VANCOUVER – Today, West Coast LEAF released a report setting out the experiences of Indigenous families who have had engagement with the provincial child welfare system. Pathways in a Forest: Indigenous guidance on prevention-based child welfare highlights efforts by Indigenous families, communities, and Nations to revitalize Indigenous approaches to child welfare, develop comprehensive community-based supports, and fight … Read more Release: New report: Indigenous families share their vision for transforming the failings of BC’s child protection system
What does a feminist education look like to you? We’d like to think it includes teaching students about justice, encouraging critical thinking about power and inequality, and giving young people tools that they can use to help themselves and others to live happily and freely. With the addition of a social justice elective for grade 12 students and the work being … Read more Five ways to bring feminism into the high school classroom
VANCOUVER – Today, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that West Coast LEAF’s case seeking to increase access to justice for women and others fleeing abuse or violent relationships can go ahead. The rights group brought the case in 2017, arguing that the Provincial government and the Legal Services Society (“LSS”) have failed to … Read more Release: They didn’t stop us: Legal aid constitutional challenge going full steam ahead
In June 2019, West Coast LEAF made submissions to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services urging the government of BC to commit in Budget 2020 to making financial supports more accessible for families dealing with the child protection system and those in informal kinship care arrangements. Read our submissions. Submissions
“My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back.”- Louis Riel The above quote from Metis leader Louis Riel has been resonating with me, as I reflect on the incredible richness of the Indigenous arts scene across Turtle Island (North America) and … Read more A mixtape to celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day
One of the ways that West Coast LEAF uses the law as a tool for social change is through public legal education. Our public legal education program encourages people to think critically about the law and society, and to understand and exercise their legal rights. For the last 20 years, part of the way we conduct our … Read more Celebrating 20 Years of Youth-to-Youth Legal Education
In BC, most applications for family law legal aid are denied outright or the legal support…
For decades, Indigenous advocates across Canada have been calling for changes to the child protection system…
This morning, West Coast LEAF is at the BC Supreme Court to defend our case against the Province of BC (“The Province”) and the Legal Services Society (“LSS”) for their failure to provide adequate family law legal aid for women fleeing violent relationships. West Coast LEAF brought the case on behalf of the Centre for Family Equity (CFE), … Read more Release: Advocacy group: Government is wrong to stand in the way of legal aid challenge
“As a parent of a young child, I find that there are two kinds of opportunities for learning about social justice with kids. The first are the learning moments when an opportunity arises to talk to my kid about the impacts of discrimination and injustice—for example, talking about why we wear orange shirts on Orange Shirt … Read more Kids’ books for social justice: learning and unlearning
