Becoming Ourselves: Foster Parents' Engagement in Indigenous Children's and Youth's Cultural Identity Development and Maintenance

Background and Purpose: Indigenous children are overrepresented in the child welfare system in British Columbia (John, 2016). A pressing issue for Indigenous children in foster care is preserving cultural identity through culturally-appropriate services (Carrière & Richardson, 2013). However, the sense of connection and the foundation for developing and maintaining cultural identity are often lacking (Quinn, 2019). Placements are made on the basis of foster caregiver availability often resulting in non-matching transcultural placements. Nevertheless, caregivers who are not culturally-matched but are culturally-engaged, can still significantly contribute to the well-being of Indigenous children and youth in their care through supporting cultural development (Daniel, 2011). However, little is known about what culturally-engaged foster parents are doing together to support the cultural identity development and maintenance for Indigenous children and youth in their care. The objective of this research program is to understand/describe how foster parents engage with each other to support the development and maintenance of cultural identity for Indigenous children and youth in their care.

Methods: The Qualitative Action Project Method was used to address the research questions and collect information through multiple sources: observations of foster parent interactions, video-recall interviews, and self-reports. Six foster parent dyads and two single foster parents participated in this study. The analysis of data focused on identifying the joint actions and goals of foster parents and their self-reported meanings of engaging with the cultural identity development and maintenance for Indigenous children and youth in their care.

Findings: Results showed each dyad/single foster caregiver was committed to relating wholistically to their child’s specific culture even when they themselves had no prior experience with those cultural practices. This was exemplified by their actions of accessing connections and resources from within the child’s cultural community or through the action of forging relationships with support workers who could ease the challenges of ensuring cultural connections. Although each dyad or single caregiver constructed distinct projects, a common broad intentional framework or overarching goal was identified across all projects. Within this broad intentional framework of building and nurturing/nourishing cultural connections were three specific joint projects. These joint projects focused on caregivers’ willingness to learn and grow together through continual deference to the cultural teachings of the child’s community and to each other, their commitment to actions and follow through and through advocating and resourcing the support they needed in the larger community.

Conclusions and Implications: This program of research fills significant theoretical gaps in understanding how foster parents work together to support the cultural identity development and maintenance of Indigenous children and youth in their care. It also contributes to the emerging body of literature on identity development for Indigenous children and youth living in care. Foster parents and professionals such as child welfare workers, social workers, counsellors, and front-line child and youth workers interested in supporting the cultural identities of Indigenous children and youth will gain information about the ways in which foster parents engage together to support Indigenous children and youth in their care.