Foster parents call for better support
National Foster Parent Week celebrates families who open their homes to youth
Myles Dolphin
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 28, 2013
NUNAVUT
National Foster Parent Week, held Oct. 20 to 26, was a time to appreciate the families who open up their homes to youth in need of a safe place to live.
Comparably, it's also important to give thought to the 358 children under the care of the Nunavut Department of Family Services.
Although that figure has declined in the past year - there were 410 Nunavummiut children in foster care in 2012 - there are only 215 approved foster homes in the territory. Almost half of them are in Iqaluit.
Of those 358 children, 224 are in foster care and another 63 are in placements outside Nunavut.
Foster care is defined as alternative, family-based care to selected parents who aren't related to the child, and kinship care, where children stay with immediate or extended family.
A foster parent in Pangnirtung, who cannot be named to protect the identities of the foster children, agreed to speak to Nunavut News/North about some of the challenges he faces.
He and his wife have been fostering children of all ages for more than 10 years. He said he's lost count of how many he's opened up his home to.
"My wife and I started talking about it back then and decided that we wanted to take care of kids," he said, adding he has one foster child at the moment.
"We've had a lot of children from different communities stay with us. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard. The kids don't always want to talk."
One improvement to the system he'd like to see is more contact with the social worker in Pangnirtung. When certain incidents arise, solutions aren't always readily available.
He said it would also be nice to overcome communication barriers, when they surface.
"We just had a little one with us for two weeks, his grandmother was away on medical, but he didn't speak much," he said.
Nunavut is the only jurisdiction in Canada where formal training isn't provided for foster parents, according to a report titled Perspectives of Foster Families Working with the Nunavut Foster Care System, published by the Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre (QHRC) in 2012.
The report contains information from interviews with 17 foster parents around Nunavut.
Sixteen of those families agreed with the foster parent from Pangnirtung, saying communication with social services needs improvement.
An Arctic Bay resident, who has been fostering children since 1976, said he finds it exceptionally hard to deal with children affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).
He said he could benefit from training on the topic.
Peter Dudding, director of Children and Family Services, said the department is looking at ways to make the system better.
"We are looking at how we can develop focused training modules and programs for our foster parents," he said.
"We're very hopeful that in 2014, once the dust from the election settles, that we'll be able to implement resources to focus on foster parent training. Whenever you speak to foster parents, they always mention the need for more training and support."
Some documentation, such as the Nunavut Foster Family Manual, is available to current and prospective foster parents and other resources were announced on May 8 at the legislative assembly.
That day, Family Services Minister Monica Ell said 83 books containing information on child and youth mental health issues had been purchased for every community.
Dudding hopes resources and support can increase with time, but he adds there is an even more pressing need in the territory.
"There aren't enough homes," he said bluntly.
"It's easy to declare victory when the numbers drop and, while it's encouraging, there's the constant issue of recruitment of homes and retention. That being said, one of the big stories for us has actually been the growth of kinship care homes."
The department has put greater emphasis on finding relatives for children in their care, embracing a "let's leave no stone unturned" approach, Dudding added.
"A lot more work is going on in that regard when there is a crisis," he said.
"The number of kinship placements relative to foster care placements has been going up."
There is an ongoing need for foster parents in Nunavut. In June, a recruitment activity was held in Iqaluit. The goal was to introduce potential foster parents to the system and encourage them to learn more about the application process.
Officials also used the opportunity to dispel the myth that the department acts as a "shipping service," sending large numbers of children south.
The label also carries the implication that children who stay away from the territory for too long end up losing touch with their families and Inuit culture.
"There are 63 children in placements outside Nunavut and that's a population we look at very carefully," he said.
"Some of those kids are away because of medical needs and they need to be near a pediatric hospital, while others have special psychological needs that require a form of well-structured treatment. It's a small percentage of the 358."
Foster parent recognition events were held in Pangnirtung, Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet over this past weekend.
