Child Welfare: A Social Determinant Of Health For Canadian First Nations and Métis Children

Abstract

This article argues for child welfare to be named a social determinant of health for First Nations and Metis peoples. For decades, First Nations and Metis children have been overrepresented in child welfare (CW) systems across Canada. Despite governmental and public awareness of the devastating impacts on Indigenous children and families from CW policies and practices, CW systems across Canada apprehend Indigenous children at alarming rates, and a significant number of Indigenous children are raised outside of their families, culture, and communities in non-Indigenous foster and adoption placements. This paper examines whether the state is fulfilling its mandate to be a wise and compassionate parent based upon a social determinants of health perspective. We consider specifically the impacts of foster home overcrowding, multiple foster placements, and the micro-level to day experiences of Indigenous children and parents.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 39 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.