‘Nothing has changed’: At Grandview Park, Indigenous mothers speak out about families torn apart

After being shuffled through more than 150 foster homes starting in her infancy, Lily Rose (a pseudonym) told Vancity Lookout she hopes sharing her story will help lead to meaningful system change. 

Lily Rose is one of two Indigenous mothers who co-hosted a vigil at Grandview Park on Thursday, June 25. 

The event was one of dozens of similar vigils happening worldwide throughout June as a part of Stolen Children’s Month to honour families who have been torn apart through “family policing systems (also known as child welfare), adoption, incarceration, and immigration,” said a press release from West Coast LEAF, an organization that supported the vigil. 

About 50 attendees attended the vigil, which organizers called “an important gathering space for the urban Indigenous community.” It featured a table for art-making, free toys for kids, and several speeches, including testimonies from Lily Rose and co-host Melanie Lecoy about their personal experiences navigating the foster system as children and mothers. 

“In order to stop the system from creating all of this trauma, they need to hear lived experience,” said Lily Rose of Canada’s family policing system.

Lily Rose grew up primarily between Vancouver and Alberta. After suffering abuse at the hands of several of her mother’s boyfriends, she and her four siblings were separated and placed with a string of foster families. 

“Due to the lateral violence and intergenerational trauma, we’ve all been on the street. We’ve all had addictions, we’ve all been in jail, and we’ve all been in foster care.” 

Lily Rose said she was moved from one abusive environment to another throughout her childhood, suffering sexual and physical abuse at the hands of foster families, then returned to her mother and her abusive partners, only to again be removed from her care. 

After calling child welfare on herself at age 11, Lily Rose was permanently removed from her mother’s custody and placed in a group home in Kamloops, B.C. At age 12, Lily Rose said she was trafficked from that group home and brought to East Hastings, where she spent the next 19 years of her life living and working on the streets.

Though her experience was horrific, Lily Rose said it was also not unusual. “Everyone I know has had a hard time,” she said, adding that nearly all of the Indigenous people that she knows have been through the foster care system.

Of those, she said she only knows of one person who was matched with a household that they felt ultimately improved their life. “She actually did really well in life… and like, good for her, but it’s a bit frustrating because … 98 per cent of us don’t get that experience.” 

In neighbourhoods like Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), the urban Indigenous population has been disproportionately impacted by family separation. One day, while she was working at Main and East Hastings, Lily Rose said that a friend commented that they were looking at a “neighbourhood of foster kids.” 

According to Statistics Canada, Indigenous people make up roughly a third of those living in the DTES, despite only making up 2.4 per cent of Canada’s population, with Indigenous women accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all women living in the neighbourhood. 

One study on substance use and homelessness surveyed 26,000 people and found that over half of the Indigenous respondents had been placed in foster care, group homes, or residential schools. Those placed in youth care were also significantly more likely to report mental health and substance use issues. 

“It’s been [decades of this same approach], and nothing has changed. We’re not seeing an overwhelming amount of healed Indigenous people… actually, it’s quite the opposite,” said Lily Rose. 

Research also indicates adverse health outcomes for mothers fearful of child apprehension. 

A Vancouver Coastal Health report noted that “fear of child apprehension creates barriers to accessing health services and supports for women,” including putting them at increased risk of fatal drug overdose. The report adds that “many women have [been] apprehended themselves as children” with research suggesting that upwards of one-third of women in the DTES have “had one or more of their children apprehended in their lifetime.” 

“Often it’s poor families who, rather than being separated, just need access to housing or food or basic resources and services,” said West Coast LEAF communications manager, Iman Baobeid. “[Families are] not being assessed on what can be worked on or [supported]... but rather from a very risk-based place.” 

Baobeid said that disability, in particular, can be a difficult area for parents seeking services. She pointed to a recent case of a B.C. mother whose 7-year-old disabled child was apprehended by the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) after she reached out for voluntary assistance when her son became violent. The mother refused to sign a modified Voluntary Care Agreement with the ministry and was informed that, as a result, she would lose custody. 

Minister Jodie Wickens told Global News that she cannot comment on specific cases, but that “Our role is to work with families, providing the support they need, and doing everything we can to keep families together, even in the most complex situations.” 

While neither Lily Rose nor Melanie has lost custody of their children, they have both had contact with the MCFD since becoming parents. 

Lecoy said she would frequently hear from family policing services representatives about “minor issues,” such as one of her kids showing up late to school or not having a coat. “It just felt like they would find every reason to keep my file open.” 

For those who have been a part of the family policing system, including those who have been fostered themselves, Baobeid said it can be “incredibly hard to get out of the web of that system.” 

Lily Rose said that while she does not believe every parent should retain custody of their kids, she wished foster families were more thoroughly vetted and that she had been allowed to stay with just one family. “A one foster home plan would have helped make us feel more stable and safe… but just taking us out of [my mother’s] care was not protecting us,” she said, adding she wishes more had been done to support her mother in learning how to be a parent. 

Lily Rose’s mother had been through the foster care system herself after being removed from an abusive home environment where Lily Rose’s grandmother, a residential school survivor, was unable to care for her. 

“When you don’t stop to change or address those traumas, they trickle into your parenting and child welfare… the real concern or focus has never been to help the parents,” said Lily Rose, adding that family treatment centres and improved access to counselling would have been a welcome alternative.

Lecoy said she has now found a degree of healing that her mother never had access to, and wishes that her mother had been able to seek counselling to help her process her experiences in residential school. “She was carrying a lot of anger,” she said. “I wish she had been given a chance to heal from the intergenerational trauma.” 

Lecoy’s family is from the Chehalis region, as well as Musqueam and Coast Salish territories. After suffering significant physical and sexual abuse both at home and under the care of several of the nine foster families she stayed with as a child, she said she has found a lot of healing in reconnecting with her culture.  

Lecoy now works with Keeping Families Together, an organization of Indigenous women who help provide “community care and support in place of unnecessary” child apprehensions. “In the Downtown Eastside, [it’s easy to feel like] a statistic,” Lecoy said. “But behind every statistic there’s a child, a family, a community carrying grief, but also resilience and hope.” 

Lecoy graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in social work in early June and said she has found great purpose in helping others heal from similar traumatic experiences. 

While Lily Rose said she has been left with “a lifetime of trauma” that she has not fully healed from, she has come a long way. She is now nurturing a longtime love of fashion by attending fashion school, and will even be featured in Vancouver Fashion Week this month. 

“We aren’t what happened to us. We want to heal, we want to change. We want justice… we want our families to be kept together… That means a lot to me,” said Lecoy. 

West Coast LEAF will release a “know your rights” resource guide for families investigated by the MCFD on June 29