Foster Parent Rights in the Northwest Territories

The 2020 letter from the Foster Family Coalition of the NWT was twenty-seven pages long. It alleged that social workers had lied to foster parents about children's behavioral histories, withheld documents that foster families had a right to access, and left caregivers without the information they needed to safely manage the children placed in their homes. It was a public document representing the grievances of an advocacy organization that normally maintains a working relationship with the GNWT.

The letter existed because foster parents in the NWT have rights — and those rights were not being respected in a significant number of cases.

Understanding what you are entitled to as a licensed NWT foster parent is not about becoming adversarial with the system. It's about knowing when the system has obligations to you that it is failing to meet, and knowing what to do about it.

The Right to Information About the Child in Your Care

This is the most frequently contested right in NWT foster care. Foster parents are entitled to receive relevant information about the child placed in their home — information that is necessary to provide safe and appropriate care. This includes:

• Behavioral history: Known patterns of behavior, including behaviors exhibited in previous placements, that are relevant to managing the child's placement in your home safely
• Medical information: Diagnoses, medications, allergies, and any chronic health conditions. You cannot manage a child's medical needs without this information
• Trauma history: General information about the nature of trauma in the child's background — without necessarily full disclosure of all case details — sufficient to inform your caregiving approach
• Court orders and legal status: What is the child's legal status? Is there an open supervision order? A Crown wardship? What are the current access arrangements with biological family?

The right to information is not absolute — there are legitimate confidentiality restrictions on some case details. But "I can't tell you about their background" is not a complete answer when you are managing a child who has serious behavioral presentations and you are doing so without the information needed to understand the triggers or the history.

If your social worker is not providing information you need to care safely for a child, the first step is to ask explicitly in writing: "What information about this child's behavioral and medical history is available and can be shared with me as the caregiver?" Document the request. A written request creates a record and signals that you understand your entitlement.

The Right to Participate in Case Planning

NWT foster parents have a role in the child's care plan — you are not simply a residence provider who waits for instructions. Participation rights include:

• Attendance at or input to Plan of Care Committee reviews: These committees, which may include community volunteers, cultural liaisons, and the child's social worker, review the care plan periodically. Foster parents have a right to contribute information about the child's daily functioning, their observations about the child's needs, and their assessment of what the plan requires to succeed
• Notification of significant changes: If the child's legal status changes, if a court hearing is scheduled, or if the permanency plan is shifting, you have a right to know
• Input before placement changes: If a child is being moved from your home, you have a right to be consulted about the timing and process — not to veto the decision, but to inform it with your knowledge of the child's situation

The NWT Child and Family Services Act positions foster parents as members of the professional team around a child, not as supervised custodians who execute decisions made elsewhere. In practice, the degree of inclusion varies significantly depending on the individual social worker, the regional office, and the specific case dynamics.

The Right to Raise Concerns and File Complaints

When your rights are not being respected — when information is withheld, when you receive a child without adequate preparation, when your input into case planning is ignored — you have formal channels for raising those concerns.

Step 1: Direct conversation with your social worker

The first step is always the direct conversation. Raise your concern with your assigned social worker, specifically and in writing. Email is better than phone for creating a record. State what you expected, what happened instead, and what you need resolved.

Step 2: Escalation to the regional supervisor

If the conversation with your social worker does not resolve the issue, escalate to their supervisor at the regional NTHSSA or HRHSSA authority. The supervisory structure exists to review worker decisions and address systemic failures. Request a meeting with the supervisor and bring your documentation.

Step 3: The Foster Family Coalition of the NWT

The FFCNWT is an independent advocacy organization for foster families. It is not part of HSS. If you are in a dispute with your regional office and internal escalation has not resolved it, the FFCNWT can advise you on your rights, connect you with peer support from other experienced foster parents, and in some cases advocate alongside you. Contact the FFCNWT through their website or Fostering Facebook Group.

Step 4: The GNWT Office of the Ombudsman

The NWT Ombudsman investigates complaints about territorial government departments — including HSS. If you believe HSS has acted unfairly, violated your rights under the Child and Family Services Act, or failed to follow its own policies, the Ombudsman's office accepts complaints from affected parties, including foster parents.

Step 5: The Children's Lawyer

The Children's Lawyer in the NWT can be engaged in cases involving children's rights in court proceedings. If you are a long-term foster parent who has concerns about a child's welfare and a case is before the court, legal representation through the Children's Lawyer's office is available to the child — and your concerns as a foster parent can be communicated through that channel.

The Right to Confidentiality Protection

You have rights regarding the privacy of your own household as well as the children in your care. Your family's personal information, the details of your home study, and the particulars of your foster home agreement are confidential. HSS cannot share your information without your consent except as required by law.

In small communities, this protection is challenging to operationalize — your role as a foster parent is often visible regardless of what the formal record says. But the legal protection exists, and if you believe confidential information about your family has been improperly disclosed by HSS, that is a reportable concern through the privacy complaint channels of the GNWT.

What the Oath of Confidentiality Means for Your Complaints

When you sign the foster care agreements, you sign an Oath of Confidentiality committing you to protect information about children and biological families. This oath protects the children — it does not prevent you from raising concerns about how you were treated by HSS.

The distinction matters. You cannot disclose case details about a child to your neighbors. You can disclose those same details to the Ombudsman, the FFCNWT, or legal counsel when pursuing a complaint about how the system handled your case. Confidentiality obligations run toward protecting children, not toward shielding the GNWT from accountability.

The Northwest Territories Foster Care Guide includes a section on foster parent rights and the escalation pathway for grievances, including the contact information for the FFCNWT and the regional supervisory contacts for each NWT authority.

A System That Needs You

The NWT child welfare system is not designed to be adversarial with foster parents. With a 24.7% vacancy rate in child and family services and a persistent shortage of approved homes, HSS needs competent, committed foster families far more than it can afford to alienate them.

Most concerns are resolved through direct conversation. The escalation pathway described above is for situations where direct conversation fails — and those situations do occur, as the 2020 FFCNWT letter made clear. Knowing that the pathway exists, and knowing your rights before a conflict arises, puts you in a position to navigate the system professionally and to advocate effectively for both yourself and the children in your care.

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