Learning from the school experiences of former youth in care
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Date
2023-10-15
Authors
Grant, Jessica
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Abstract
Manitoba has the highest per capita rate of children in care in Canada and 91% of those apprehended from their families are Indigenous (Canadian Child Welfare Research Portal, 2023; Manitoba Families, 2021). The most recent comprehensive report highlights that only one third of students who have ever been in out-of-home care graduate from high school compared to an 89% rate for students who have never been involved with child welfare (Brownell et al., 2015). This statistic serves as a call to attention but is only part of understanding the school experiences for youth in care.
This study took reconceptualist and postcolonial lenses which foregrounded the experiences of former youth in care by asking them about their time in K-12 schools in Manitoba through phenomenological interviews. I worked from the position that the current education and child welfare systems in Manitoba are situated within a context of colonialist and racist policies from residential schools, to the Sixties Scoop, to the enactments of policies which lead to the overrepresentation of Indigenous children and youth in out-of-home care. Focused on stories of former youth in care, this research centred on the question: What are the school experiences of former youth in care and how might these experiences inform our relationships, as educators, with students?
Findings highlight the complexities and nuance of experience which are situated within paradoxes of conflicting desires related to in/visibility, autonomy, and relationships. Postcoloniality was applied to analyse the advice from youth in conversation with the research in the field. Recommendations for educators include a focus on understanding, authentic caring, and advocacy. For government and policy makers I highlight the need to reform curriculum to be culturally appropriate and focus on cultivating advocacy and agency in students, mandating teacher training and professional development to include an understanding of child welfare systems and ways of working collaboratively across systems, and policy changes that support the relational work of educators with students.
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Keywords
Children in Care, Youth in Care, Eductional Outcomes, School Experiences, Postcolonialism, Reconceptualism, Phenomenology, Stigmatization, Advocacy, Relationships