A Brief History of Caring Across the Boundaries Program

Within the past several years, the Caring Across the Boundaries (CAB) program has evolved and changed. It has gone through many stages and the program continues to grow and develop.

2001-2005: CAB, CAB: Youth Focus

The original CAB program as well as the youth focus aimed to bring together individuals from First Nations communities, First Nations child and family service providers and voluntary sector organizations. The aim was to expand the range of resources available to Aboriginal children, youth and families living on reserve through education, collaboration, relationship building and networking. The CAB program consisted of 1.5 day training in the span of two days. The first day consisted of a half day primer for individuals from the Voluntary sector and a half day primer for individuals from First Nations communities and from First Nations child and family service providers. The second day provided an opportunity for both groups to come together to build relationships, to network and to plan next steps.

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Should you be interested in obtaining copies of the primers for the CAB or the Youth Focus programs, please do not hesitate to contact us.

2005-Present: Touchstones for Leadership

The Touchstones for Leadership: Reconciliation in Indigenous Child Welfare is a result of a gathering held in Niagara Falls in 2005. At this gathering Indigenous and non-Indigenous leadership within child welfare gathered to create a vision of how to better serve Indigenous children, youth and families. The result of this gathering was the document entitled “Reconciliation in Child Welfare: Touchstones of Hope for Indigenous Children, Youth and Families”.

Resulting from this document was the creation of the Touchstones for Leadership: Reconciliation in Indigenous Child Welfare curriculum, a principle based document that has been designed for leaders within communities or organizations so that the most crucial change can start with them. The curriculum consists of 5 modules, one for each Touchstone of Hope. The goal of this document is to bring Aboriginal and non Aboriginal leadership from Child Welfare together to go through the modules and to engage in the process of Reconciliation, utilizing the Touchstones as the basis for discussion.

Please see the section “What Are the Touchstones of Hope?” for more information or contact us.