Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T08:34:35.970Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Rethinking Racine v Woods from a Decolonizing Perspective: Challenging the Applicability of Attachment Theory to Indigenous Families Involved with Child Protection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2019

Peter W. Choate
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Social Work Mount Royal University142pchoate@mtroyal.ca
Taylor Kohler
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Social Work Mount Royal University142pchoate@mtroyal.ca
Felicia Cloete
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Social Work Mount Royal University142pchoate@mtroyal.ca
Brandy CrazyBull
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Social Work Mount Royal University142pchoate@mtroyal.ca
Desi Lindstrom
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Social Work Mount Royal University142pchoate@mtroyal.ca
Parker Tatoulis
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Social Work Mount Royal University142pchoate@mtroyal.ca

Abstract

The 1983 case Racine v Woods is the leading child protection case from the Supreme Court of Canada, distinguishing bonding and/or attachment as a more important determinant of best interest for an Indigenous child than cultural connection. Using this case, courts are upholding the permanent placement of Indigenous children in non-Indigenous homes as opposed to placement within their culture. Racine v Woods reflected knowledge of attachment and family at that time but runs counter to current knowledge. Reconsideration of the factors to decide cross-cultural adoption is needed. The essential point is that attachment assessment draws from a dyadic relational theory and is being applied to communal family systems, such as Indigenous systems. Such a review is consistent with the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as well as its predecessor, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), and recent Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) decisions.

Résumé

L’affaire de 1983 Racine v Woods est l’affaire la plus importante en matière de protection de l’enfant de la Cour suprême du Canada, distinguant ainsi le lien et/ou l’attachement comme facteur déterminant de l’intérêt supérieur de l’enfant plus important que le contexte culturel. En utilisant cette affaire, les tribunaux plaident en faveur du placement permanent d’enfants autochtones dans des foyers non autochtones, par opposition au placement dans leur culture. Racine v Woods reflétait la connaissance de l’attachement et de la famille à ce moment-là mais allait à l’encontre des connaissances actuelles. Un réexamen des facteurs permettant de décider de l’adoption interculturelle est nécessaire. L’essentiel est que l’évaluation de l’attachement s’inspire d’une théorie relationnelle dyadique et s’applique aux systèmes familiaux communs, tels que les systèmes autochtones. Un tel examen est conforme aux appels à l’action de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation (CVR), de la Commission royale sur les peuples autochtones (CRPA), son prédécesseur, ainsi que des décisions récentes du Tribunal canadien des droits de la personne (TCDP).

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This paper is the result of a project with Dr. Choate and social work students at Mount Royal University who sought to challenge the application of dominant society assessment processes with Indigenous Peoples. The project was started in ceremony with Elder Charlie Fox of the Kainai First Nation and involved consultation and closing ceremony with Elder Roy Bear Chief of the Siksika First Nation. Elder Bear Chief also gifted the project the name, Ah Ksis To Wap Siiks (Brave Ones). Tobacco was presented to Elders respecting tradition and value of their wisdom.

References

1 Truth and Reconciliation Canada, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Winnipeg: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015), hereafter TRC.

2 First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada et al. v. Attorney General of Canada (for the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada), 2018 CHRT 4, hereafter CHRT 2018; First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada et al. v. Attorney General of Canada (for the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada), 2017 CHRT 14, hereafter CHRT 2017; First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada et al. v. Attorney General of Canada (for the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada), 2016 CHRT 2, hereafter CHRT 2016.

3 “Metis in British Columbia set to take over responsibility for their own child welfare,” BC Gov News, June 7, 2018. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2018CFD0042-001132.

4 Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Grand opening of the nations of Treaty 8 urban child and family services office (Ottawa, ON: Cision Canada, February 20, 2018). https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/grand-opening-of-the-nations-of-treaty-8-urban-child-and-family-services-office-674593133.html.

6 Indigenous Services Canada, Government of Canada, with First Nations, Inuit and Métis Nation leaders, announce co-developed legislation will be introduced on Indigenous child and family services in early 2019 (Government of Canada, November 30, 2018), https://www.canada.ca/en/indigenous-services-canada/news/2018/11/government-of-canada-with-first-nations-inuit-and-metis-nation-leaders-announce-co-developed-legislation-will-be-introduced-on-indigenous-child-and.html; The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (2019 CHRT 7) in its most recent decision regarding the issues raised in CHRT 2018, CHRT 2017, and CHRT 2016, that “The Panel stresses the importance of the First Nations’ self-determination and citizenship issues” (para. 91).

7 TRC, Calls 1–5.

8 Racine v Woods, [1983] 2 SCR 173 (Racine).

9 Ibid.

10 Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Statement of apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools by the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada (June 11, 2008). http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100015644/1100100015649. However, Prime Minister Harper would go on to say at a G20 Meeting on September 27, 2009, “We also have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them.”https://vancouversun.com/news/community-blogs/really-harper-canada-has-no-history-of-colonialism

11 Remarks by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to apologize on behalf of the Government of Canada to former students of the Newfoundland and Labrador residential schools (2017). https://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2017/11/24/remarks-prime-minister-justin-trudeau-apologize-behalf-government-canada-former. This population had been left out of the Harper apology as it was felt, at the time, that Newfoundland and Labrador had not been a part of Canadian confederation during the time covered by the apology.

12 The term was coined by Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System (Toronto: James Lorimer Ltd., 1983). It refers to the mass removal of Aboriginal children from their families into the child welfare system, in most cases without the consent of their families or bands.

13 Brown v Canada (Attorney General) 2017 ONSC 215.

14 Sixties Scoop Apology by Premier R. Notley, May 28, 2018. https://www.alberta.ca/sixties-scoop-apology.aspx; Canadian Press, “A Text of Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger’s apology to ’60s Scoop adoptees,” City News, June 18, 2015. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2015/06/18/a-text-of-manitoba-premier-greg-selingers-apology-to-60s-scoop-adoptees/

15 TRC.

16 Racine v Woods, para 187.

17 “’60s Scoop Survivors: Leticia’s story,” Community Connection, April 2018, p. 1. http://www.nccaregina.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/NCCC-April-2018.pdf

18 United Nations, Convention on the Rights of the Child (Human Rights High Commissioner, 1989), Article 3(1). https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx.

19 Canadian Bar Association, Best Interests of the Child (Ottawa, ON: Canadian Bar Association, n.d.). https://www.cba.org/Publications-Resources/Practice-Tools/Child-Rights-Toolkit/theChild/Best-Interests-of-the-Child.

20 An excellent discussion of this can be found in Lynn Marie Kohn, “Tracing the foundation of the Best Interest of the Child Standard in American jurisprudence,” 10 Journal of Law and Family Studies, (2008): 337–77.

21 URM (Re) 2018 ABPC 116. This decision is presently under appeal.

22 Racine v Woods.

23 URM 2018.

24 Ibid. at para. 138.

25 DP v Alberta, 2016 ABPC 212.

26 KG (Re) 2013 ABPC 237.

27 Racine v Woods and TRC; N. Trocmé, D. Knoke, and C. Blackstock, “Pathways to overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in Canada’s child welfare system,” Social services review (December 2004): 577–600; B. Fallon, M. Chabot, J. D. Fluke, C. Blackstock, B. MacLaurin, and L. Tommyr, “Placement Decisions and Disparities among Aboriginal Children: Further analysis of the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect part A: Comparisons of the 1998 and 2003 surveys,” Child Abuse and Neglect 37, no. 1 (2013): 47–60.

28 Henry, D., Lévesque, L., and Lévesque, R., “The Lost Generation: First Nations Communities & White Middle-Class Adoption,” NAIITS Journal 3 (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.akha.org/content/missiondocuments/thelostgeneration.pdfGoogle Scholar

29 Carney, R., “Aboriginal Residential Schools before Confederation: The early experience,” CCHA Historical Studies 61 (1995): 1340.Google Scholar

30 Henry, Lévesque, and Lévesque, “The Lost Generation,” 4.

31 Apology by Prime Minister S. Harper, 2008.

32 Henry, Lévesque, and Lévesque, “The Lost Generation”; see also A. Stevenson, “The Adoption of Frances T: Blood, belonging and Aboriginal transracial adoption in twentieth-century Canada,” Canadian Journal of History 50, no. 3 (2015): 469–91.

33 C. Blackstock, “Residential Schools: Did they really close or just morph into child welfare?” Indigenous Law Journal 6, no. 1 (2007): 71–78. http://www.heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.jou…

34 Henry, Lévesque, and Lévesque, “The Lost Generation.”

35 E. Kimelman, No quiet place. Review committee on Métis and Indian placements and adoptions (Winnipeg, MB: Kimelman, 1985), quoted in Henry, Lévesque, and Lévesque, “The Lost Generation.” https://digitalcollection.gov.mb.ca/awweb/pdfopener?smd=1&did=24788&md=1

36 N. Trocmé, B. Fallon, B. MacLaurin, V. Sinha, T. Black, E. Fast, C. Festinier, et al., Canadian incidence study of reported child abuse and neglect 2008 (CIS-2008): Major findings (Ottawa, ON: Public Health Agency of Canada, 2010). http://cwrp.ca/sites/default/files/publications/en/CIS-2008-rprt-eng.pdf.

37 Henry, Lévesque, and Lévesque, “The Lost Generation.”

38 De Leeuw, S., “State of Care: The Ontologies of Child Welfare in British Columbia,” Cultural Geographies 21, no. 1 (2014): 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Henry, Lévesque, and Lévesque, “The Lost Generation,” 9.

40 Ibid., 10.

41 Ibid.

42 CHRT 2016.

43 CHRT 2018.

44 Brown v Canada.

45 Ibid.

46 Racine v Woods.

47 Ibid.

48 Brown v Canada. Indented paragraph cites: S. Fournier and E. Crey, Stolen from our Embrace: The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities (Vancouver, BC: Douglas and McIntyre, 1997). Note: Crey has been corrected from the decision which referred to Grey.

49 T. Kalusic, “The Ultimate Betrayal: Claiming and re-claiming cultural identity,” Atlantis 29, no. 2 (2005): 23–38. R. Paradis, The Sixties Scoop: A literary review prepared for the Manitoba Association of Friendship Centers (Winnipeg, MB: Friendship Centre, n.d.), http://www.friendshipcentres.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/The-Sixties-Scoop-Literature-Review.pdf; R. Sinclair, “Identity lost and found: Lessons from the Sixties Scoop,” First Peoples Child and Family Review 3, no. 1 (2007): 65–82.

50 Simard, E. and Blight, S., “Developing a Culturally Restorative Approach to Aboriginal Child and Youth Development: Transitions to adulthood,” First Peoples Child & Family Review 6, no. 1 (2011): 35.Google Scholar

51 Blackstock, “Residential Schools”; TRC.

52 TRC; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Bridging the Cultural Divide: A Report on Aboriginal People and Criminal Justice in Canada (Ottawa, ON: RCAP, 1996). https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/aboriginal-heritage/royal-commission-aboriginal-peoples/Pages/final-report.aspx

53 O’Neill, L., Fraser, T., Kitchenham, A., and McDonald, V., “Hidden Burdens: A review of intergenerational, historical and complex trauma, implications for Indigenous families,” Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma 11, no. 2 (2016): 181.Google Scholar

54 J. Boyce, Victimization of Aboriginal People in Canada, 2014 (Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada, 2016). https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2016001/article/14631-eng.htm.

55 Ross, A., Dion, J., Cantinotti, M., Collin-Vézina, D., and Paquette, L., “Impact of Residential Schooling and of Child Abuse on Substance Use Problem in Indigenous Peoples,” Addictive Behaviors 51 (2015): 184–92;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed Kirmayer, L. J., Gone, J. P., and Moses, J., “Rethinking Historical Trauma,” Transcultural Psychiatry 51, no. 3 (2014): 299–319;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedElias, B., Mignone, J., Hall, M., Hong, S. P., Hart, L., and Sareen, J., “Trauma and Suicide Behavior Histories among a Canadian Indigenous Population: An empirical exploration of the potential role of Canada’s residential school system,” Social Science and Medicine 74, no. 10 (2012): 1560–69;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Brave Heart, M. Y. H., Chase, J., Elkins, J., and Altschul, D. B., “Historical Trauma among Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: Concepts, research and clinical considerations,” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 43, no. 4 (2011): 282–90;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Fast, E. and Collin-Vézina, D., “Historical Trauma, Race-Based Trauma and Resilience of Indigenous Peoples: A literature review,” First Peoples’ Child and Family Review 5, no. 1 (2010): 126–36.Google ScholarBombay, A., Matheson, K., and Anisman, H., “Intergenerational Trauma: Convergence of multiple process among First Nations peoples of Canada,” Journal of Aboriginal Health / Journal de la santé autochtone 5, no. 3 (2009): 647.Google Scholar

56 TRC.

57 G. Lindstrom and P. Choate, “Nistawatsiman: Rethinking assessment of Aboriginal parents for child welfare following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” First Peoples Child and Family Review 11, no. 2 (2016)” 45–59. http://journals.sfu.ca/fpcfr/index.php/FPCFR/article/view/305

58 S. Grande, Red pedagogy: Native American social and political thought (10th Anniversary ed.) (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).

59 Racine v Woods.

60 Bowlby, J., Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment (New York: Basic Books, 1969).Google Scholar

61 Ainsworth, M. D. S., Infancy in Uganda: Infant care and the growth of love (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

62 John Bowlby and World Health Organization, Maternal care and mental health: A report prepared on behalf of the World Health Organization as a contribution to the United Nations programme for the welfare of homeless children, 2nd ed. (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1952). http://www.who.int/iris/handle/10665/40724 .

63 Bretherton, I., “The origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth,” Developmental Psychology 28 (1992): 759–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 van der Horst, F. C. P., John Bowlby—From Psychoanalysis to Ethology: Unravelling the roots of Attachment Theory (Sussex, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 Bowlby, Attachment.

66 Bowlby, J., “Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves: Their characters and home life. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 25 (1944): 1953.Google Scholar

67 Rutter, M., Maternal Deprivation Reassessed (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).Google Scholar

68 Follan, M. and Minuis, H., “Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves Revisited: From Bowlby to reactive attachment disorder,” Child Care, Health and Development 36 (2000): 639–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 Rutter, Maternal Deprivation.

70 Allen, B., “The Use and Abuse of Attachment Theory in Clinical Practice with Maltreated Children, Part 1: Diagnosis and assessment,” Trauma, Violence and Abuse 12, no. 1 (2011): 312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 Weisner, T. S. and Gallimore, R.. “My Brother’s Keeper: Child and sibling caretaking,” Current Anthropology 18, no. 2 (1977): 169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72 Tavecchio, L. W. and Van IJzendoorn, M. H., eds. Attachment in Social Networks: Contributions to the Bowlby-Ainsworth attachment theory (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1987);Google Scholar Van IJzendoorn, M., Sagi, A., and Lambermon, M.. “The Multiple Caretaker Paradox: Data from Holland and Israel,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 57 (Fall 1992): 524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Bowlby, Attachment.

74 Zeanah, C., Schauffer, C., and Dozier, M., “Foster Care for Young Children: Why it must be developmentally informed,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 50, no. 12 (2011): 11991201CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

75 Racine v Woods.

76 Brown v Canada.

77 Van Ilzendoorn, M. H. and Sagi, A., “Cross-Cultural Patterns of Attachment: Universal and contextual dimensions,” in Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical application, ed. Cassidy, J. and Shaver, P. R. (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1999), 713–34.Google Scholar

78 Ibid., 730.

79 Ibid., 730.

80 Yeo, S. S., “Bonding and Attachment of Australian Aboriginal Children,” Child Abuse Review 12, no. 5 (2003): 292304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 Weisner, T. S., “Attachment as a Cultural and Ecological Problem with Pluralistic Solutions,” Human Development 48 (2005): 8994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82 Kline, M. A., Shamsudheen, R., and Broesch, T., “Variation is the Universal: Making cultural evolution work in developmental psychology,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 373 (2018): 20170059.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

83 Keller, H., “Attachment and culture,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 44, no. 2 (2013): 175–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

84 Adjei, P. B., Mullings, M., Baffoe, M., Quaicoe, L., Abdul-Rahman, L., Shears, V., and Fitzgerald, S., “The ‘Fragility of Goodness’: Black parents’ perspective about raising children in Toronto, Winnipeg, and St. John’s of Canada,” Journal of Public Child Welfare 12, no. 4 (2017): 461–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

85 E. W. Said, Orientalism, 25th Anniversary ed. (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1979/1994).

86 R. A. LeVine and K. Norman, The Infant’s Acquisition of Culture: Early attachment re-examined in anthropological perspective, in The psychology of cultural experience, ed. C. C. Moore and H. F. Mathews (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 86.

87 Rothbaum, F., Rosen, K., Ujiee, T., and Uchida, N., Family Systems Theory, Attachment Theory and Culture, Family Processes 41, no. 3 (2002): 328–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

88 Morelli, G., “The Evolution of Attachment Theory and Cultures of Human Attachment in Infancy and Early Childhood,” in The Oxford Handbook of Human Development Culture, ed. Jensen, L. A. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 160.Google Scholar

89 Van IJzendoorn and Sagi, “Cross-cultural patterns.”

90 Mesman, J., van Ilzendoorn, M. H., and Sagi-Schwartz, A., Cross Cultural Patters of Attachment: Universal and contextual dimensions, in Handbook of Attachment: Theory, research and clinical application, 3rd ed., ed. Cassidy, J. and Shaver, P. R., (New York, NY: Guilford Press, 2016), 852–77.Google Scholar

91 Pearson, J. and Child, J., “A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Parental and Peer Attachment Styles among Adult Children from the United States, Puerto Rico, and India,” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 36, no. 1 (2007): 1532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

92 Wotherspoon, E., Velet, S., Pirie, J., O’Neill-Laberge, M., Cooke-Stanhope, L., and Wilson, D., “Neglected Infants in Family Court,” Family Court Review 48, no. 3 (2010): 508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93 Lindstrom and Choate, Nistawatsiman.

94 Adjei, P. B. and Minka, E., “Black Parents Ask for a Second Look: Parenting under ‘white’ child protection rules in Canada,” Children and Youth Services Review 94 (2018): 511–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

95 Mercer, J., Understanding Attachment: Parenting, child care and emotional development (Westport, CT: Prager, 2006).Google Scholar

96 Harwood, R. L., Miller, Joan G., and Irizarry, N. L., Culture and Attachment: Perceptions of the child in context (New York: Guilford Press, 1995).Google Scholar

97 Granqvist, P., Strouffe, A., Dozier, M., Hesse, E., Steele, M., van IJzendoorn, M., Solomoan, J., et al. “Disorganized Attachment in Infancy: A review of the phenomenon and its implications for clinicians and policy-makers,” Attachment and Human Development 19, no. 6 (2017): 551.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

98 R v Mohan, [1994], 2 SCR 9.

99 Ewart v Canada (Attorney General), [2018] SCC 30.

100 Suzack, C., Indigenous Women’s Writing and the Cultural Study of Law (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2017).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

101 Task Force on Responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Report. Psychology’s Response to the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada’s Report (Psychology Foundation of Canada and Psychology Foundation of Canada, 2018), 15.

102 P. Choate and K. Hudson, “Parenting Capacity Assessments: When they serve and when they detract in child protection matters,” Canadian Family Law Quarterly 33 (2014) 33–48; P. Choate and S. Engstrom, “The ‘Good Enough’ Parent: Implications for child protection,” Child Care in Practice 20, no. 4 (2014): 368–82.

103 Grande, S., “Whitestream Feminism and the Colonialist Project: A review of contemporary feminism pedagogy and praxis,” Educational Theory 53, no. 3 (2013): 329–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

104 Ibid, .; Hewitt, J. and Mosher, J., “Reimagining Child Welfare Systems in Canada,” Journal of Law and Social Policy 28 (2018): Article 1.Google Scholar

105 Gee, G. C. and Ford, C. L., “Structural Racism and Health Inequities: Old issues, new directions,” Du Bois Review 8, no. 1 (2011): 115–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

106 Adjei et al., “The ‘Fragility of Goodness’”; Adjei & Minka, “Black Parents Ask.”

107 Hill, R. B., Institutional racism in child welfare, Race and Society 7, no. 1 (2004): 1733.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

108 Barn, R., “‘Race,’ Ethnicity and Child Welfare: A fine balancing act,” British Journal of Social Work 37, no. 8 (2007): 1425–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

109 URM (Re) 2018 ABPC 116.

110 Kline, M., “The Colour of Law: Ideological representations of First Nations in legal discourse,” Social and Legal Studies 3 (1994): 451–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111 Ibid.; Suzack, Indigenous Women.

112 Lindstrom and Choate, Nistawatsiman; P. Choate and A. McKenzie, “Psychometrics in Parenting Capacity Assessments: A problem for Aboriginal parents,” First Peoples Child and Family Review 10, no. 2 (2015): 31–43; P. Choate and G. Lindstrom, “Inappropriate Application of Parenting Capacity Assessments in the Child Protection System,” in Imaging child welfare in the spirit of reconciliation, ed. D. Badry, H. M. Montgomery, D. Kikulwe, M. Bennett, and D. Fuchs (Regina, SK: University of Regina Press, 2018), 93–115.

113 Cowan, P. A. and Cowan, C. P., “Attachment Theory: Seven unresolved issues and questions for future research,” Research in Human Development 4, no. 3–4 (2007): 181201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

114 Weisner, Attachment as a cultural problem, p. 4.

115 Henry, Lévesque, and Lévesque, “The Lost Generation,” p. 8.

116 Ewart v Canada.

117 Choate and Lindstrom, “Inappropriate application.”

118 Lindstrom and Choate, Nistawatsiman.

119 Ewart v Canada.

120 Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., and Norezayan, A., “The Weirdest People in the World?Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33, no. 2–3 (2010): 175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

121 Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., and Norezayan, A., “Most People are Not WEIRD,” Nature 46 (2010), 29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

122 Sameroff, A. J. and MacKenzie, H., “A Quarter-Century of the Transactional Model: How have things changed?Zero to Three (September 2003): 1422.Google Scholar

123 R v Mohan.

124 TRC.

125 Racine v Woods.

126 Ibid.

127 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Bridging the Cultural Divide.

128 TRC.

129 CHRT 2018; CHRT 2017; CHRT 2016.

130 Alberta Children’s Services. A Stronger, Safer Tomorrow: A Public Action Plan for the Ministerial Panel on Child Intervention’s Final Recommendations (Edmonton, AB: Alberta Children’s Services, 2018).

131 Choate and Engstrom, “The ‘Good Enough’ Parent”; Choate & Lindstrom, “Inappropriate application.”

132 Lindstrom and Choate, Nistawatsiman.

133 L. Wexler, “The Importance of Identity, History and Culture in the Wellbeing of Indigenous Youth,” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 2, no. 2 (2009): 267–76; L. M. Hunter, J. Logan, J. Goulet, and S. Barton, “Aboriginal Healing: Regaining balance and culture,” Journal of Transcultural Nursing 17, no. 1 (January 2006): 13–22; A. Poonwassie and A. Charte, An Aboriginal Worldview of Helping: Empowering approaches,” Canadian Journal of Counselling/Revue canadienne de counseling 35, no. 1 (2001): 63–73.

134 Keller, , “Attachment and culture”; Keller, H. and Bard, K., eds. The Cultural Nature of Attachment: Contextualizing relationships and development (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018).Google Scholar

135 Choate and Engstrom, “The ‘Good Enough’ Parent.”

136 Ewart v Canada.

137 Choate & McKenzie, “Psychometrics in Capacity Assessments.”

138 Racine v Woods.

139 A. Stevenson, “The Adoption of Frances T.”

140 Ibid.

141 Racine v Woods.

142 Mount Royal University is located on the traditional lands of the Niitsitapi, Blackfoot Confederacy, and the peoples of Treaty 7, which include the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina, and the Stoney Nakoda First Nations. In addition, the City of Calgary is homeland to Metis Nation Region 3.