Celebrating 20 Years of Service

Celebrating twenty years of Native child welfare services, Weechi-it-te-win Family Services has supported the cultural capacity for successful engagements with First Nation children and families in the southern district of Treaty #3.

Weechi-it-te-win Family Services is a Native (Anishinaabe) child welfare agency committed to creating an "Indian alternative" to mainstream child welfare practices.  The corporation strives to create systemic changes in the delivery of child and family services to our ten First Nation communities.  The mission of Weechi-it-te-win is to preserve Indian (Anishinaabe) culture and identity among our people; to strengthen and maintain Indian (Anishinaabe) families and through them our communities; and to assure the growth, support and development of all children within our families and communities.  Weechi-it-te-win has a unique service delivery model in that services are decentralized and are now delivered directly at the First Nation level through Community Care Programs that have been established in each of the 10 First Nations.  In addition to the Community Care Program, Weechi-it-te-win serves as a resource bank that offers a wide continuum of services to support the First Nations, these services include:  Family counseling, intake and assessment, cultural programming, treatment foster care, children's mental health, tele-psychiatry, and residential treatment facilities.  Each program was carefully designed to support the cultural restoration process of each of the First Nation communities we serve.

Weechi-it-te-win was founded as an Indian Alternative and we continue to envision the revitalizing of an Anishinabe child care system that is rooted in the customs, traditions and values of the Anishinabe people. From a service perspective, we continue to advocate for a child welfare system that places much greater emphasis on family preservation, community healing and the revitalizing of traditional laws, structures and practices in order to restore balance and meaning to the lives of our people. Our capacity to provide culturally competent services that reflect the traditions and values of Aboriginal people is a critical component of our commitment to promote community healing and family preservation and reunification.