The Giiwedin Anang Council is a transformational Indigenous Family Dispute Resolution (IFDR) program. We provide our holistic services for Indigenous families in crisis. Our original focus has always been for children and families involved in the in the child welfare system. Over the last decade, we have expanded our services to offer a Healthy Boundaries & Relationships Parenting Program, family mediation, supervised access, and weekly sacred fire honouring the children of the residential school system.
Our program has deep roots in the Indigenous community of Tkaronto. In the early 90’s, shortly after Aboriginal Legal Services started the criminal diversion program, community council, several grandmothers advocated in the community starting by calling upon ALS to offer a child welfare community council. Through that decade, ALS worked with the four children’s aid societies in Toronto to build support for such an approach. It was not until 2008 when ALS received funding and changes were brought through legislation for Indigenous approaches to dispute resolution for Indigenous child welfare matters. At that time ALS trained several Volunteer Aunties, Uncles, Knowledge Keepers, and Elders to be members of the Family Community Council.
In 2009, the family community council received its spirit name from Jake Ago Neh. Through this name we received our direction and approach to our roles in the community. Our name, Giiwedin Anang translates to English from Anishnabemowin as North Star. The same north star that offers guidance, direction and hope in the night sky for those trying to find their way. As a council, we remain consistent with our neutrality, integrity, and commitment to our community in times of crisis.
The Council is made up of ALS staff and volunteers, who occupy many different roles in the community outside of their volunteering with the council, such as, teachers, lawyers, doctors, facilitators, community workers, survivors of the residential school system and child welfare system and other qualified members of the Indigenous community.
The purpose of the Giiwedin Anang Council is to allow children, parents, extended family, band representatives, child welfare authorities, and any others with concerns for a child’s future to meet with each other, and, with the support and mediation of council members, to develop a plan that will meet the needs of the child. We also prepare all participants, including the children, for this process with 1-on-1 counselling.
We provide this through talking circles, which are a traditional Indigenous method of conflict dispute resolution. Talking circles provide all relevant parties with a voice in a culturally relevant and integral way. We are dedicated and purposeful in how we live our cultural values and practices.
Giiwedin Anang cannot directly control the outcomes and decisions made by institutions. We strive to provide an environment where families and their communities can voice that which they cannot otherwise communicate, and be a source of support, wisdom, safety, and guidance.
Ryan Walsh
Program Manager
Giiwedin Anang