Archive for the ‘Child & Family Policy Context’ Category
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Trying to avert two Ontario child-welfare deaths a week
Friday, July 31st, 2020
… in 2016, 121 children or youth involved in the system, including those who recently aged out, had died. In 2017, it was 126, in 2018 it was 126 again, and in 2019, 99… But some of the issues… are much broader than those in the child-welfare system. Data is siloed in ways that complicate co-ordination and planning… There are major regional inequalities in available services… “The pandemic really highlighted some of the long-standing issues in the system”…
Tags: housing, Indigenous, mental Health, multiculturalism, youth
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We need to strengthen publicly funded homecare in time for winter
Tuesday, July 21st, 2020
High-quality homecare can help people transition more quickly and smoothly from hospital to home. It can help avoid potential readmissions but also reduce the number of admissions in the first place, keeping our hospital capacity open for potential COVID-19 cases. Better publicly funded homecare can also delay or avoid a transition to long-term care.
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I was Stephen Harper’s criminal justice adviser. But I now think Canada should decriminalize drugs
Saturday, July 11th, 2020
Conservative politicians bear much blame for demonizing people who use drugs – derisively calling them “junkies” and “addicts” – opposing life-saving measures such as supervised drug-use sites and “safe supply,” and fearmongering for votes about drug decriminalization. Politicians must know that their action and inaction is continuing to cost lives. History will judge them for it.
Tags: crime prevention, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, youth
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Canada updates law to allow non-biological legal parents to pass on their citizenship to children
Friday, July 10th, 2020
…in the past, children born abroad to Canadians were automatically granted citizenship if they met one of two conditions: If there was a genetic link between the parent and the child or if the parent gave birth to the child. From now on… the government will allow non-biological legal parents to pass on their Canadian citizenship… including the LGBTQ+ community and parents experiencing infertility issues
Tags: child care, ideology, rights
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Their lives have been defined by trauma. Why kick kids out of foster care and group homes when they turn 18?
Monday, July 6th, 2020
Until COVID-19, it was the rule — now suspended until Dec. 31 — that youth in care must move out of their foster or group home when they hit 18 and live independently, whether they are ready or not… “Too many young people ‘age out’ to poverty, to homelessness. It’s a pipeline to the criminal justice system for some. And it exacerbates mental health conditions,” says Ratnam, co-founder of the non-profit Ontario Children’s Advancement Coalition (OCAC).
Tags: budget, ideology, youth
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Nursing Home Fatalities Expose Weakness in Long-Term Care Provision
Wednesday, June 17th, 2020
While there is not a “one-size-fits-all” solution to improving the safety of residential care, some common factors should be addressed over the long-term: the dependence on part-time and contract workers, consistent underfunding relative to hospitals, lower wage rates, among others.
Tags: Health, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living
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In the stay-at-home era, why have we so sorely neglected home care?
Tuesday, June 16th, 2020
The carnage in congregate care… obliges us to rethink elder care fundamentally. A good starting point is prioritizing home care. Ontario… has a $64-billion annual health care budget, of which $3-billion goes to home care and $4.3-billion to long-term care. (Individuals supplement those costs, often paying thousands of dollars out of pocket.) There are a little less than 100,000 residents in long-term care, and more than 700,000 who get home-care services.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, standard of living
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A strong child-care system is essential to our recovery from the pandemic
Monday, June 15th, 2020
Early learning and child care is a powerful equalizer, narrowing achievement gaps that emerge before children even start school. Educational child care is needed more than ever to help families address the trauma of the pandemic, to support parent employment and to ensure children aren’t left behind.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, participation, standard of living, women
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‘Defund the police’ should be a conservative rallying cry, too
Sunday, June 14th, 2020
Police forces… are an expensive and wasteful way to make people feel secure. Crime rates in cities have been plummeting for decades, and in most big cities are at historic lows. Yet the number of cops, and the cost of policing, has not fallen, nor has anger at police discrimination… A smart policy would use a small professional force for things that police do well…
Tags: budget, crime prevention, featured, ideology
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Less crime, more policing: This disconnect must be fixed
Wednesday, June 10th, 2020
The bottom line is that we spent decades constructing police forces that are expensive, over-militarized and not best suited to the tasks they face in the third decade of the 21st century. In too many situations, they are making things worse, not better. Reformers have been calling for change for a long time, and public pressure may now finally give the politicians the courage to start fixing the problem.
Tags: budget, crime prevention, featured, ideology, Indigenous, multiculturalism
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