Wrapping Our Ways: Indigenous Child Welfare Conference 2020

Course Chairs
Romona Baxter, BSW — Executive Director, Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre, Lytton
Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack

About the Course Chairs
Romona Baxter is a member of the Nlaka’pamux Nation and has a Bachelor Degree in Social Work from the University of Victoria.

Romona has worked as the Executive Director of the Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre for 20 years, a non-profit Indigenous organization dedicated to providing early years programs and services designed to enhance the health, well-being, and resilience of Nlaka’pamux children and their families.

She has worked on several Federal, Provincial, and Nation based initiatives, including: Aboriginal Head Start/Maternal Child Health, "Reaching Out to Families – An Outreach/Home Visiting Training Manual," Society for BC Children and Youth; "Aboriginal Child Friendly Communities – A toolkit"; and served as Regional Advisor for BC First Nations Aboriginal Head Start. Recently, she also worked as the Program Coordinator of the Nlaka’pamux Nation Tribal Council ShchEma-mee.tkt Project as well as served on the editorial board and co-facilitated workshops on the "Wrapping Our Ways Around Them:  Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook" (published by the ShchEma-mee.tkt Project).

Ardith (Walpetko We'dalks) Walkem, QC is a member of the Nlaka'pamux Nation which stretches from the Interior of BC into Washington State. She has a Master of Laws from UBC (with a research focus on Indigenous laws and oral traditions). Ardith has practiced extensively with different Indigenous communities and in assisting Indigenous communities to assert their Aboriginal Title and Rights and Treaty Rights, with a focus on assisting Indigenous communities to articulate their own laws and legal systems. She has worked as Parents Counsel on CFCSA cases, as counsel for Indigenous nations in matters involving their child members, and has helped to design systems based on Indigenous laws for children and families. Most recently, she wrote Wrapping Our Ways Around Them: Aboriginal Communities and the CFCSA Guidebook (2015, published by the ShchEma-meet.tkt project) and has worked with Indigenous communities to recover and implement their own laws, in the areas of resource management and child welfare.

Faculty
Halie Kwanxwa'loga Bruce — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack
Dr. Peter Choate — Professor, Child Studies and Social Work, Faculty of Health, Community and Education, Mount Royal University, Calgary
Dr. Hadley Friedland — Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Dawn Johnson — Children and Families Policy Analyst for the First Nations Leadership Council, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver
Dr. Sarah Morales — Acting Director, JD/JID Program, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Victoria
Joanna Recalma — Barrister & Solicitor, Nanaimo
Crystal Reeves — Mandell Pinder LLP, Vancouver

Thursday, May 21, 2020

9:00 am - 9:15 am
Welcome and Introduction

Romona Baxter, BSW — Executive Director, Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre, Lytton
Teresa Sheward — Program Lawyer, The Continuing Legal Education Society of BC, Vancouver

9:15 am - 10:30 am
Bill C92: Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families

• overview
• definitions
• preamble

Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack

National Standards

• • best interests of the Indigenous child
  • conflicts
  • trauma informed practice
  • what difference will it make to follow national standards (including areas where there may be less than provincial laws)

Moderator: Romona Baxter, BSW — Executive Director, Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre, Lytton
Dr. Hadley Friedland — Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Dr. Sarah Morales — Acting Director, JD/JID Program, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Victoria

10:30 am - 11:00 am BREAK

11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Empowering Indigenous Jurisdiction and Laws

• empowering provisions
• procedure
• limitations
• interactions with other laws—Indigenous and Provincial/Territories

Moderator: Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack
Dr. Hadley Friedland — Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Dr. Sarah Morales — Acting Director, JD/JID Program, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Victoria
Crystal Reeves — Mandell Pinder LLP, Vancouver

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm LUNCH BREAK

1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Best Interests of Indigenous Children and Tools to Empower Indigenous Community Involvement

Considering attachment in the long term

Dr. Peter Choate — Professor, Child Studies and Social Work, Faculty of Health, Community and Education, Mount Royal University, Calgary

Costs of failing to ensure attachment to culture

Halie Kwanxwa'loga Bruce — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack

What should best interests mean in Indigenous contexts?

• • ways to keep children culturally connected to their Indigenous culture
  • empowering Indigenous community involvement: access orders; file review; complaints; voice of children and youth—role of Indigenous communities
  • tools/challenges to help Indigenous children/communities
    

Moderator: Romona Baxter, BSW — Executive Director, Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre, Lytton
Dawn Johnson — Children and Families Policy Analyst for the First Nations Leadership Council, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver
Joanna Recalma — Barrister & Solicitor, Nanaimo

Friday, May 22, 2020

9:00 am - 10:30 am
Interaction Between Laws: Indigenous/Federal/Provincial or Territorial Child Welfare Laws

• application of Provincial/Territorial laws to the point of conflict
• differences or amended standards: notice; disclosure; placement; review; standards; other
• areas where it may be good practice to pass laws as "catch alls" or address gaps in legislation in the interim while developing your own law

Dr. Sarah Morales — Acting Director, JD/JID Program, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Victoria
Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack

• impact on delegated agencies

Dawn Johnson — Children and Families Policy Analyst for the First Nations Leadership Council, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver
Dr. Sarah Morales — Acting Director, JD/JID Program, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Victoria
Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack

• case study

Joanna Recalma — Barrister & Solicitor, Nanaimo

Moderator: Romona Baxter, BSW — Executive Director, Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre, Lytton

10:30 am - 11:00 am BREAK

11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Facilitators Round Table

• identifying the opportunites and challenges in the new legislation
• best opportunities and challenges

Romona Baxter, BSW — Executive Director, Nzen’man’ Child and Family Development Centre, Lytton
Halie Kwanxwa'loga Bruce — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack
Dr. Hadley Friedland — Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Dawn Johnson — Children and Families Policy Analyst for the First Nations Leadership Council, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Vancouver
Joanna Recalma — Barrister & Solicitor, Nanaimo
Crystal Reeves — Mandell Pinder LLP, Vancouver
Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack

12:30 pm - 1:30 pm LUNCH BREAK

1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Planning to Empower Indigenous Jurisdiction

• how to support re-empowering Indigenous Nations in articulating their own laws for child welfare
• reflect ongoing laws based in their traditions—or a new iteration?
• steps and considerations

Moderator: Ardith Walpetko We’dalx Walkem, QC — Cedar and Sage Law Corporation, Chilliwack
Dr. Hadley Friedland — Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Dr. Sarah Morales — Acting Director, JD/JID Program, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Victoria
Crystal Reeves — Mandell Pinder LLP, Vancouver