Indigenous leaders applaud plan to end birth alerts

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This article was published 30/01/2020 (1792 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A long-awaited move to end the controversial practice of birth alerts in Manitoba is drawing praise from some child-welfare officials and Indigenous leaders.

Following its exclusive interview with Families Minister Heather Stefanson, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network reported Thursday the province has promised to end birth alerts as of April 1.

In response to Free Press inquiries, the minister’s office declined an interview request and didn’t provide any information about the province’s plans. A news conference, with Stefanson, has been scheduled for this morning.

Meanwhile, those who have long been advocating for birth alerts to be banned are cheering the news.

“It’s been on the table for quite a while,” Ron Monias, chief executive officer of the Northern Authority, which represents seven Child and Family Services agencies in Manitoba.

“And it’s something we are encouraged to hear.”

Monias said CFS agencies under the Northern Authority were already trying to focus on prevention, and work with birthing centres to support mothers and families. Without birth alerts, he said he believes CFS agencies will be more flexible in their child-welfare work.

“I see a lot of agencies doing a lot of prevention and a lot of work with families at the front end,” Monias said. “With the opportunity for agencies to become more creative around the support piece, I think you’ll find that more agencies will be able to find other options — in terms of bringing children into care — around pursuing other avenues related to child protection.”

Manitoba child-welfare agencies have long used birth alerts to take away children as soon as they are born from mothers who have been in care of CFS themselves, or who already have children in care of CFS. The practice requires health officials to notify child-welfare officials when a woman who has been flagged by CFS gives birth.

The practice of birth alerts has been under review by the province for more than a year. It has continued in Manitoba despite a 2018 legislative review committee’s recommendation that urged the province to replace birth alerts with culturally-safe supports for mothers before and after birth.

For years, First Nations leaders have called for an end to the practice, including at a Manitoba hearing of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. After the inquiry’s final report denounced birth alerts, the B.C. government stopped using them in September 2019.

Birth alerts have disproportionately affected Indigenous women in Manitoba, severing maternal bonds, advocates say, because the majority of children taken into the child-welfare system in the province are Indigenous. Manitoba has the highest per capita rate of children in care in Canada.

Cora Morgan, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs’ First Nations family advocate, said ending birth alerts is “critically important.” She said she hopes the province will next move to end apprehensions of all newborn babies.

“There has to be some repair to the harm that’s been caused for all these years,” Morgan said. “I’m hopeful that this will make our families feel more confident seeking medical attention, for expecting moms not to have to be fearful of these systems.”

 

Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak was among the political advocacy groups calling for an end to birth alerts, most recently passing a resolution on the subject from its leadership in November.

MKO Grand Chief Garrison Settee said Thursday he is thankful for the province’s decision.

“It’s a significant step forward for Indigenous women,” he said. “We applaud the province for beginning the first part of the overall transformation of CFS in Manitoba.”

A 26-year-old Winnipeg woman who said she had her child apprehended under a birth alert last year said Thursday she is still fighting to regain custody. (She asked her name not be published while her child-welfare case is still before the court.)

“I believe that’s the best thing you can do is support parents,” she said. “Supporting them in the home before an apprehension occurs that’s unnecessary. Because once that child is taken, it is so difficult to get that child home.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay