When “Keeping Our Children Close” Becomes Hard to See
THUNDER BAY – NEWS – Northern Ontario knows the original promise that sat behind Indigenous-led child and family service agencies: to reduce the number of Indigenous children growing up disconnected from their families, Nations, and cultures—and to replace a history of forced removals with community authority, prevention, and care rooted in Indigenous law.
That promise is still the centre of the work. It is also where many families now say the system is falling short.
Across the north—especially in remote and fly-in communities—people describe a child welfare reality marked by staff turnover, stretched caseloads, placement shortages, and repeated disruptions for children. The most painful part is not that challenges exist. It is that the system meant to keep families together can end up repeating the same outcomes it was built to prevent.
The north’s toughest pressure point: a workforce that can’t stabilize
A child welfare system can only be as steady as the people holding it together. In remote regions, stability is hard-won. A 2025 set of reports connected to Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) describes high staff turnover and “instability rates” in Ontario’s remote child and family service agencies, noting that constant recruitment and onboarding can pull limited dollars toward staffing churn—travel, housing, orientation—rather than consistent services.
That reality echoes what many front-line workers quietly share: the work is heavy, communities are dealing with complex crises, and when a worker leaves, relationships and plans often leave with them. When that happens repeatedly, families experience the system as a revolving door—new names, new expectations, and fewer chances to build trust.
This is not simply a human resources problem. It is a child stability problem.
Placement drift: when “foster care” becomes the default instead of family
Families often ask a simple question: Why wasn’t family the first option? The answer, across many jurisdictions, is that kinship and customary care require real supports—financial, logistical, cultural, and casework time. Without those supports, even well-intentioned agencies can slide toward the easiest available bed.
Ontario has been moving—at least on paper—toward strengthening customary care so Indigenous children can remain closer to home and community. The province has described customary care as a key way to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in care, and has amended legislation to enhance access.
Sector data and analysis also underline why this matters. Ontario’s child welfare association has highlighted that customary care is widely used for Indigenous children and that improving kinship and alternate care outcomes is a central reconciliation issue.
Yet the lived experience many families describe is different: kin and customary pathways can be slow, inconsistently resourced, or difficult to navigate, while non-relative placements move faster—sometimes placing children with caregivers who have limited connection to Indigenous culture, community, and language.
When that happens, the system may meet a narrow “placement” need while failing a deeper one: belonging.
Dilico and Tikinagan: criticism, context, and the cost of constant crisis
Major northern providers—such as Dilico Anishinabek Family Care and Tikinagan Child & Family Services—carry extraordinary responsibility over vast geographies. Any serious discussion must start by acknowledging that many dedicated staff, caregivers, and community partners are doing difficult work with care and commitment, often under conditions most southern agencies never face.
At the same time, families are increasingly voicing that the outcomes are not matching the original vision.
Tikinagan itself has publicly emphasized its founding principles: “that no more children be lost from our communities,” and that services must respect culture, heritage, and extended family. The distance between those principles and what families sometimes experience is where the current frustration lives.
Funding uncertainty compounds the strain. In a recent public statement supporting Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug’s child welfare law, Tikinagan warned that funding instability can deter recruitment, erode job security, and hinder long-term planning—the exact ingredients needed for stable child and family services.
When stability disappears—funding, staffing, housing, local supports—the system becomes reactive. And reactive systems remove children more easily than they reunify them.
Success stories: what is working when communities lead
If the story ended only in crisis, it would miss what is quietly reshaping child welfare in the north: jurisdiction, prevention, and culturally-rooted service models that keep children connected.
KIDO: law, language, and community authority
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug’s KIDO (Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug Dibenjikewin Onaakonikewin) is one of the strongest examples of the direction many Nations are taking—moving from delegated services to their own law and their own delivery model.
Canada has described how KI entered a coordination agreement process and implemented KIDO grounded in KI values, culture, and language, with a service model named after traditional child-rearing and care.
It is not a small shift. It is a re-centering of responsibility where it always belonged: in community.
But KIDO also illustrates the fragility of progress when funding is short-term. Recent reporting in NetNewsLedger notes KI’s concern that limited-term funding extensions make long-range planning harder—risking staff loss and service instability.
Niijaansinaanik Child and Family Services: building customary care pathways early
In 2021, Ontario designated Niijaansinaanik Child and Family Services as an Indigenous children’s aid society, expanding Indigenous-led service delivery in the province.
Niijaansinaanik’s public materials emphasize customary care as a culturally grounded program, including coordination with First Nations and protection agencies to develop customary care agreements. That emphasis matters because it treats customary care not as an emergency fallback, but as a planned, resourced pathway—the difference between “placement” and “belonging.”
Practical, child-facing tools that reduce fear
Sometimes success looks like something small enough to hold. Tikinagan-supported work has included a child-friendly resource to help youth understand transitions into care and identify safe and unsafe behaviours—an example of making the system less frightening and more transparent for children.
These are the kinds of efforts that don’t make headlines—but can change how a child experiences care.
What families and workers are asking for now
Across the north, the emerging message is not “tear it down.” It is: make it match the promise. That means shifting from a crisis-driven model to a prevention-and-belonging model that is actually funded and staffed to work.
Here is what that looks like in practice:
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Stabilize the workforce
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Competitive pay, housing supports in remote areas, clinical supervision, cultural mentorship, and realistic caseloads—so workers can stay long enough to build trust. The evidence is clear that turnover drains resources and destabilizes service delivery.
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Put kinship and customary care first—with real supports
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Ontario’s direction on customary care must come with funding that makes kin placements viable: transportation, respite, home repairs, cultural supports, and consistent casework.
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Measure what matters
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Not only “how many children are in care,” but: reunification rates, placement stability, sibling placements, cultural connection plans fulfilled, and youth outcomes after care.
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Listen to front-line workers and families early
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Many system breakdowns begin with unheard warnings: unmanageable caseloads, unsafe placements, delayed prevention supports. A listening culture is a safety culture.
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Support Nation-led law and authority
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KIDO shows what can happen when community law leads—but also how easily progress can be threatened by short-term funding. Long-term agreements are not a luxury; they are child safety infrastructure.
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The quieter truth beneath the debate
For many families, the deepest disappointment is not that Indigenous agencies exist. It’s that agencies created to keep children close can still—through understaffing, instability, and placement shortages—produce outcomes that feel painfully familiar.
And still, the most hopeful developments in the north are also clear: Nations asserting jurisdiction, strengthening customary care, and creating child-centred resources that honour identity and belonging.
The path forward is not choosing between “agency” and “community.” The path forward is ensuring the system serves community authority, rather than substituting for it.
Because the original vision remains the only one worth building toward: no more children lost from our communities—and every child held close to who they are.
