According to the B.C. government in 2023 the number of children in care was 4,875, with 3,924 being indigenous.
Evidence shows that, where appropriately safe, keeping families together rather than placing a child into care results in better outcomes overall for these children. But the next question is for those who do live in care, what happens with these children age out of care and are now out on their own?
For many years aspects of the Stepping Stones program have been used to assist youth that have been in and out of home care, transition into life on their own. The program, through the B.C. Government and other agencies, focused on non-indigenous youth, but there has been nothing for Indigenous people, who are known to be greatly affected by being taken from their homes and mostly placed in homes that had nothing to do with their culture.
In early 2024 Tim Harris, who is a local Stz’uminus member, School District 68 trustee and works as a Step Up Team lead at the Kw'umut Lelum centre in Nanaimo, received a call from the BC Adoptive Society.
"When they were called the BC Adoptive, they had asked if I could pilot a 12 week program called Stepping Stones," he said. "Due to how spread out our youth are, in our agency, as they are from the nine First Nations we serve, it made it difficult for us to pilot a 12 week program such as this. The expectation was that we have youth in a classroom setting for that 12 weeks. This was impossible due to youth in school and the location of our youth. I was able to build up a working relationship with many of their staff. They then asked if I could indigenize the Stepping Stones curriculum. This will help motivate, capture, and support the Indigenous youth that they work with across B.C.”
BC Adoptive was later renamed the Belonging Network.
The Stepping Stones website states “Stepping Stones: Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Teaching is a program designed to build the foundational life skills (as identified by UNICEF and the World Health Organization). Indigenous youth need to become confident, independent, and thriving adults. The program is designed for organizations and communities that support Indigenous youth (ages 16 to 27) who are transitioning out of government care."
What Harris set up was a 12 week program geared to supporting youth with life skills and independence, using the existing provincial program as a base.
"The program was recently outsourced by a group such as myself and several others to go over and add an indigenous lense to the initial lessons," Harris said. "The indigenous lense to the lessons are designed to support First Nations youth in care. Most or all the lessons are to allow the First Nations youth to become comfortable with their learning and the environment.
“The Indigenous curriculum we developed is intended to support indigenous youth ages 14-27.”
Harris has a masters in educational leadership.
“I will have to say my education background has really helped me with knowing lessons and unit planning," he said. "I was an educational assistant, former classroom teacher and a First Nations school principal. I was also an elected council member for my nation for nearly 20 years. My current role as a Step Up Program Team Lead helps me very much as well. I support and work with the First Nations youth ages that this curriculum supports. It’s all this experience that allowed me to take on such a project.
“We also had a very dedicated team, as well,” Harris said. "We had Shauna Harris, a child care worker and programmer; Carly Foster, teacher and child care worker; Sarah Howlett, classroom teacher; and Darian Harris, child and youth care worker all contribute work to the project. All have a ton of experience working with youth and creating lessons. I asked Duck Paterson to work on the project with us. He was the person I asked to put all the material and changes into the computer and then produce so it could look good. His background around that kind of work was solid and someone I needed. He said it was a great learning [opportunity] for him too.”
As the program went to drafts the group had three Indigenous youth look it over and make changes.
Harris said there are different companies that will be piloting the program for the Belonging Network.
