As part of the National Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations, we want to give centre stage to the Direction de soutien aux familles which is part of the Secrétariat aux relations avec les Premières Nations et les Inuit, which uses documentary research to shed light on certain darker areas of history.
“Family Information Liaison Units provide support to families of missing and murdered Indigenous people in Canada who are seeking information about their loved ones. In Québec, this support is overseen by the Direction de soutien aux familles.”
To better understand this team’s mission as well as its research process, we interviewed Florence Dupré, who serves as Family Support Coordinator at the Secrétariat. Please note that the answers have been edited for greater clarity and concision.
We hope you enjoy reading it!
Interview with the Direction de soutien aux familles
First off, can you go over the context in which the Direction de soutien aux familles team was created?
The Direction was created within the Secrétariat aux relations avec les Premières Nations et les Inuit of the government of Québec on the same day that the Act to authorize the communication of personal information to the families of Indigenous children who went missing or died after being admitted to an institution became law. This Act was essentially an answer to a request made to the government that it provide Indigenous families all information it might have concerning the children that were taken from them after being admitted to a hospital or any other healthcare centre in Québec.
As part of your mission, your role is to support the families of Indigenous people who have disappeared or been murdered. Is that right?
Yes. When it was created, the Direction de soutien aux familles was given the mandate of ensuring that the Act is implemented in a manner that respects the needs of families of Indigenous children who have gone missing or who died following admission to a health and social services facility.
In this context, it has the mandate of supporting families throughout their research efforts; developing and implementing, in collaboration with the families, specific research strategies that meet the families’ wishes and objectives; and organizing and coordinating, at the request of the families it supports, meetings with health and social services experts, experts in exhumation, and any other experts relevant to the analysis and understanding of the obtained documentation, and much more.
Over the years and following requests from families, the mandates assumed by the Direction de soutien aux familles have become more diversified as to meet as best as possible the concrete needs of the people being supported.
All these tasks seem like they would require a high level of sensitivity and high-level research skills. What is the makeup of your team?
The team is made up of 10 people, notably anthropologists, sociologists, two criminologists and one person trained as a social worker. Several members of the team were trained in research methods as part of their studies at the master’s and doctorate levels. Beyond their training, the team shares common values of justice, fairness, rigour, and transparency, which guide their work with families.
How do you contact the families?
We always begin with an introductory interview, which can be conducted directly by the Direction de soutien aux familles, or, as is generally the case, by the partner organization responsible for providing emotional support to the families. Awacak — Little Beings of Light.
Follow-up meetings are held regularly with the families, at a frequency and in a manner that suit them. The families can choose to do these meetings in person or via video conference, and as many family members and support people as desired can be included.
How does the research process then proceed?
In fact, the research process is customized for each family that calls upon the Direction de soutien aux familles. Every family has unique and specific needs and questions. While several families might have common concerns, we generally cannot create a systematic process that fits every family.
Le processus entremêle deux types de démarches : des demandes d’accès à des renseignements personnels ou demandes d’accès à l’information d’une part, et des recherches aux méthodes plus qualitatives et quantitatives et demande de collaborations avec tout autre organisation pertinente d’autre part, impliquant une grande diversité d’organismes.
The process blends two types of approaches: requests for access to information, personal or else, on the one hand; and research based on qualitative or quantitative methods along with requests for collaboration with any relevant organizations on the other, which often involve very diverse organizations.
In most cases, the research process depends on establishing a certain amount of personal information about the children being sought, as to then retrace their trajectory and try to document the circumstances of their death or their disappearance more transversally.
On what types of sources do you most often rely?
The sources used vary depending on the stage of the proposed research and the institutions concerned. Among these sources, family memory and information collected from some members of the children’s original community are of paramount importance. Family members and elders often provide valuable insight that helps guide research in a fundamental way.
Medical records, administrative documents, and hospital admission, discharge, and death records can be useful during certain stages of research, as are documents held by civil registry offices, parish and cemetery records, and the archival collections of religious orders (correspondence, registers, photographic collections, journals, records, etc.), as well as various collections held by Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Library and Archives Canada, etc.
What types of information can you generally uncover?
This is another area where it is difficult to draw out any broad patterns in the research findings. However, after five years of research since the Act took effect, the Direction has found that it can regularly uncover medical information about the children, like documents from one or more hospitalizations, information regarding their births, baptisms, and deaths, as well as information on their burial sites.
It is sometimes possible to find witnesses, but that is not as frequent considering the time frames where these deaths or disappearances occurred. More general details on the practices of the time in terms of care, transport or burial are being gathered to best answer the questions that families might have.
Inversely, what type of information is most challenging to find?
As an example, although the Direction de soutien aux familles regularly finds information on the general burial site of the children, information on the precise location of an individual grave within a specific cemetery is much rarer and more difficult to obtain due to the burial practices of the time and the limited availability of detailed maps for the relevant years. The children were often buried in communal or mass graves in some cemeteries located far from the children’s original community, making it impossible to locate their specific remains, which has a major impact on the capacity of their communities to collect and bring back them, when they want to do so.
Similarly, while medical documents are often found by the Direction de soutien aux familles concerning the children being sought, they are often fragmentary. Each missing piece of information has consequences for the journey of the families we support, and often carries heavy meaning.
The Direction seems to focus quite a bit on adapting its approach to each family it supports. What have you put in place to guarantee this flexibility?
There is a close partnership between the Direction de soutien aux familles and Awacak — Little Beings of Light, which ensures that families receive support that is culturally and linguistically tailored to each stage of the research process. Families can request to be accompanied by interpreters of their choice, as well as by any person they wish to have provide emotional or spiritual support during the meetings.
In all cases, the families remain at the core of the research process: the process and the methodology in their entirety are developed and centred on the questions and the needs of the family members.
Moreover, the family who makes the request are given ownership of the documents and information collected during the research. These are transferred to the family as they are uncovered. The families can also decide to put an end to the research at any time. Finally, if they want it, a memorial service in memory of their child can bring the process to a close.
And to wrap up, how would you describe the importance of access to this information for the families?
This question should really be addressed to the families, as they are the only ones who can really answer that question. The Direction de soutien aux familles is very sensitive to avoid speaking for the families, so that their voice can be heard. The meetings with the families concern truth, dignity and justice, but they also hold immense sadness, anger and grief…
To Go Further
Do you want to learn more about structuring projects in the field of documentary research that put the First Nations at the heart of their focus? We recommend Finding Better Words and Digital Publishing to Support Indigenous Knowledge.
If you want to go further, here are some articles (in French) that you might find thought-provoking:
Lemay-Perreault, R., Paquin, M. & Desgagné, G. (2023). Residential schools in Canada: The commemoration of sensitive spaces of memory aiming for reconciliation. Muséologies, 10(2), 129–144. https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1108042ar
Sébastien Grammond & Christiane Guay (2016). Issues in research on Aboriginal children and families. Enfances, Familles, Générations, (25). https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1039496ar
Wattez, P. (2022). Indigenous Peoples and heritage in Canada: colonial principles, ontological conflicts, and heritage governance. Revue d’études autochtones, 52(3), 63–73. https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1110699ar