Ontario launches review following Ford criticism of children’s aid societies
Posted on October 23, 2024 in Child & Family Delivery System
Source: TheStar.com — Authors: Allison Jones
TheStar.com – News/Ontario
Oct. 9, 2024. By Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
TORONTO – Ontario launched a review of the province’s 37 non-Indigenous children’s aid societies Wednesday after Premier Doug Ford suggested they are being financially mismanaged, but the unions representing CAS workers say it is a mere “smokescreen.”
Officials with the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services say the review will look at issues such as the quality of protection the societies provide and their finances. As part of a background briefing Wednesday, they provided graphs that show annual funding for the sector steadily increased over the past decade to $1.7 billion this year, even as the number of children in care declined.
Ford indicated last week that his government was doing an audit, as he railed against “nightmare stories about the abuse of taxpayers’ money.” Officials said the process to look for an outside contractor to conduct the review was starting on Wednesday.
“I’ve heard stories of some of these agencies, they’re working in Taj Mahals, they’re paying rent, $100,000 for rent, that the managers are giving themselves a bonus,” Ford said in response to a question at an unrelated press conference.
“All those managers giving yourself a bonus, not worrying about the kids, I’m coming for you. We’re doing a complete audit, and if we see funds not being spent properly on the kids, guess what? You’re looking for another job.”
The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies said it was disappointed Ford did not address the question of what the government was doing about reports of children’s aid societies housing kids in hotels or offices because placements weren’t available.
There are systemic barriers to providing services for kids with complex needs, the association wrote in a statement following Ford’s press conference.
“This type of work is intensive, demanding significant time and resources,” the group wrote.
“Additionally, the types of cases child welfare agencies encounter are becoming more and more complex. In a recent survey, 39 child welfare agencies reported that the number of children or youth requiring high-cost care (i.e., over $200,000 per year) has seen a significant increase over the past three years, doubling from 174 in 2021-2022 to 354 in 2023-2024.”
Ministry officials who provided the background briefing on the review said societies’ deficits are continuing to rise and the audit will examine the underlying issues and possible solutions.
The officials, who spoke on condition they not be identified, said the review will focus on service quality, consistency of services, out-of-home placements, finances, executive compensation, staffing models, cost structures, capital assets and integration with community supports.
Minister Michael Parsa said the review is part of other, ongoing efforts to try to improve the child welfare system.
“We’ll see unprecedented funding, and then we’ll see (cases) where a youth was placed in a home that failed a fire safety requirement, one that their food was restricted, and as a result they were injured after being restrained. Or in some cases, where funding is being used for unrelated programming, straining the budget of the agencies,” Parsa said in an interview.
“This is all part of the process to make sure that their supports and the funding and the investments that are being made are utilized accordingly, appropriately, to protect children and youth in our province.”
Ontario began an overhaul of the child welfare system four years ago, with a focus on keeping more families together and strengthening prevention and early intervention supports, but the unions representing CAS workers said there is little to show for it.
“It’s clear the announced audit is another smokescreen to distract from the government’s abject failure to support children and families while opening the door for more privatization in the sector,” the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and CUPE Ontario said in a joint statement.
“We need to end the for-profit models in all residential care facilities, and introduce province-wide licensing of group homes, to ensure our services place children at the centre of care,” OPSEU president JP Hornick wrote.
NDP critic Monique Taylor said action, not another review, is what’s needed.
“They have been reviewing for five years, but what do they have to show for it?” she wrote in a statement.
“Is this the best we can do after having hundreds of children lose their lives in our broken system? What does this review do for children like Neveah and Katelynn?”
Four-year-old Neveah Tucker, who police identified more than a year after her remains were found in a Toronto dumpster in May 2022, was in the child welfare system, the Toronto Star has reported.
Katelynn Sampson was killed in 2008 by her guardians. A coroner’s inquest into her death heard that several agencies, including the Children’s Aid Society, missed opportunities to help the Toronto girl before her death despite knowing her guardians had previous criminal convictions.
https://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/ontario-launches-review-following-ford-criticism-of-childrens-aid-societies/article_a8bd47a4-e876-5741-a138-87aaf9c2ffb1.html
Tags: child care, jurisdiction, mental Health, youth
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7 Responses to “Ontario launches review following Ford criticism of children’s aid societies”
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I am a student in the Social Service Work program, and I would like to share my thoughts on this article. The primary focus of this article is the suspected mismanagement of taxpayer money in the child welfare system in Ontario. This is a very important issue for me because this mismanagement of funds is taking money from children in need to give managers bonuses. It is devastating to read the stories of these children who were failed by the child welfare system, especially the children who died preventable deaths. With over 1.7 Billion dollars in funding, the child welfare system needs to be scrutinized when it fails to protect children and even, in some cases, puts children directly in harm.
These problems need to be addressed, and the first step seems to be the audit. Conducting this audit will hopefully provide the next steps to ensure funds are used properly and that children and families are put first. As an aspiring Social Service Worker, I hope this audit brings to light any financial mismanagement and puts an end to it. In the future, I would like to work for an organization that values integrity and the protection of children, and I hope that by the time I graduate, these issues can be addressed further.
In conclusion, this audit seems to be desperately needed. The Child Welfare system in Ontario is being financially mismanaged. The number of children in the system has decreased over the years, and the funding has increased, yet we still see frequent failures on the part of CAS in providing safe care. All of these factors make it imperative to take action and right the budget and better protect children.
A review of Children’s Aid Societies can have a massive impact on my future practice as a Social Service Worker. This review may impact the CAS negatively which will have impact on many and a lot of individuals. It will impact the lives of Social Service Workers, CAS employees and Higher ups, children in the care of CAS agencies, and CAS as the whole organization. Depending on the result of the review, there will be changes in how the CAS will operate, its policies and operation system can be changed or reformed, the budget of the CAS will be cut-off compare to the past. This will have a massive impact on how the CAS as an organization will operate and how the Social Service Worker working for CAS will have to approach Child protection. We may have to change our way of doing future practices, our mentality, and our approach. We have focus more on ethical decision making, trauma-informed practices, more focus on review and investigation family background to provide better care and safety to the children under CAS’s care as not to repeat the situation of Neveah Tucker and Katelynn Sampson. We will have to work under more transparent system and environment. The review will force the agencies to spent the budget the appropriately which can help in creating a better environment and support system for children’s aid. Depending on the result of review, we may end up working in agencies that will change and adapt to new and improved policies. This can bring changes in the Social Service Work and impact my future practices.
A review of Children’s Aid Societies can have a massive impact on my future practice as a Social Service Worker. This review may impact the CAS negatively which will have impact on many and a lot of individuals. It will impact the lives of Social Service Workers, CAS employees and Higher ups, children in the care of CAS agencies, and CAS as the whole organization. Depending on the result of the review, there will be changes in how the CAS will operate, its policies and operation system can be changed or reformed, the budget of the CAS will be cut-off compare to the past. This will have a massive impact on how the CAS as an organization will operate and how the Social Service Worker working for CAS will have to approach Child protection. We may have to change our way of doing future practices, our mentality, and our approach. We have focus more on ethical decision making, trauma-informed practices, more focus on review and investigation of family background to provide better care and safety to the children under CAS’s care and foster care, as not to repeat the situation of Neveah Tucker and Katelynn Sampson again. We will have to work under more transparent system and environment. The review will force the agencies to spend the budget the appropriately which can help in creating a better environment and support system for children’s aid. Depending on the result of review, we may end up working in agencies that will change and adapt to new and improved policies. This can bring changes in the Social Service Work and impact my future practices.
A review of Children’s Aid Societies can have a massive impact on my future practice as a Social Service Worker. This review may impact the CAS negatively which will have impact on many and a lot of individuals. It will impact the lives of Social Service Workers, CAS employees and Higher ups, children in the care of CAS agencies, and CAS as the whole organization. Depending on the result of the review, there will be changes in how the CAS will operate, its policies and operation system can be changed or reformed, the budget of the CAS will be cut-off compared to the past. This will have a massive impact on how the CAS as an organization will operate and how the Social Service Worker working for CAS will have to approach Child protection. We may have to change our way of doing future practices, our mentality, and our approach. We have focus more on ethical decision making, trauma-informed practices, more focus on review and investigation of family background to provide better care and safety to the children under CAS’s care and foster care, as not to repeat the situation of Neveah Tucker and Katelynn Sampson again. We will have to work under more transparent system and environment. The review will force the agencies to spend the budget the appropriately which can help in creating a better environment and support system for children’s aid. Depending on the result of review, we may end up working in agencies that will change and adapt to new and improved policies. This can bring changes in the Social Service Work and impact my future practices.
A review of Children’s Aid Societies can have a massive impact on my future practice as a Social Service Worker. This review may impact the CAS negatively which will have impact on many and a lot of individuals. It will impact the lives of Social Service Workers, CAS employees and Higher ups, children in the care of CAS agencies, and CAS as the whole organization. Depending on the result of the review, there will be changes in how the CAS will operate, its policies and operation system can be changed or reformed, the budget of the CAS will be cut-off compare to the past. This will have a massive impact on how the CAS as an organization will operate and how the Social Service Worker working for CAS will have to approach Child protection. We may have to change our way of doing future practices, our mentality, and our approach. We have focus more on ethical decision making, trauma-informed practices, more focus on review and investigation family background to provide better care and safety to the children under CAS’s care. We will have to work under more transparent system and environment. The review will force the agencies to spend the budget the appropriately which can help in creating a better environment and support system for children’s aid. Depending on the result of review, we may end up working in agencies that will change and adapt to new and improved policies. This can bring changes in the Social Service Work and impact my future practices.
This is insane, especially when it comes to Neveah and Katelynn. The fact that their children and they had a full lives ahead of them, it makes a grown man cry. I did a presentation on it and I noticed that some people as I was talking about these 2 with the pictures, it make some people cry. The fact that the managers are also giving themselves raises over helping these poor children is also a very disappointing fact. I feel like the CAS doesn’t need to necessarily be stopped but more improved and bettered. The issues revolving around CAS can easily be solved with some training like if the workers got trained in the Indigenous ways or if they got taught some indigenous teachings or traditions. It would also help if the government and managers wouldn’t keep giving themselves raises and they’d maybe build new buildings or something like that. It just hurts me to see what these children go through on a daily basis and throughout their lives when it comes to the CAS and whatnot. This issue will impact social service workers worldwide because these are the people we will be taking care of in the future, and this is who will take care of us in the future.
Reading about the issue in Ontario’s child welfare system makes me feel frustrated and sad. While I understand that financial accountability is important, it seems like the government is focusing on the wrong things. The main problem is not about high office rent it is about the children who are being neglected because the system does not have enough resources to care for them properly. I believe that children who are in care deserve us to give them the best support, and it is upsetting to think about the children who are being placed in hotels because there are not enough homes available. I can’t imagine what it is like for them. The workers trying their best and working hard are let down by the system that should be helping them. I think that Ontario needs not just another review, but real changes that will make a difference. More funding, better support for families, and stronger care for kids with complex needs are what we should focus on. It is hard to watch the government talk about financial issues, but the real problem is that vulnerable children aren’t getting the help they need. I truly feel that we need to prioritize children’s well-being over everything else and make sure they are safe and properly cared for. Without these changes, this review might just end up being another delay in making the real importance that is desperately needed.