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In the business of caring

Article Origin

Author

Rob McKinley, Sweetgrass Writer, Wetaskiwin

Volume

5

Issue

9

Year

1998

Page 15

Matt and Clark Ward are the Eaglesham Boys, an assistance, awareness and information team for Aboriginal foster children.

According to Matt Ward, almost half of the 9,000 foster children in Alberta are Native, and the majority are at risk of losing their culutral identity.

Ward said all too often, Aboriginal children are taken out of their communities and placed with non-Native foster families.

The Ward brothers went through the foster care system and Matt said that although they were treated well by their foster families, they were never told about their Aboriginal roots or culture.

"Our foster parents should have said something to us about our past," he said.

It actually came to a point where the Ward brothers lost respect for Native people.

"I was embarassed to be Native," said Matt, explaining that at the time, without any Native influence, he had no choice.

Now, the Ward brothers want to help other children in the foster system to be strong and proud of their background.

"What we hope to accomplish is to have Native kids realize who they are and accept who they are," regardless of who their foster parents are, he said.

For the last year, the duo has travelled across the province helping foster children deal with the world they are being put into. Through discussions and workshops, the Ward brothers help others to make adjustments from the White society and foster care to the Native way of life. They deal with family unity, lost identity, culture shock, self-respect, grief and blame. They also help potential foster families and care givers to understand Aboriginal culture.

The Ward brothers themselves are only now coming to terms with what happened to their family structure when they were taken away.

"I am starting to get closer to my mother now," said Matt. "I had to realize it wasn't her fault."

Dealing with guilt is one of the main areas the Eaglesham Boys focus on when they visit children about to go into foster care or the ones who are dealing with the after-affects of foster care.

Through workshops, wellness conferences and visits to Native communities, the Eaglesham Boys are hoping to give children some of the most important things they need to help deal with the foster care system - things that neither of the Wards had when they were in the system. The Eaglesham Boys are giving answers.

Doing this line of work is not only rewarding to the kids they meet, but also to the Ward brothers.

"As we do different workshops, we are healing too," said Matt. "We are also learning things from the people we talk to."

In a perfect world, Ward said, the children could stay with relatives or friends of their family and remain in the Native community, but that just isn't how it works. Still, he would like to see Native kids placed with White families only as a last resort.

"I would prefer to keep them on their reserve or whatever, but there's a lot of red tape. So then, I would like to see them at least go to another reserve, and then if not that, then put them with a White family.

A big problem with that, however, is the lack of Aboriginal people quialified or interested in becoming foster parents.

Linda Farmer is one of the few Native women in Alberta to take in Native foster children.

"There's a shortageof homes to look after them and so we are seeing a lot going to non-Native homes," said Farmer, who has been an advanced level foster parent for Alberta Social Services for more than 14 years. The one time child welfare worker at Hobbema's Louis Bull reserve has taken in almost 40 children since she started.

The single mother of three said it hasn't been easy, but the job is very rewarding.

She believes it has been her comittment to keeping Native kids in tune with their culutre which has kept her as a foster parent for so long. There's no reason why Native kids removed from their environment should be removed from their culture, she said.

"I am Cree and I have a lot of Native stuff around the house. I make bannock ad I speak Cree to them and try to teach them Cree and they identify with that," she said.

Although Farmer takes in children and becomes their primary care giver, she never forgets that the kids have parents. She sees her role as a temporary holder of the children until the parents are ready to take them back or until the children move onto their next foster home.

"I don't own these kids. . . I hope that one day they could reunite with the their parents, she said, adding that it's hard not to get attached to the children she has opened her home to. "The very first time they took the kids away from me and put them into another home, I just about quit."

In the years since, Farmer has become used to the rotation a little more, and she continues to lobby for more Aboriginal parents to get involved in foster care.

She admitted that the job isn't for everyone, adding that the people who benefit most from it should be the children.