Context
In September 2021, Marie Slark and Antoinette Charlebois spoke with Sue Hutton about their hopes and desires for students learning to become educators, social workers, and health care providers.
Slark and Charlebois share their stories about the role of Children’s Aid Society in breaking up their family and placing them in the institution as children. As agents of human race betterment, agents of child and family welfare played a role in controlling relationships. They prevented some people from having children in order to build a future these authorities believed was in the best interests of a primarily white, middle-class society. Under the guise of child and family welfare, many families have been pulled apart. The solution for some is to re-connect with family. For others, family relationships are a source of harm.1(footnote) For Slark and Charlebois, they describe the institutional violence they encountered and share the importance of re-connecting with family to support one another.
Slark and Charlebois use humour to challenge oppression and educate about the truth. As Slark states, “They say we’re lying about it. But we’re not lying, we’re sitting [and talking about it].”
