Programs and Services

Our programs and services provide children, youth and families with the supports and services they need to ensure their well-being, protect families and support healing. We offer child and youth programs, support programs, community programs, kinship services, temporary care services, early intervention services, foster care services, adoption services and so much more. See program details below.

The Mi’kmaw Family Healing Program (MFHP) runs the Mi’kmaw Family Healing Centres (Transition Houses) located in Millbrook First Nation and the We’koqma’q First Nation.

Our Healing Centres provide a place of safety for women and children and provide outreach programs to men, women and children who experience any form of violence.

The Family Support program provides Mi’kmaq families with the parenting skills, life skills and access to community resources that help them provide a better life for themselves and their children. We also help youth prepare for independent living.

Services are provided to men, women and children in all First Nation communities in Nova Scotia through family-based practice/home visitation, working collaboratively with Agency and Community resources.

Referrals to the Family Support Program are received from Intake and Investigations, Long Term Protection Services, Permanent Care and Custody, and Temporary Care and Custody.

The goal of family support involvement is to strengthen and enhance parenting skills so parents can create and maintain a safe, nurturing, and healthy environment for their children.

The Intake and Investigation team’s primary role is to evaluate risk and guarantee the safety and well-being of children in their homes. This role is always carried out with children’s best interests in mind and with the least disruptive methods possible. Per the Agency’s mandate, the team’s focus is to maintain the integrity of the family according to our Mi’kmaw cultural values and beliefs.

As with the entire Agency, the Intake and Investigation team works towards the common goal of families being able to parent children safely without agency intervention.

The Temporary Care and Custody program investigates reports of alleged child abuse and neglect, attempts to reduce the risk of harm, and provides out-of-home support to children when a child is about to be harmed and the child’s safety cannot be guaranteed any other way. The chance of harm occurring can be reduced with the involvement of the parent, the program’s team, and from the agency.

The goal of the program is to return children to their parents. When reunification cannot happen due to continued risks to the child/youth, the program creates a permanency plan for the child/youth. Permanency planning may include exploring Kinship or Foster Care, Adoption, or Permanent Care and Custody (PCC) – in all cases, the Agency prioritizes placement within the community where possible.

The Long-Term Protection program begins working with families once the Intake and Investigation stage is complete and an identified child protection concern is identified. The program offers supports and services to families’ children/youth to prevent or reduce any identified protection concerns.

Once a family feels open to long-term services, a safe case plan is developed. Family members are invited to participate in a Wikimanej Kikmanaq, or “family group conference,” to create family and community supports and to build a case plan based on the identified needs of the child, family and caregivers involved. The Wikimanej Kikmanaq is a critical part of the process and is one of the greatest strengths of our program when it comes to creating a Mi’kmaw case plan that is positive and understood by everyone involved.

The Long-Term Protection program is committed to keeping children with family and community whenever possible, with two options to encourage this outcome:

The Children in Permanent Care and Custody program (PCC) is designed to care for the children/youth who come into the permanent care and custody of the agency. Many of the children/youth in this program no longer reside with their biological family.

The program works closely with foster families, kinship families, biological families, and youth to ensure that their child(ren) will be safe and healthy in the Agency’s custody. The program’s goal is to guide and assist children/youth through life, with case workers acting as “wise and conscientious parents” at all times. The Children in Care team works closely with the Family and Community Resource program to provide appropriate workshops and programs for our youth.

The role of the Foster Care department is to provide children and youth who have come into the care of Mi’kmaw Family & Children’s Services (MFCS) with an alternative family environment. Our goal is to ensure that the children who are in the care of the Agency are placed in a Mi’kmaw foster/kinship home, ideally within the child’s community. On-going support is available to general foster caregivers and kinship caregivers by their assigned Social Workers and the MAAK program. There are also various training programs that offer support though training, such as the Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education Modules (PRIDE), Pre-Service training, and A Traditions of Caring Program. This level of care ensures that children placed in these homes are fully supported while in transition.

The Adoption program provides children who need permanent homes with loving families. Without the opportunity for adoption, there would be children in our communities who lack the stability, support, nurturing, and attention needed to achieve proper physical, social, and emotional development.

All children need a stable and continuous relationship with a nurturing person to promote their physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development. For our children in care, these relationships are especially important to prevent early traumatic experiences, which often put children at greater risk of homelessness, failure to finish high school, unemployment, and substance misuse.

When children in out-of-home care cannot be reunited with their birth families, adoption is often the safest alternative. Adoption provides the most stable, legally binding relationship between the children in permanent care and their adoptive parents. Our foster parents often become adoptive parents to the children they foster, should that child not be able to return home.

Should children not be able to return to their birth families, it is our primary goal to have these children be adopted by their relatives. We believe a positive and nurturing environment will help children grow to their full potential. Working together with our adoptive families as a team toward a common goal allows us to provide services that help children reach their full potential.

Whenever possible, we want our children to remain with their families and in their home communities. If they cannot, we look to other Mi’kmaw families residing both on and off First Nation communities for adoption.

The Wikimanej Kikmanaq Family Group Conference has its roots in Indigenous traditions, where the care of and decision making for children and families is the responsibility of the extended family and community.

The Mi’kmaw Family Group Conference is based on our Mi’kmaq values, beliefs, traditions, and customs, which have been preserved in our language and the collective cultural identity of the Mi’kmaw people. The Family Group Conference shifts the power to decide back to the families and empowers families to take responsibility for their children. As the supervisor of this process, the Agency retains the responsibility to ensure Family Group Conferences result in plans and strategies that satisfy the child(ren)’s best interests. This process is meant to uphold the integrity and dignity of the family group by helping them take the initiative in planning how to resolve their own issues.

The Family & Community Resource Program works directly with our Mi’kmaw First Nation communities, community partners, and stakeholders to identify, develop, and enhance support services and resources to assist with the Agency’s program delivery. All programs are delivered in partnership with Interagency Committees, First Nations schools, Health Directors & Centers, Mental Health & Addiction Services, the Native Friendship Centre, NADACA and Chief & Councils

As a commitment to reconciliation, Mi’kmaw Family and Children’s Services of NS wishes to honor the historical-cultural strengths and beauty of Mi’kmaw practices beliefs and values.

The Weli-Iknmakwemk Iltaqne’watk plays an important role in honoring and supporting Mi’kmaw women and families throughout their pregnancy journey to establish connections through community-based, culturally safe, and relevant prevention and early intervention programs and services, through trauma-informed practices.