Brokenhead takes over youth services agency The Link

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This article was published 17/04/2025 (197 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A First Nation is set to take over ownership of Manitoba’s largest youth services agency in what’s being described as a historic move toward reconciliation.

Brokenhead has signed a memorandum of understanding with The Link: Youth and Family Supports — formerly known as Macdonald Youth Services — to take over its governance. The agreement marks a major shift for the nearly century-old organization.

“This is a pivotal moment for our nation,” Brokenhead Chief Gordon Bluesky, a Sixties Scoop survivor, told a large crowd at the centre, at 175 Mayfair Ave.

The change signals a shift toward Indigenous-led services, with a focus on repatriating children and youth at The Link. Approximately 90 per cent of its clients are Indigenous, including 80 per cent from First Nations communities.

Bluesky acknowledged that many people act with good intentions, but he emphasized that Indigenous issues are rooted in colonialism and intergenerational trauma.

“Sometimes people don’t understand that, doctors, nurses, psychologists,” he said. “They try to figure out how do we fix the surface stuff. The issues that we have with our young people are often stuff people can’t see. That’s the important thing we will be bringing to the table, the understanding of these issues.”

Programs will be reviewed, Bluesky said, to determine how to release that trauma.

“This takes time, this takes ceremony, takes our elders and our leaders sitting around and start taking some ownership,” he said. “This place has been here for 100 years. It’s not going to change overnight.”

During the initial 120-day phase, a transitional team will gather young people’s input, and explore cultural safety and trauma-informed care.

“Today is historical,” said The Link CEO Kerri Irvin-Ross. “For too long, non-Indigenous organizations have been serving Indigenous families and trying to be culturally appropriate, but not having the knowledge or the resources to do that.

“Today is a switch for this 100-year-old organization to become Indigenous-led. It’s the right thing to do.”

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine called it putting reconciliation into action.

“In the next five to 10 years… the system of child welfare is going to look entirely different because we’re on a path right now of exercising jurisdiction,” Fontaine said. “(This) really is the perfect marriage of where Brokenhead Ojibway Nation is going in assuming and transferring jurisdiction of child welfare.”

In 2023, the province, under the Progressive Conservatives, ordered a review of The Link following allegations of racism and employee mistreatment raised by a group of current and former staff through a social media account.

The group lobbied for an independent investigation and advocated for Indigenous leadership; it called for the removal of Irvin-Ross and the board of directors.

A third-party review produced 29 recommendations, but did not probe claims of racism or mistreatment.

Irvin-Ross said Thursday the transition to Indigenous governance was not a result of the review.

“We had a phenomenal administrative financial review… It identified the strength of the organization and gave us recommendations on how to strengthen other parts of it,” she said.

“So I’m really confident as Brokenhead takes on the responsibility of governance and leadership, that they’re being handed strong procedures, policies and systems that are working and that will allow to continue to provide the direct services that we do.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca