What is the AFHCC program?
- A:kweks Team
- May 31, 2024
- 2 min read
In January 2017, Spirit of the Children Society launched the Aboriginal Family Healing Court Conference (AFHCC) pilot project, the first of its kind in Canada.
Throughout Canada and here in British Columbia, there is an overrepresentation of Aboriginal families and children involved in the child and family services system, which sparked the inception of AFHCC to provide services, supports and culture for children and their families who are court involved with protection concerns. With the guidance from Elders and partnership with the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) and the BC judicial system, the AFHCC created three overarching goals for the program:
Goal # 1: To reduce the over-representation of Aboriginal children in care by providing cultural interventions that increase the effectiveness of court processes for child-protection cases.
Goal # 2: To improve the effectiveness of the court process with respect to Aboriginal Child, Family and Community Service Act (CFCSA) matters by reducing the number of cases that proceed to trial.
Goal # 3: To improve health, social and justice outcomes for Aboriginal children and families who come into contact with the child-protection system.
Goal # 4: Educate others on the impacts of colonial history on Indigenous people in Canada. (Aboriginal Healing Court Conference Initiative Overview, 2017)
Elder support is a key aspect in the creation of the family and social history report; this provides a context of what the family’s experiences has been and how we can better understand ways to work with the family in a positive way.
The Elders and program coordinator collaboratively develop a robust healing and wellness plan that seeks to resolve the current MCFD concerns and provides a pathway to resolution of the child welfare concerns. The plan is supported by the service providers, family and Indigenous community representatives in attendance at the family conference, thus creating accountability and a collective agreement in support of the families’ goals.
The founder of A:kweks Ventures, Josh Bailey, was the initial program coordinator when working at Spirit of the Children Society and returned to the role in 2022 when A:kweks Ventures was founded. At A:kweks, we see the transformation for the families that the AFHCC team at Spirit of the Children Society has worked with, and we hope to continue making positive changes to reduce the amount of Aboriginal children in the system here in BC and across our nation.
To learn more about Spirit of the Children Society, check out their website: Spirit of the Children Society – Empowering and Strengthening Aboriginal Families (sotcs.ca)