Duty to Support: Supporting Families to Stay Together

This Webinar focuses on the Duty to Support - the idea that community has the responsibility to support parents to care for their children and keep the families together. It is a response to the current mandate to report families whose children are perceived to be at risk. In the current child welfare system, families experience state-based violence that ruptures family structures, contributes to marginalizing women, and perpetuates cycles of trauma. The current system is rooted in colonized practice and reinforces it by disproportionately removing Indigenous, Black, and racialized children and children of families living in poverty.
The Webinar is based on findings from a community project hosted by RainCity Housing that engaged mothers, fathers, grandparents, young parents, and youth who have all been impacted by the child welfare system, as well as the community organizations that support them. Together we generated data on how to move away from punitive and disruptive state interventions to harm reduction alternatives and community-based support. Throughout our project engagements, community partnering organizations reflected on and implemented the findings from the families. We advocate for the Duty to Support as a commitment from service providers to better support families to stay together safely and reduce the harm that comes with state intervention.