Publications by authors named "Marlyn Bennett"
Background: Across Canada, Child Protection Services (CPS) disrupt Indigenous families by apprehending their children at alarmingly high rates. The harms borne by children in out-of-home care (OoHC) have been extensively documented. We examined the impact of OoHC on Manitoba children's health and legal system outcomes to provide rigorous evidence on how discretionary decision-making by CPS agencies can affect these outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Rates of child removal by child protective services (CPS) in Manitoba are the highest in Canada with a profoundly disproportionate impact on First Nations families. Despite infants constituting the highest proportion of children affected, no research has examined population-level rates of infant contact with CPS.
Objective: We examined the incidence of infant contact with different levels of CPS, including termination of parental rights (TPR), according to First Nations status.
Purpose: Newborn removal by North America's child protective services (CPS) disproportionately impacts Indigenous and Black families, yet its implications for population health inequities are not well understood. To guide this as a domain for future research, we measured validity of birth hospitalization discharge codes categorizing newborns discharged to CPS.
Methods: Using data from 309,260 births in Manitoba, Canada, we compared data on newborns discharged to CPS from hospital discharge codes with the presumed gold standard of custody status from CPS case reports in overall population and separately by First Nations status (categorization used in Canada for Indigenous peoples who are members of a First Nation).
When research is conducted from a Western paradigm alone, the findings and resultant policies often ignore Indigenous peoples' health practices and fail to align with their health care priorities. There is a need for decolonized approaches within qualitative health research to collaboratively identify intersecting reasons behind troubling health inequities and to integrate Indigenous knowledge into current health care services. We engaged with First Nations women to explore to what extent digital storytelling could be a feasible, acceptable, and meaningful research method to inform culturally safe health care services.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- * A team of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people will review existing research articles to see how storytelling has been used in health studies with Indigenous communities.
- * They will work together through meetings and discussions to make sure Indigenous perspectives are respected and valued throughout the research process.