The Child Welfare TRUTH-Telling Collective began as a core group of six White settlers with experiences of working in the child welfare system in Ontario, Canada. In 2019, we were teaching a child welfare course to undergraduate social work students. During discussions about how to best prepare students for the realities of child welfare work, we came to the realization that much of our own truth
about doing this work had not been spoken. We also became acutely aware of a deep yearning to speak truth about our experiences. Over time, we found our way to more honest, uninhibited and non-performative dialogues. In particular, we spoke openly about the aspects of our work which we found deeply troubling. For many of us, there have been no spaces inside child welfare systems, or elsewhere, for these conversations. In the spring of 2020, we founded the Child Welfare TRUTH-Telling Collective (CWTTC). We are unsettled by our work in systems of child welfare and the ways we have benefitted from this work, and, for some of us, our White and settler privileges. For those of us who identify as White settlers, our responsibilities are front of mind in light of the ‘Calls to Action’ which were issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015. We are seeking greater consciousness about how, in creating and upholding child welfare’s structures, we are complicit in colonization.
