holiday traditions

As this calendar year ends and many – including myself - look forward to holiday traditions, I have been giving a lot of thought to such traditions in the context of child welfare systems. This led to rich discussion with others involved with the Child Welfare Truth Telling Collective who have a variety of personal and professional lived experiences relative to child protection systems.

Countless individuals, families, and communities enter this festive season carrying the impacts of previous experiences and / or ongoing encounters with and within these systems. Our discussions included reflection on intergenerational trauma, the trauma of apprehension, and the isolation of being placed outside of one’s family of origin.

My personal experiences do not include time spent in care, however I reflected on my direct experiences being raised geographically removed from extended family / cultural community and relocating regularly due to my father’s work. I also reflected on the trauma exposure experienced by my father, who spent some time at a Catholic boarding school where he and his brothers endured various abuses. I share this not to generalize or project relative to the experiences of others, but rather to highlight that my exposure to such challenges was deeply impactful despite having been generally well supported by my family of origin.

Through my years as a child protection worker, I struggled with disconnecting on any average day however during culturally / religiously significant occasions I struggled even more so knowing that the children in care and those caring for them would struggle to honour meaningful traditions, whether organized or unique, and that is if they seriously consider it at all. As we find ourselves in the midst of this holiday season, these reflections and concerns return to me, and I grieve for my role in separating children from their families, kin, and various levels of culture.

Ultimately, I am plagued by concerns about how this has and may continue to impact their identity, self worth, and sense of fulfillment. 

We invite you to consider the realities of child welfare interventions in the context of holidays, and we ache for the roles played by many of us within these systems.