why agencies are willing to pay high fees to private caregivers and for-profit group homes while support to foster families is frozen or cut.

“Sorry for crying. It’s been a rough 15 years,” said Sariviea Ellsworth of Thompson, who has fostered kids since age 19. She said the situation is dire for kids in care in the north due to a lack of services and foster homes; agencies are “begging” people to open their homes and individual social workers are grappling with caseloads of 50 or more children.

On Friday, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine told Pfau she is duty-bound to report incidents in which families have been threatened with having foster children taken away if they speak to the committee.

“If foster parents are getting threatened, I would want to know that as minister,” Fontaine said at the meeting.

“If foster parents are getting threatened, I would want to know that as minister”–Nahanni Fontaine, Families Minister

“We’ll be encouraging folks who experienced threats to reach out to her,” Pfau said after the meeting.

She said several parents were told by social workers or the agency they foster for, not to speak at the committee: “If you speak publicly about fostering, you are at risk of having your child removed from your home,’” recounted Pfau, who would not identify them.

Liberal MLA Cindy Lamoureux said she was aware of foster parents being advised not to speak out — even though it’s their democratic right to do so and they have parliamentary privilege that protects them.

“If you speak publicly about fostering, you are at risk of having your child removed from your home’”–Pfau

“No one should be in any way told not to speak up, and cover up the problems,” Lamoureux said in an interview. When asked who told the registered presenters to stay away, the member for Tyndall Park said “agencies and individual members” but declined to identify them.

The message from those who did show up and speak up Friday was strong and clear, Pfau said.

“Every single foster parent has gone through very similar things: lack of support, lack of funding and training and a dedication and fierceness of being willing to advocate for their children.”

Many spoke in support of Indigenous control of Indigenous child welfare, as long as it’s done carefully and in the best interests of the children, many of whom have been traumatized and bounced between placements.

“Every single foster parent has gone through very similar things: lack of support, lack of funding and training and a dedication and fierceness of being willing to advocate for their children”–Pfau

“I think everybody here just wants the best for our kids,” said an emotional Tamara Thomson. She and her husband have fostered six children in the last 14 years.

Thomson, who lives on a farm and had to get up at 5 a.m. to attend the 8 a.m. meeting, asked for more support. She said foster parents feel like “a sub class” that’s been reduced to “money grubbing.”

Nettie Lambert, who has cared for 12 foster children over the years, said the daily $22.11 basic maintenance rate, which hasn’t increased in more than a decade, is not enough. Group homes pay staff close to $16 an hour.

“My husband and I have closed our home to taking in any more children,” she told the committee.

“There are so many children in care who are in group homes who don’t need to be in group homes,” Lambert said.

Several of the presenters referred to Spirit Rising House, a for-profit group home the province cut ties with after it allegedly gave cannabis to youth in its care.

A number cited the lack of support and accountability from agencies, pointing to the homicides of Myah-Lee Gratton, who was 17 when she was killed in Carman this winter after warnings that she wasn’t safe in her placement, and a 14-year-old girl in care who was stabbed to death in downtown Winnipeg after being let out of custody.

A few applauded NDP MLA Amanda Lathlin, an Indigenous foster parent, for speaking up for foster families and children.

Lathlin told the committee last week she’s worried about the impact of Bill C-92 which gives First Nations full control over child welfare.

Lathlin, a former Opaskwayak Cree Nation band councillor, described “nepotism” at OCN child and family services and said unqualified staff and “band politics” influenced CFS decisions that affect children.

“I’m seriously worried about this transition coming up, when I’m not even being heard as the MLA for The Pas-Kameesak.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.