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Articles by Sherry Gott
Meeting the needs of disabled Indigenous children
Navigating Manitoba’s disability services is difficult under the best circumstances. For Indigenous families, access is further constrained by geography, poverty, jurisdictional confusion, and culturally-inappropriate systems that do not reflect Indigenous approaches to raising and supporting children. Culturally-insensitive intakes, assessments, and treatments in Manitoba also contribute to misunderstanding, misdiagnosis, and inappropriate service responses across the province.
Ready or not: youth aging out of care
For most young people, the transition to adulthood is gradual. Many parents continue providing housing, financial assistance, emotional support and practical guidance long after their children turns 18. Youth in care face the same pressures as other young people their age, except they navigate those transitions without stable family relationships, financial resources or informal support. For youth with disabilities aging out of care, the adjustment to adulthood is intensified.
Ready or not: youth aging out of care
For most young people, the transition to adulthood is gradual. Many parents continue providing housing, financial assistance, emotional support and practical guidance long after their children turns 18. Youth in care face the same pressures as other young people their age, except they navigate those transitions without stable family relationships, financial resources or informal support. For youth with disabilities aging out of care, the adjustment to adulthood is intensified.
We know who is at risk, but we wait anyway
Children with disabilities are experiencing a mental health crisis and Manitoba’s systems are waiting for them to really struggle before they respond. Across Canada, children with disabilities experience far higher rates of mental health challenges than their peers. Nearly three-quarters of children and youth with disabilities experience elevated mental health challenges.
Manitoba misses the mark in creating inclusive classrooms
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes that all children have the right to an education that helps them reach their full potential. It should develop their personalities, talents and mental and physical abilities. Actualizing these rights in the classroom, however, is not as easy in practice. Every classroom includes learners with different strengths, challenges, identities and experiences.
Manitoba misses mark in creating inclusive classrooms
THE United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes that all children have the right to an education that helps them reach their full potential. It should develop their personalities, talents and mental and physical abilities. Actualizing these rights in the classroom, however, is not as easy in practice. Every classroom includes learners with different strengths, challenges, identities and experiences.
Families shouldn’t have to fight this hard for help
Receiving a diagnosis is the first of many hard steps in the lifetimes of young people who live with disabilities and their families. What comes next for many families in Manitoba who have a child with a disability is often a harsh reality, plagued by uncertainty, further delays, difficult decisions, gaps in service, and difficulties accessing even the most basic support for their children.
Meet students where they are
They are neurological conditions that affect how we process information and engage with the world around us. Dyslexia affects reading, dysgraphia impacts writing and dyscalculia affects math. Others struggle with executive functioning, affecting memory, attention, planning and organization. Because they are not easily seen, learning disabilities can be overlooked or misinterpreted. Many children with learning disabilities learn to cope. They work harder, stay up later, and find ways to get by.
Children living with disabilities deserve better
Let me paint a picture for you — that of a child with learning and behavioural challenges, struggling to be fully included at school. A caregiver seeking advocacy to access diapers for a child with physical challenges. A child needing early intervention, but diagnostic wait times making access to support unfeasible. These are just a few real experiences faced far too often by far too many families in Manitoba. Disability is not only a medical condition, but a social one as well.
Opinion: Making infant sleep environments as safe as possible
Every year in Canada and around the world, families are devastated by the loss of an infant sleeping peacefully yet never waking. These heartbreaking tragedies, known as sleep-related infant deaths, encompass SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), accidental suffocation, and other unexplained causes.
Opinion: Manitoba’s child sexual exploitation epidemic
Children are not commodities, yet every day in Manitoba, they are exploited, manipulated, coerced and sold for sex. Predators in positions of trust, authority, or dependency — such as coaches, teachers, caregivers and community members — groom children, cross boundaries to engage in sexual abuse, pressure them to send explicit photos or lure them into online sexual acts.
Opinion: Manitoba’s child sexual exploitation epidemic
Children are not commodities, yet every day in Manitoba, they are exploited, manipulated, coerced, and sold for sex. Predators in positions of trust, authority, or dependency — such as coaches, teachers, caregivers, and community members — groom children, cross boundaries to engage in sexual abuse, pressure them to send explicit photos, or lure them into online sexual acts.
Manitoba must update exploitation protections
We mourn the tragic loss of Rebecca Contois, Morgan Beatrice Harris, Marcedes Myran and Buffalo Woman, rising amidst calls for action and a national state of emergency for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and LGBTTQ+ people. Indigenous nations across the county are enraged at the lack of response by all levels of government.
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