Every Child Matters: A Personal Reflection

FROM WHERE I STAND 🧡Every Child Matters

When I think about Every Child Matters the first person I think of is my mother. My mother attended Indian Day School. She rarely spoke about those experiences with us—or, at least, not in ways I was old enough to fully understand at the time. I didn't even know this was the type of school she attended until long after she passed.

I was only 21 years old when she passed away.

Unfortunately, there are many things about her story that I will never know.

But there are things I do know.

Through stories told about her and through watching her over the years, she taught me to bring children to the forefront. The stories of her protecting her brothers in her young years. The difficult decisions she made to protect herself and later, to ensure that we, her children, were out of harm's way to the best of her ability. The way she would crawl to the floor to spend what precious time she had left with her grandson, even when she was so ill, knowing she wouldn't be able to get back up on her own. She lived her life with children's best interests at heart. I know deeply that protecting children was a core value of hers.

And I have carried that with me.

As a mother, aunty & friend, I have tried to protect the children in my life to the best of my ability, knowing it hasn't always been perfect and knowing I have made mistakes along the way. Yet, always returning to their needs, first and foremost.

As a therapist, I have had the privilege of watching children and youth navigate circumstances they never should have had to navigate. I have witnessed their incredible resilience—and I have also felt a deep sadness at how often children are placed in situations that put them at risk unnecessarily. I have done what I can to help them find their way to their truth, their voices and to a place of wellness.

Children are so vulnerable to adults' words, our choices, our energy and the environments we create around them.

Their spirits are gifts given to us by Creator.

When I think about what happened to generations of Indigenous children through residential schools, day schools, assimilation, neglect, violence and the many ways children were silenced, it is not difficult for me to understand why the impacts of colonialism continue to be felt across Indigenous communities today.

And yet, I also see our communities flourishing. I see strength. I see culture being reclaimed. I see children learning who they are. I see people reconnecting and creating something different for the generations coming forward.

For me, Every Child Matters is not simply about remembering what happened to children, though of course this is important. It is also about asking ourselves:

How are we treating the children in front of us today?

Are their voices heard?

Are they respected?

Do they feel safe enough to be themselves?

Are we helping them trust their own knowing?

As a mother, one of the things I want most for my children is for them to know that their voices matter—that they are heard, respected and understood.

And I want them to learn to offer that same presence to others.

To meet people in their true essence.

To allow others to be fully themselves.

To offer our own true essence to the world, while making room for the essence of others.

This is part of the vision behind Sacred Reconnections.

Because I believe healing is not only about what we do with what has happened to us.

It is also about what we choose to create from here.

Every child matters. And what we offer them matters.