Children and Youth — Issue No. 14 — Wednesday, May 7, 2008 (HTML)

2008 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 38th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH
MINUTES AND HANSARD

Ron Cantelon, MLA
Chair

Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Clerk Assistant and
Committee Clerk

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH



CONTENTS

		Page

Office of the Representative for Children and Youth		181
	M. Turpel-Lafond

Ministry of Children and Family Development Action and Operational Plans		183
	L. du Toit
	A. Markwart
	M. Sieben
	R. Mjolsness
	D. Foxcroft
	S. Griffin

Committee Report to the House		203

Chair:	* Ron Cantelon (Nanaimo-Parksville L)
Deputy Chair:	* Nicholas Simons (Powell River–Sunshine Coast NDP)
Members:	* Bill Bennett (East Kootenay L) * Dennis MacKay (Bulkley Valley–Stikine L) * Mary Polak (Langley L) * Valerie Roddick (Delta South L) * John Rustad (Prince George–Omineca L) * Jagrup Brar (Surrey–Panorama Ridge NDP) * Maurine Karagianis (Esquimalt-Metchosin NDP) * Leonard Krog (Nanaimo NDP) * denotes member present

Other MLAs:	John Horgan (Malahat–Juan de Fuca NDP)
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Committee Staff:	Jonathan Fershau

Witnesses:

Lesley du Toit (Deputy Minister of Children and Family Development)
Debra Foxcroft (Ministry of Children and Family Development)
Sandra Griffin (Ministry of Children and Family Development)
Alan Markwart (Ministry of Children and Family Development)
Randi Mjolsness (Ministry of Children and Family Development)
Mark Sieben (Ministry of Children and Family Development)
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (Representative for Children and Youth)

R. Cantelon (Chair): We have a very full agenda today, so we'll begin shortly.

The first item on the agenda is that the representative, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, will update us on the work she's been doing in the next 15 to 20 minutes. She's accompanied by John Greschner and Martin Wright.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Good morning, everyone. As you indicated, I've got my two deputies with me. My other deputy, Andrew Robinson, is up in Prince George manning the fort, so we're delighted to be here this morning.

I just wanted to make some comments and provide a bit of an operational update on a few matters for the committee before you proceed to the business that is set for today.

With respect to the ongoing work of the representative's office, there are three items before the committee which require us to return to the committee. Firstly, the report that I tabled with the committee at our in-camera session on April 16, Amanda, Savannah, Rowen and Serena: From Loss to Learning, is before you for review in consideration of the recommendations. This is obviously arising from the investigations of the four deaths and the review of the 26 other deaths or injuries in the north region up to 2007.

That is an outstanding item of business which I hope we will be able to dedicate some time to in the near future to allow my office to go through the recommendations in some detail to explain the rationale for the recommendations.

Some of the recommendations that were included in the report from April are time-sensitive, insofar as we divide some recommendations that we felt would make some interim steps around public accountability, improvements to the audit program and an improved understanding of the actual outcomes for children in the child protection system in the north and potentially in all of British Columbia.

I appreciate that we've scheduled some sittings, and today we will not have the opportunity to go through those recommendations as I had hoped. In any event, they are before you. I'm hoping that at an early opportunity I will have the opportunity to go through these.

I also believe that part of that discussion and those recommendations may be aided by a more complete sharing of information from my office with committee members on the situation for children in the home of a relative, in particular the status of the Child in the Home of a Relative and how that program relates to child protection in British Columbia.

There have been some changes in that program as of December 2007. As we look forward with these recommendations — which call for some clearer reporting, monitoring and identification of the health, safety and well-being of these children — I think it would be valuable, in looking at the recommendations, for us to also bring you up to speed on the status of those changes and those children and how those children's files relate to the child protection system in some instances so there's a better understanding of the issue by the committee but also possibly by the public. So those items remain there.

On that I can also say, as many of the members will know, that yesterday there were two reports issued — one report by the Auditor General for Canada and one report by the Auditor General for British Columbia — and both of those are on the aboriginal child protection program. The federal Auditor looked at the federal funding and policy arrangements for aboriginal child protection, and Mr. Doyle in British Columbia looked at the delivery of that aboriginal child protection program and whether or not sufficient quality assurance, if you like, goes along with that program.

With respect to the federal report, I would bring to the attention of the committee that when you're reading the report, you will note that the federal Auditor General relies on a source with respect to the outcomes for children in care. That source is a report of the representative's office, which was adopted by this committee last year, on education outcomes of children in care.

In part I think that's a very significant point, insofar as in looking at the national level, the work of the representative's office and this committee was recognized as actually looking at some very significant issues of importance not only provincially and nationally…. That is how the children particularly served by the child protection system are doing.

Both of those reports which were released affirm the importance of better information on outcomes and note also that this information remains in extremely short supply. I think it would be valuable as well, in reviewing the recommendations in the report on the critical incidents from the north and the child protection system in the north, for us to highlight, in going through those recommendations, how they were framed with some of the very same considerations in mind, of course, because there is a great deal of consistency between those reports and the report of my office. So that one is before you.

Two other items are also before you as matters of ongoing business. The other item is the update that was scheduled for June on the priority recommendations that we identified from the Hughes review at our March 12, 2008, meeting. You'll recall that at that time I went through the subset of Hughes's recommendations that I felt was of most significance, which I had indicated to the minister and to the Ministry of Children and Families and which the representative's office will focus on this year. That is another item of business that requires us to come back.

I note, as well, that in the documents you'll be examining today, there is an update that's been provided by the Ministry of Children and Families on the Hughes review, which is an information update. I would just confirm for this committee that we will be providing a further examination of these issues for the committee, ideally in the near future, subject to the committee's schedule and availability. We will be using the same methodology that we used in the past in terms of assessing progress on these matters.

Thirdly, we filed on March 12, although we publicly released on February 26, 2008, as the committee was not yet struck at that time. We provided to the committee, after the public release on February 26, 2008, a monitoring brief on the system of supports for children and youth with special needs in British Columbia. I discussed this very briefly before the committee at our March meeting.

That monitoring brief included a set of desired outcomes, if you like, with respect to moving forward. It was difficult for the representative's office to monitor this area in full and produce a full report, as it was difficult to assess the issues of accessibility of that system. There has been some work that has proceeded since that monitoring brief was prepared and presented. I think it would be timely, as well, for the committee to be updated formally on those recommendations — which we haven't had a chance to go through — and the work in progress, the work to date on those and the items that remain of interest.

Obviously, as a monitoring brief, that's an area we will be looking at on an ongoing basis. All of the work we look at includes a subset of considerations around children and youth with special needs, but that is a dedicated brief that, again, is an outstanding item of business.

In conclusion on that point, I would just like to say that we have three outstanding reports which require some discussion. There is some other work that will be forthcoming, but obviously these are significant. Foremost among those is the report on the child protection system in northern British Columbia.

L. Krog: Have you had, or has your office had, any chance to look through the summary, if you will, of the response to the Hughes recommendations that we've been provided with this morning through the ministry?

M. Turpel-Lafond: I've had a chance to review the material that was provided in it. I think the most appropriate form for my comments would be to provide an analysis for the committee. Obviously, the role of my office, as an independent office, is to evaluate the matter. I've adopted a methodology that we use.

When the document was released, I did speak briefly with Minister Christensen to clarify for my understanding, because I hadn't seen the document prior to it being released. So I did speak to Minister Christensen, asking him if this meant that there would not be an opportunity for a joint report this year.

So I can't say with confidence to the committee that there will be a joint report. However, our work will proceed.

M. Karagianis: Mary Ellen, you talked about time sensitivity here in reviewing some of this work. Was it your expectation that at this meeting today we would be reviewing that initial report? What kind of sensitive time line do we have? Do we need to actually reconvene a meeting fairly quickly in order to deal with this issue and any of the other issues here? What is the time-sensitive nature of these?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, the recommendations in the report…. Because there was a sense of urgency, I felt, with respect to the report around what steps are being followed with respect to child safety, particularly on child protection…. It's only on the child protection issues.

Some of the recommendations, like recommendation 4, recommended that the ministry immediately strengthen the quality assurance program and report on these activities by October 2008. So my concern is that if the report is not considered and adopted, those time lines — if the committee members are persuaded that it's a valuable thing to have stronger public reporting — will not be achieved.

So if we tabled the report to some consideration later in September, say, some of those very basic items — such as providing regular updates around the audit program and enhancements to the audit program — may not be possible.

I think it would just be really valuable for us to, at an earlier opportunity, if it's at all possible for the members…. I appreciate your very busy legislative schedule, and the session is coming to a close. I think it would be extremely valuable, as a number of them are time-sensitive, including issues around reporting publicly on critical incidents to the public so the public will know more about the circumstances of individual critical incidents in all regions with respect to a child that may be injured or has died.

R. Cantelon (Chair): If I may add, we do have a meeting scheduled for June 10, and we'll be meeting next week to confirm the schedule with the Deputy Chair. It had been the intention at that time, as committee members remember, to consider a fulsome review of the Hughes report to date at that time.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I was just going to ask whether there was the effort for the collaboration on the Hughes recommendations. We've had your report. Now we've had the ministry response. I actually haven't been able to see if they agree with each other or if there are any differences.

That's what we would be able to prevent from happening if there was a joint report. It's more of a reiteration, I guess.

M. Turpel-Lafond: I think the challenge is that the ministry's information on the Hughes review…. It's helpful for us to see their assessment. It really includes two categories, which are "underway" or "implemented." Our methodology is different — also to look at where it is but, of course, also to collaborate.

We identified the key areas, and I know my deputy Martin Wright has been working with the ministry. I think one of the key areas for us with respect to this year was to look at that comprehensive set of performance measures and also, from strengthening the audit program, to have some more immediate reportables out with respect to how children are doing — moreover, with respect to the Hughes issues, to see an integrated quality assurance framework that would meet the requirements identified in the Hughes review.

J. Brar: Very quickly. You have listed a number of different items which are time-sensitive, and we need to have a meeting as quickly as possible. Can you tell us how much time you need for that?

M. Turpel-Lafond: I would say that the consideration or the adoption of the recommendations in the death report, in particular, would require a two-to-three-hour session. The Hughes review and update would take less than that. The update on the monitoring, the issues with respect to Community Living B.C., children and youth with special needs will probably take an equivalent amount of time. There is some work that's piled up to be….

J. Brar: Just quickly, if I can ask: can all the work be done in one meeting?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Of course, I'm completely at the disposal of the committee. I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to do that. It's very significant from my office that the work that is completed moves out, particularly around the report on children's deaths.

The recommendations in that report are fairly significant because that will impact other reports that might be forthcoming on other deaths. We don't really want to be in the situation where we're repeating a recommendation that was done before because we haven't had a chance to review it.

I'm quite confident that everybody around this table will meet as often as we need to meet to ensure that we have a positive impact. So if we need to come back after session, I'm sure we'll all be happy to do that.

B. Bennett: My question to you is: under what circumstances do you want to do joint reports with the ministry?

M. Turpel-Lafond: The circumstances…. Obviously, for an investigation of the death of a child, that would not be appropriate, because an investigation function has got to be an independent function. When it comes to monitoring aspects of the child-serving system, it's extremely valuable, I think, to do some joint reports.

I think the concept of the representative's office was that in addition to doing advocacy, which requires collaboration and work to support the children, and in addition to doing death and injury investigations and reviews, the monitoring of the effectiveness and the responsiveness of the system can be a joint initiative in many instances.

There are a variety of areas where I could see the great benefit in some joint work. The idea of a joint report on the Hughes review was something that I certainly promoted last year. It didn't come to pass. I still think there's an opportunity there, but I would say the sun is setting on that opportunity, given timeliness.

Other areas. There clearly is a great opportunity for joint work such as looking at child protection mediation, family group conferencing, some of the newer approaches — strengths-based approaches — to child protection. There's great opportunity to do, I think, some joint work which allows….

My office can do it independently, but I think it's of greater benefit to do it collaboratively. Unfortunately, we don't have an agenda of items that could be in that category, but I certainly would promote that.

R. Cantelon (Chair): Thank you, Mary Ellen, and thank you for coming today. We look forward to meeting with you again on some of these issues that you've raised.

We'll be meeting shortly next week, Deputy Chair, and laying out the schedule for the meetings. We have much work to do, and I'm sure all the committee members agree with Mr. Bennett that we look forward to doing this work, whatever time it takes.

R. Cantelon (Chair): I'd like to invite members of the ministry to come forward.

Welcome, Deputy Minister du Toit. I'd like to invite you to introduce the members of your ministry and give us an outline of how you intend to proceed.

L. du Toit: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll introduce from this side. Alan Markwart is the assistant deputy minister for provincial services. Mark Sieben is the assistant deputy minister for policy and legislation. Debra Foxcroft is the assistant deputy minister for aboriginal support services. Sandra Griffin is the assistant deputy minister for integrated quality assurance, and Randi Mjolsness is the director for special services.

We thought that the best way to go through this…. We do have quite substantial documents, and there's a consistency between the two documents related to the five pillars. So our plan is for me to just introduce those five pillars and then give members of the team, who have specific obligations and responsibilities and knowledge with regard to the five pillars, the opportunity to speak very briefly to each of the five pillars. Obviously, there will be opportunities for questions either in between or afterwards.

L. du Toit: Good morning to everybody. Firstly, just to introduce the first document, it's called the action plan, and it is Strong, Safe and Supported: A Commitment to B.C.’s Children and Youth. This we consider our high-level document that we will be continuously speaking to and ensuring that we are accountable to.

The second document that you have is the ministry's own operational plan, which again is consistent but is far more detailed in terms of how we hope to achieve what we have in the higher-level document.

One of the significant things, I think, at the beginning of this first document is that government has now made a commitment to put in place an integrated framework on children and youth across all the ministries that have a responsibility related to that. That integrated framework, as promised by the minister in his letter, will be completed by the end of this year. We're really looking forward to that so that we can collaborate between the different ministries.

We then have the five pillars. This speaks to the detail of the work that we want to do and have been doing. It also speaks to the philosophical underpinnings of the work that we do. There are significant shifts that are included in this. I'd like to just briefly go through each of them.

The first pillar focuses on prevention. This is a new piece of work. We've always done some work on prevention, but there's been a fairly small commitment on the part of this ministry, and an ability, to really undertake prevention work.

We do need significant resources to do that, and it's a new piece of how we go about doing our business. It's long-term work. Prevention isn't something that we can achieve in a very short period of time, but we believe it's absolutely critical to have some kind of focus, and increasingly so, on prevention.

Essentially, what we mean by that is that we strengthen families, children and youth within the community and ultimately strengthen the community. What we want to adopt is very much a community development approach and, within that, focus on very specific areas such as early childhood development. You'll hear a little bit about that when Alan Markwart speaks to that pillar.

Early intervention is a recognition we have already identified that children and youth are vulnerable. We do need to respond to that need, but we would prefer to use an approach that keeps the child or youth within their family and within their community context and keeps them safe within that as well as meets their needs, rather than taking them out and putting them into care or using particularly intrusive techniques and interventions with them.

Again, we have probably not got as much of that as we would hope for, and we are looking forward in the next couple of years to increasing that early intervention work we are doing. We will again speak to some of the methods that we have established over the last couple of years, but we are really going to put a great deal of work behind it to strengthen that piece.

Then the next piece is really at the heart of this ministry's work, and that is the intervention and the support. I do want to be clear that we are not only talking about child protection. Within this work that we're doing and within both documents, we are talking about all the ministry services to children and youth. When we talk about intervention, we are talking about making sure that we have our core focus on child protection, as is required under the act, but that we pay equal attention to child and youth mental health issues, to children with special needs, to children who are in the early childhood area of our work.

We also have the youth justice piece, which from time to time gets overlooked within the broader range of services that we actually deliver. There is quite often that very focused piece on child protection and less focus on the other pieces. We intend to integrate, to the extent that is possible, across a continuum and ensure that children receive services based on the identification of their needs.

We do clarify what we see to be both the basic and universal needs of children, and we intend to deliver that service to children based on a thorough assessment of their needs and on how those needs would be met over a period of time. We believe that meeting those needs is what will bring the outcomes for children that are most desired.

Each child is unique; however, each child has similar universal needs and basic needs. We are fairly strong that it is our responsibility to meet the needs of those children, particularly the most vulnerable, and to hold ourselves accountable — and accountable to the public — on meeting those needs of children and thus bringing about the developmental outcomes for children that are needed.

The fourth pillar is the aboriginal approach. It essentially focuses on how we can deliver more effective services to aboriginal children and families, both on reserve and off reserve, and how it is that we can take, together with aboriginal people, an approach that fits for aboriginal people, that is grounded in culture and tradition and that enables aboriginal people themselves to take the lead and, with our support and with sufficient resources, actually meet the needs of their children.

Again, we're looking at a community context. First nations people and Métis people work within a collective

culture, not an individual culture, and we take it fairly seriously that we should be working in the context of communities and families and keeping children within their families to the extent possible but, if not, keeping children connected to their communities, connected to their culture and traditions, which is one significant way of meeting first nations children's needs.

The fifth pillar is quality assurance. You did hear the representative talk about quality assurance. It has been raised in various reports that have been done with regard to the ministry. We take those reports very seriously. I personally take quality assurance very seriously, as does the rest of the team.

We believe that we need to strengthen our quality assurance work. We also believe that we need to take an integrated approach so that we are not doing bits and pieces all over the place where people cannot see the body of knowledge and data that needs to be presented. We also need to draw from that data, learn the lessons and be able to improve our work. To that end, we've in fact set up an entire new team within the ministry to focus on integrated quality assurance, and you will hear more about that from Sandra Griffin, who is the ADM.

I do want to just — before I move on to the team, each speaking to one of the pillars — point out that at the back of the operational plan, as has been alluded to this morning, there is a report from the ministry on Hughes. I want to make it clear that that is not a response to the representative's report. It is simply this ministry's update on the work that we have done to date on Hughes.

We will continue to update, at the back of our operational plan, on a regular basis, the work that we're doing and the progress that we are making. We have not yet had the opportunity to come before this committee and respond to the report that was presented from the representative on Hughes.

Then lastly, I'll say that we take the issue of reporting out, both to the public and to this committee, very seriously. We will be updating both these plans — the operational plan, together with Hughes — every six months.

We need to consider that the operational plan is a living document. There will be stakeholders, people with whom we work and, of course, our own ministry staff who will be saying from time to time: "These are the reasons why we need to speed this up," or "These are the reasons why we cannot do this," or "You've missed something, Deputy Minister, and you need to have it included in your operational plan." Every six months we will ensure that the plan is updated and is presented or placed up on the website together with a progress report.

That is our commitment: to be vigilant about reporting out and to do it on a regular basis, both to the public and to this committee, if we are given that opportunity.

R. Cantelon (Chair): Thank you. I'll pause there if there are any questions to the deputy. If not, then we'll proceed.

A. Markwart: Appropriately, the first pillar is prevention, which begs the question: what is prevention? The document defines prevention as: "Programs or actions which strengthen communities, families and young people, enabling them to meet their needs and cope effectively with challenges and barriers, thereby increasing resilience. These programs decrease the chance of vulnerability and increase the chances of well-being and healthy development."

The first and second pillars are prevention and early intervention. Sometimes the lines of demarcation between prevention and early intervention are not always entirely clear. More simply put, prevention is simply taking measures or steps so that a problem doesn't occur in the first place, whereas early intervention is programs or measures that are taken after a problem or vulnerability has been identified in order to mitigate the effects of that.

If we use fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as an example, we may have public education and awareness programs and prenatal public health education and care programs for pregnant moms-to-be in order to prevent the occurrence of FASD in the first place, whereas early intervention would be the early diagnosis of FASD and early intervention programs like infant development workers, key workers and parent support and training in order to mitigate the secondary effects or outcomes of a child who actually has FASD.

Prevention programs can be directed and targeted to all ages across the age span, literally from preconception and prenatally to adults. Prevention programs can be either universal — namely, that they're directed at the entire population — or they can be targeted — namely, that they are targeted to a specific at-risk population that is known to be at risk for a particular problem or issue.

I'd like to give you two examples of existing prevention programs that are currently operated by the ministry, both of which are universal in the sense that they are targeted to the entire child population.

One of them is called Friends for Life program. It's a universal program. We deliver this in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and school boards. It's part of the child and youth mental health plan, which actually resulted in a doubling of the budget and resources for children's mental health services in the province.

It's an evidence-based program that is directed at the prevention of anxiety and depression. It's delivered to grades 4 and 5 students. It originated out of Australia and is recommended by the World Health Organization.

It is a growing program over the course of the last three years. It has been delivered to 50,000 grades 4 and 5 students in the province. It is being evaluated by us. There is an aboriginal version of the program that's been piloted, and there's also a booster program that's been developed for grade 7 children.

As far as we know, we are the only jurisdiction in the world to actually have implemented a universal mental health prevention program.

Another example of a prevention program is a program called Roots of Empathy. Again, this is targeted to elementary school students. It involves bringing a volunteer neighbourhood parent — a mother, with her newborn or very young infant — and visiting a classroom over a period of time and engaging the children in showing, in effect, how an infant or very young child is nurtured and cared for.

What that does is produce some kind of identification and connection with the infant, and it is intended to promote an empathic response on the part of the children and to promote empathy. It's actually a program that's been well researched in the province by HELP — the human early learning program — and it's been found to reduce levels of aggression and violence and bullying among school children.

There is also a parallel program called Seeds of Empathy, which is directed to preschool children and to child care in preschool settings. This program is now available to 500 schools throughout the province. I could cite other examples.

The intent of the first pillar is that we will put greater emphasis on prevention programs in the future. If you look at the action document, there are five key actions that are identified for us to move forward on.

The first is that we are to develop, cost and implement a comprehensive, innovative, cross-ministry, five-year early-years plan. It is important to note that that early-years plan will include both child care and early childhood development and that this will be done together with provincial, national and international experts and stakeholders. The intention is that that plan will be completed and approved by the winter of '08-09.

The second key action is developing and implementing a new fetal alcohol spectrum disorder strategic plan. In fact, that is a ten-year plan. It follows up on a five-year strategic plan that ran from 2003 to 2008.

This ten-year plan has in fact been developed and was released in March of this year. It is not simply an MCFD ministry plan. It actually involves nine different ministries. MCFD is the lead on this. It's a ten-year plan, and the issue henceforward will be implementation of the plan.

The third is increasing innovative youth development programs in each region, targeting the most vulnerable communities as a priority. Regional strategies are currently being developed and are expected to be completed in the fall. Then the rollout of these programs would occur in the winter of '09-10.

Fourth, identifying and implementing youth crime prevention initiatives in collaboration with the Provincial Community Safety Steering Committee. The Provincial Community Safety Steering Committee is another interministry, intersectoral committee led by the Attorney General and Solicitor General, but there are a host of ministries and organizations involved. It is expected that the pilot programs will be rolled out in the fall of this year.

Finally, there is the development and implementation of a parent caregiver capacity development program. One of those programs has already been launched only last month, in April.

It's a bit of an odd name. It's called the Period of PURPLE Crying initiative. What that relates to is a parent education information and prevention program to prevent shaken-baby syndrome.

As well, there are a couple of other initiatives identified in the document around parent caregiver capacity development, including a parenting vision program framework, as well as implementation of some innovative strategies and programs, both of which would occur in the summer or fall — the summer of '08 and then the spring of '09.

M. Polak: Just two — hopefully, quick ones. With respect to the early-years plan, you mentioned that the implementation would take place in the winter of '08-09, but in the report it says spring '09. Have we been able to move that time line up?

A. Markwart: No. It says the plan would be approved in the winter of '08-09, and then the implementation obviously would follow the approval.

M. Polak: So the implementation is spring '09. Okay. The PURPLE Crying initiative — what's involved in that? How would that take place on the ground? I mean, that's such a huge issue in terms of impact on very young children.

M. Sieben: The Period of PURPLE Crying initiative is a cooperative venture between the University of British Columbia and Children's Hospital, MCFD and, to a smaller extent, the Ministry of Solicitor General. All have provided funding. We've been working with researchers at UBC and Children's Hospital over the course of the last few years, building on a body of knowledge here in B.C. as well as across North America, based out of the shaken-baby syndrome research centre in Colorado.

Essentially, what the researchers have been able to identify is that there's a consistent period of time during a child's normal development where they simply may cry more and that the crying is, for all intents and purposes, unexplainable but perfectly healthy.

The intent of the program, based on the research — simple in concept but meaningful in impact — is to bring awareness and comfort to parents that in fact their child is healthy and that the crying is normal.

Particularly for new parents, much of the focus goes to how to cope with the behaviour as a parent without worrying about the impact on the child.

The two main people behind the initiative are Dr. Ronald Barr and Dr. Marilyn Barr. Ron Barr is based out of UBC, and Marilyn Barr works with Children's Hospital in Vancouver. The service delivery mechanism for the Period of PURPLE Crying is through health authorities, both through the delivery wards in hospitals throughout B.C. as well as through public health nurses.

B.C. is somewhat unique, and it's part of the reason why we're able, to some extent, to lure and keep the researchers here, in that we have public health nurses that make visits to children shortly out of hospital. That provides for an opportunity to reinforce some of the learnings.

What occurs when the program is fully implemented is that through the delivery areas in hospitals, through nurses, they might spend a few moments with new parents and provide them with written material as well as a CD that speaks to the phenomena of the crying and how best to cope with it. That's then reinforced further when the public health nurse comes to visit.

As part of the program framework, there is an intent to review and evaluate what impact, years down the road, we've been able to make relating to healthy outcomes for kids and the net reduction for the rate of injury to children that might be linked to the periods of unexpected crying.

The program is currently in its initial year of implementation. I attended a launch for it in January for the program that developers have put together, which was really well attended by different members of the health authorities as well as the provincial health authority. There was a great amount of excitement and commitment on behalf of those that attended, who really look forward to providing the materials. Then Minister Christensen followed that up with an announcement relating to the launch of the program just a few weeks ago.

During this first year a number of the regions will begin to gear up, and then, in the two coming years, further implementation through the wards and through the public health service delivery system will occur.

V. Roddick: I wonder if I could ask for straight clarification on Nos. 3 and 4. It was touched on by my colleague. You've got the development completed in fall '08, but not the incremental rollout to winter '09-10. I'm assuming that's a year later. The same with item 4, spring-summer '08, and then the fall '08 is obviously identified.

But then you're not implementing the interim pilot evaluation reports until winter '09-10. Is there a reason for that gap? Could you just explain that to us?

A. Markwart: If you're referring to No. 4, which is the youth crime prevention, the pilot projects would be identified and initiated in the fall of '08, this fall. During that time, an evaluation would be commenced, but obviously you need to have the program in operation for a considerable period of time before you can actually get some results from the evaluation.

Therefore, you'd see the evaluation reports actually begin in the winter of '09-10. It would be a three-year evaluation process, so you'd have ongoing evaluation reports. Does that answer your question?

V. Roddick: Yes, it does on that one. But what about No. 3? It says that the regional strategies are completed in the fall, but the rollout doesn't happen until winter '09-10. Sorry to be thick on this. It's early morning. I just need some clarification as to what's happening in the interim between fall '08 and winter '09.

A. Markwart: I think you've actually caught something there. I think the intent was the winter of '08-09. It is a big gap.

I'll tell you what the problem is. It's that I'm from South Africa, and I don't think in seasons. I think in months. So when I was putting some of this together, I think I made some mistakes in terms of what I thought to be winter. Plus, our winter is in a different time frame, so forgive me. That is meant to be this….

R. Cantelon (Chair): I have a couple of questions to both of you. One is with respect to procedures. A lot of these initiatives are cross-ministerial. I'm wondering how you coordinate that. I can see the AG is the lead on one and then MCFD on another. How do you get together and move these issues forward collaboratively?

A. Markwart: Sure. Well, it's really the lead of… Deputy ministers get together and agree that there is a cross-ministry issue to be addressed. In the case of the provincial community safety steering committee, that was initiated by, actually, the three ministries. It was Attorney General, Solicitor General and MCFD. Because MCFD has youth justice programs, it is considered in part…. I sit on the criminal justice executive committee to represent youth justice, along with Solicitor General and Attorney General.

Then the question becomes: if you're going to develop a community safety strategy, who are the principal players that need to be involved? No one or two ministries, especially on issues that complex, can resolve it all. Then invitations are extended through the other deputy

ministers. Each of them is engaged, and you agree on a kind of forum, mandate and a process for moving forward.

This is actually quite typical in government in terms of collaborative work between deputy ministers, assistant deputies and the ministries to do a joint problem-solving and to identify lead ministries and partner ministries.

J. Brar: You mentioned under No. 4 a particular program, the youth crime prevention initiative. Can you explain a bit more as to what made it happen? What are the causes? What will this program look like? If you have, at this point in time, some concept about that….

A. Markwart: It came out of the development, as I mentioned, of an interministry strategy to address crime. There are really three prongs or directions to that strategy.

One is around dealing with what are known as prolific offenders. It's well known in the literature that a very small percentage of offenders account for a large percentage of the crime. Typically, you find that 5 percent of offenders account for 50 percent of the actual crime in communities. This is almost entirely adult crime. There are very few youth prolific offenders. There have been prolific-offender pilot projects initiated in several communities across the province.

Another prong of this was around court efficiencies and improving court processes in order to speed up and make more efficient the court process. Probably the most publicly known example of that is the community court initiative in downtown Vancouver, which will be launched soon. Again, that is an adult program.

In looking at the issue of addressing crime, those two arms are reactive responses. There was agreement by all parties that we needed to take a more proactive, earlier intervention-prevention approach. Otherwise, it really would be an incomplete kind of strategy. Hence, there was agreement among all the ministries that there should be a crime prevention component to it.

In terms of the exact type of programs that will be developed in the fall, that has not yet been decided. There has been some research handed out to the regions. The regions are deciding amongst themselves and in collaboration with my staff about exactly what programs will be developed in which communities. Each community's circumstances and needs are unique. It wouldn't be appropriate to sit in Victoria and say that we should do this in North Vancouver or in Surrey. So there needs to be a consultation process and some decision-making about what is most appropriate for Surrey or any other community.

I can tell you the kind of three broad directions that were identified as being effective in the literature. There are a host of programs that are effective in the literature in terms of crime prevention. The three that were given were a program type known as Communities That Care, which is in effect a community development approach that mobilizes resources within communities to address crime issues. There is in fact a program like that in Squamish right now.

Another approach is what are called youth inclusion programs, and this is borrowed from the experience in Britain around identifying at-risk youth in early years, ten to 14, before they're more actively engaged in crime, and connecting them to their communities in various social activities.

A third stream, potentially, is nurse or lay home-visiting programs, which are, in the literature, known to have positive outcomes not only in terms of crime prevention but also in terms of child welfare.

M. Karagianis: I've got a couple of questions. Maybe I'll just present them all to you, and then you can answer them.

Firstly, here you make reference to the FASD plan as having been developed, approved and released. I haven't seen that plan. Where would I get that? Secondly, in this provincial program what are the budget implications and staffing implications within the ministry? How are you going to measure success? Where are the deliverables and measurement analysis on this?

A. Markwart: The FASD strategic plan is on the ministry website. I believe it was released in March or April, in any event.

Your question about the budget and staffing implications for the ministry itself. The FASD strategic plan is a ten-year plan. It is cross-ministry. It is not FASD alone. For example, one of the key thrusts of the strategic plan would be around prevention initiatives, and that would be a collaborative process between the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and MCFD. The Liquor Distribution Branch is involved in it.

We have existing resources. Especially given that it's a ten-year plan, if there are additional resources required, then as they were needed, we would either include them in our budget submissions or we would attempt to find those resources internally in order to implement it.

Actually, Randi is the ministry lead on this. I don't know if she would like to add anything to that.

M. Karagianis: Perhaps, Chair, I could just clarify. Actually, my questions around the human resources, the budget implications and the measurement were on, really, the whole prevention pillar, not just specifically the FASD.

A. Markwart: The budget implications for the entire package of all five initiatives there — some of them would be done internally.

M. Karagianis: Actually, just the one we're dealing with now, the prevention. You're the one presenting the prevention. I just want to know what the budget implications of this prevention pillar are — the human resources implications as well as the measurement on

success in deliverables, the analysis of whether or not this has been successful.

A. Markwart: I can't give you all of the details on the exact amounts. In fact, some of those numbers, in terms of the budget implications, have yet to be determined. A good example of that would be the development of the earlier strategy. Obviously, we need to develop that strategy. Whatever that strategy indicates, the particular directions, will then inform the budget and staffing implications.

I explained the FASD. I can tell you that the youth crime prevention initiatives…. There has been a budget allocation to that of $1 million on an annualized basis for the implementation of pilot programs. The PURPLE Crying initiative…. I do know that it was a $1.4 million funding for that over three years. But I don't have all those budget implications at my fingertips now. Again, I would emphasize, in particular around the earlier strategy, that you need to develop the strategy before you can determine what those budget implications are.

In terms of the outcomes and performance indicators, they are in fact indicated on page 3 of the document. The indicators indicate an increase in the number of parents or caregivers with strengthened ability to cope with challenges and promote healthy development, a decrease in the number of children born with FASD and other substance abuse–related vulnerabilities and an increase in the number of young children who are school-ready — school-ready being measured by the results of the EDI, which is the early development instrument, a measurement that's done by HELP, the human early learning program, through UBC and other academic institutions in the province.

R. Cantelon (Chair): If I may, Member. Certainly, they didn't come prepared with resources to answer questions too specifically. I'm sure you appreciate that, though I take it that the intent of the question is to get some general idea of resources and resource allocations. We're not in estimates.

D. MacKay: I'd just like to follow up on the same theme, having to do with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. For years now I've seen some of the tragic results of alcohol on the fetus. I've also seen for years now signs in the bars warning people about the pitfalls of drinking while you're pregnant and condoms in places to prevent pregnancies. I have to wonder. I haven't seen your website. I'm glad Maurine brought it up, and I'm glad you mentioned to us that it's on the website.

I'm curious. What is it that we're going to do? We talk about a new fetal alcohol spectrum disorder strategic plan. What are we going to do in the next ten years that is different than what we have tried in the past? I think we probably have not had good results from what's happened in the past with trying to educate people on the tragic results of mixing alcohol and pregnancy.

Without going to your website, can you just tell me what it is we're going to be doing over the next ten years that might be different than what we've tried in the past and haven't had much success with?

A. Markwart: I don't think I brought the plan with me, but off the top — and I would emphasize that it's off the top — there are six key thrusts to the plan.

I'm not sure I agree with you that we've made little progress in terms of prevention of FASD and public awareness. This is not to say that it is not a very significant problem. FASD is the most preventable disability that is around. I can say that among the public — and this is impressionistic — and certainly among professionals across the spectrum — whether you're talking about public health nurses, physicians, social workers, probation officers, or you name it — the level of awareness around FASD is vastly greater than it was ten or 20 years ago. And it is vastly greater among the general public.

One of the problems, of course, would be around the higher-risk population, where you have women with addictions problems. All the information in the world is not going to address that. Of course, the key approach there is to have intervention and treatment resources early on for women who are pregnant or are about to be pregnant.

R. Cantelon (Chair): I would say that we do need to move on too. Perhaps we could take that under advisement.

A. Markwart: It's on page 14. I just found it. This would be a subject unto itself, unfortunately.

What it does is identify six cross-government strategic objectives, which I'm not going to read out and take the time of the committee. Then for each of the objectives there are another six pages of strategic priorities, listing for individuals, communities and professionals, policy research and evaluation…. It would take a long time to go through it — okay?

R. Cantelon (Chair): We'll move to the next, but I'll use the Chair's prerogative to ask one last question. A concept that jumped out is the concept of resilience. I wonder if you could expand on what supports that, in your mind, from other jurisdictions or work that you've seen.

L. du Toit: Essentially, it's the meeting of children's needs, particularly their universal needs, which we've explained. But I'll just very briefly say it's meeting the need for a child to be attached to at least one significant adult for most of their life, if possible, and to have a real sense of belonging. Most of the time that's in a family.

The second thing is for a child to have a sense of real mastery, which speaks to skill and competence — and that may be, even as a little tot, in terms of deciding whether you want this pop or that candy or whatever it might be — to school, to education, and so on.

The third one is independence, which speaks to the child being able to make choices and clear decisions and to understand that there are consequences to those decisions. The fourth one is a child being able to contribute back to either their family or the community as they grow.

In meeting those universal needs — and they are universal to all of us across the world and very specifically in different situations for children…. As you meet those needs, you strengthen a child's capacity. The more you can strengthen that capacity, the more the child has the ability to respond to stress factors in their life. The less you meet those needs and the more stress that comes, the less resilience you have. As you meet needs and a child begins to feel and experience themselves as coping, as it were, on a daily basis with the challenges that they experience, they are able to deal with the stress factors. That actually indicates resilience.

A child unable to cope with stress factors is a child that actually becomes extremely vulnerable. So our whole thrust would be: how do we meet those needs? The earlier you can begin to do that and enable parents as well as other caregivers to do that, you build that resilience.

R. Cantelon (Chair): Thank you very much. When your children start making decisions for you, I presume they're quite well on. I'll seek your advice on that later.

R. Mjolsness: Good morning. I'm pleased to be here to describe one of the many initiatives that the Ministry of Children and Family Development is involved in regarding pillar 2, early intervention, and pillar 3, early intervention and support. As Alan mentioned earlier, there are no clear delineations between these pillars. They often run together, and there are many of our initiatives that include all of the pillars.

The term "early intervention" is often confused with intervention that we define as meaning young children or early age. That is not what we mean in the Strong, Safe and Supported framework and action plan. Early intervention describes interventions early in a child, youth or family's circumstances. That, for example, might mean access to an infant development or an aboriginal infant development program, a speech and language therapist, a parenting program, a child and youth care worker or transition-planning facilitator.

One key example of the early intervention pillar is "the children and youth with special needs cross-ministry framework for action." In this past year I've had the privilege of working on this cross-ministry team, which involves the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

This initiative, recently approved by Minister Christensen, Minister Bond and Minister Abbott, is one example of the interministerial coordination and collaboration that is identified in the Strong, Safe and Supported framework and action plan. Minister Christensen is the lead for government on this initiative.

Collectively, the Ministries of Health, Education, and Children and Family Development and their service delivery arms and providers serve over 52,000 children and youth with special needs and their families through over 90 programs at an annual cost of over $525 million. This involves work at the community and regional level with 60 school districts, five MCFD regions, 17 Community Living B.C. offices and six health authorities.

The children and youth with special needs framework for action is a vehicle, a means, for the three ministries and their service-provider partners to deliver the services in a streamlined, effective, coordinated and collaborative way. It's a foundational framework that identifies a common vision, a common mission and a set of values and principles combined with six key strategies to coordinate the work, the intent being to change or enhance practice and initiatives over time and thus improve access, quality, coordination and integration of these essential services and supports.

For each ministry and its delivery arms, the services for children and youth with special needs have been developed incrementally over time, based on the demands of the day — what we knew at the time was effective or needed. Some went back 30 years when we were looking at ways to support children and youth with disabilities and their families instead of sending them into institutions.

Over the past years each ministry has done many consultation sessions with families and service agencies at the community and the provincial levels. People told us that our current system often resulted in waiting times, overlaps and gaps, and different standards across the sectors, all of which resulted in a complex array of services which were difficult for families to navigate and challenging to understand.

We also heard that the service system had strengths that needed to be fostered. Some of those strengths were a dedicated and skilled service-provider network; a strong belief in supporting the child and youth in context of their family and community; an emphasis on strength-based models; new programs based on evidence that we're making a difference in the lives of children and their families; and a critical factor for this initiative — a strong desire to work together to ensure an accessible, effective, easily understood service system.

The cross-ministry children and youth with special needs framework for action is intended to build on what we know to be occurring in communities and regions in B.C. now. It provides a future structure for organizing, developing, planning and enhancing current and future activities at the provincial, the regional and the community level.

It took a long time for us to get where we are. We know that we're not going to change things overnight, but this framework provides the opportunity for collective and coordinated changes on behalf of all three ministry mandates.

I want to spend a few minutes giving you examples of what has already been accomplished over the past year and what we're working on now in planning for the future. Alan spoke about the FASD strategic plan. I think it's important to know that that plan is built on the three ministries working together along the continuum of prevention, diagnosis and assessment, intervention and supports for families, and educational programs, all of which are built on a foundation of research, evaluation and evidence, and training.

Another initiative that we've been doing is key work over the next years in the regional implementation of the cross-ministry framework. This implementation has to occur at the regional level. It's not a provincial initiative. As Alan spoke about, the services that touch children and youth and their families are in their community.

These cross-sectoral planning tables have been developed at the community and the regional and provincial levels. Just this month provincial ministry staff, service providers, health authorities, school districts, Community Living British Columbia, MCFD, directors and managers met to initiate this stage of the implementation. Actually, it wasn't in May. It was in April.

Over 140 staff participated around the province and spent the day working on the next steps. The plan is to now engage agencies and service providers at the community and regional level to promote the joint work. This tri-ministry work is not new. It's been happening in select areas, and it's now time to learn about and enhance the initiatives throughout B.C.

Another major initiative just lately is specific to the FASD strategic plan. The Ministries of Health, Children and Family Development, and Education have jointly developed diagnosis and assessment teams for children and youth with complex developmental behavioral conditions, including FASD, as well as implementing a key worker program for families of children with FASD and similar conditions, complemented by the Ministry of Education in the development of a provincial resource program for teachers to learn more about effective educational strategies for children and youth with FASD.

Along with joint ministry training, the key worker and parent support program has a three-year evaluation, which you can see on our website. It's built in, and our preliminary findings to date are telling us that families and their children are benefiting from this new program. One quote indicates that this key worker program has been a life-saver. This joint initiative is the first of its kind in Canada.

We have increased services for aboriginal children with special needs, specifically in areas such as infant development, supported child development and early intervention therapies.

We also have implemented the early hearing-screening program with the Ministry of Health and the authorities, where the provincial health authorities are screening all newborns for hearing issues. MCFD follows up with intervention, and that early work promotes transition to kindergarten and educational programs.

These were some examples of what we, the three ministries, have done. Now we'll do a few examples, as noted in the action plan, of the future initiatives in the area of children and youth with special needs.

One of the important things we need to know is: who is working with the children and their families? Where is that occurring? What professionals are involved? And what services are being delivered?

This year we plan to do a provincial mapping of the services at the community, regional and provincial levels. We will also increase family-friendly information through the development of a joint ministry website and a joint ministry brochure. Information-sharing for ministry staff, professionals and service providers from all three ministries to better understand the current research, the good practices and the ability to discuss and learn from new approaches and from each other will be managed through a joint SharePoint site.

Increased learning and development about aboriginal service delivery is critical, including a better understanding of who is providing services now and where and what we can learn to expand to other areas of the province. This will involve further consultations with first nation organizations, leaders, service providers and families. We will be strengthening the youth voice and their perspective in this framework — especially key to the area of transition to adult services.

We will be revising the 17 school-age protocols which outline responsibilities for all three ministries for school-age children and youth with special needs. We will continue our work to develop an approach to move to a functional-based assessment and a means to determine service input and delivery based on needs and not reliant on the diagnosis-based approach that is common in many of our services now.

Finally, all three ministries are committed to joint research training initiatives regarding key issues and priorities that impact children and youth with special needs and their families, including the development of joint cross-sectoral standards and indicators for successful outcomes. Our goal is that children and youth with special needs and their families will have access to timely, effective, integrated services that make a difference in their lives now and in their future development.

Now I'm going to turn you over to Mark Sieben and our deputy, Lesley du Toit, for more about pillar 3.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I was just a bit confused. I wasn't sure whether we were doing 2 and 3 together, because I don't see any reference to children and youth with special needs in pillar 2. I was hoping that some discussion would centre on the family development response and exactly what that means. I'm not sure whether this is the right moment to do that.

M. Sieben: Thank you for the question. As both Randi and Alan noted, at times the distinction between early intervention and prevention and then, on the other side, of assessment and planning becomes difficult to maintain. In fact, a number of the action items for early intervention end up being caught up in the strategic plans that Alan spoke to in pillar 1.

Also, accordingly, in pillar 2 we wanted to also identify some additional work that's going on, on the action side at different points of the model. One of those, certainly, is the work that we have planned and that is underway under family development response.

We've had a standard in place that provides some structure for staff in the child welfare area to work with a family development response. While our results there have been encouraging when it's been used, we find that it hasn't been used quickly enough. The basics, without doing it justice…. The general sort of concept around the family development response is…. Within MCFD we receive about 30,000 protection-based concerns reported each year. They vary in level of severity and risk to child from low to high.

Within that, there's an opportunity in section 16 of the CFCSA for the director to consider a number of different responses. One is to develop and proceed with an investigation. Another is to provide family support. Another — depending on if it's been previously investigated or otherwise doesn't fit within the framework of section 13, which is the "needs protection" definition — is to not respond to the concern. There are very few of those.

Historically, under the use of the standards that came out with the risk assessment model, virtually everything in it went through an investigation stage. What we were seeking to do with the family development response standard was to provide some amount of flexibility and some guidance to staff where they might use a more timely and more appropriate needs-based assessment to determine what services to put in place for a family. That's the family development response — B.C.'s form of a differential response model.

What it speaks to here in pillar 2 in the action plan is our goal with support from the regional executive directors, who are here today, to develop approaches to provide support and guidance to staff when they might use family development responses more frequently and where we may need to make changes to our services in the community in order to help facilitate and support that response.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): In all cases where there's a family development response, presumably it's been triggered by a call to the ministry and probably a protection report. I've never seen a family development response that hasn't been a result of an investigation.

I can't imagine that a family development response to a call to a child protection social worker is going to preclude an investigation, so all family development responses will be based on the assessment of the social worker — whether that be a lengthy or short investigation but an investigation nonetheless. Is that right?

M. Sieben: I'd look to clarify. In fact, supported by practice in a number of other jurisdictions and a body of research, there are cases that might be considered for a response on a more timely basis when risk is relatively low, which doesn't take in all steps of what is identified as a fulsome investigation. We might undertake assessment for the sake of need and services, and put services in place notwithstanding not having done a number of the steps associated with a full investigation.

In fact, a family development response is a means of responding to some amount of protection reports in some manner other than you would see framed up under the existing practice standard relating to steps of an investigation.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I know there have only been 400 or so in the last two years that were done as a family development response. You get 3,000 protection calls a month approximately, so it's still a very small percentage of responses even in the early intervention phase. It will be interesting to see how the effectiveness of that approach….

I just want to clarify: is this any different from the previous approach when we used to do family group conferencing and family case conferences? Even in front of the court we would do family group conferencing. Is this family development response where you get relatives, extended family members and service providers together as a group and try to identify a community or at least a small social response? Is it different from that approach fundamentally?

M. Sieben: It is to some extent different but consistent. To some extent we're stealing my stuff from pillar 3, so I might elaborate a little bit then. We're going to speak a little bit more about some of our goals on the family group conference side.

Essentially, what we're looking to do is craft a model available to our staff with appropriate supports in place, which allows them to increase the family and community engagement in case planning, case decision-making and caregiving for vulnerable children — based somewhat on the work that Lesley spoke to, which is already done in pillar 1 and pillar 2, in order to develop plans for kids that are fulsome and comprehensive and reflect the strengths as well as the risks to the child.

The family development response is a tool and an option intended to facilitate that. Family conferencing, which I'll speak to a little bit later, is consistent with that approach. In fact, it might be something that informs a further family development response, but I wouldn't want to limit its application just to a family development response. We'd like to see it utilized in other cases too.

R. Cantelon (Chair): Perhaps we'll come back to that as well, then, if that's fine with you.

R. Cantelon (Chair): I just have one question before we move to the next one. You talk about the use of community hubs. There are 22 of them. I think I was at one in Chemainus that just opened up — or is expanding with funding of $200,000 to do, I think, things that you refer to as family strengthening. I think one of the programs is Nobody's Perfect. I invite you to elaborate on how you see the importance of community hubs in the system.

A. Markwart: Actually, there are different kinds of community hubs. The community hubs that you're referring to are early years hubs. Typically, what you'll find is that a child care program is at the centre of the hub, but there are additional services for families also available.

Typically you may, for example, have a family resource program that is co-located with a child care centre. Potentially, you can have infant development and other ranges of services and supports to family. These are, I think, very family-friendly kinds of venues that offer the opportunity for more one-stop shopping for families — a greater integration of services so that a family is not going from their child care centre to a family resource program to an infant development program. It's all there in one spot.

Typically, we refer to hubs as being early years, but there are other kinds of hubs. For example, in the Lower Mainland and the Fraser–Vancouver Coastal area there are integrated youth services hubs, where you have a co-location of a number of different types of youth support programs including youth justice services, housing, educational supports — a whole variety of things.

Again, it's the same notion of having more of a one-stop shopping, more integrated service delivery and a less fragmented service where you're asking a troubled youth to go to a whole variety of different places. So yes, they're a very good thing, I think.

M. Sieben: Lesley and my colleagues before me spoke to some work that we're seeking to do at the end of the day in order to provide more opportunities to build resilience and lessen the frequency by which we necessarily have to spend time in what has historically been a primary part of our business under pillar 3 — that we might reduce the frequency by which we see vulnerable kids who require a specific focus, specific care and attention. However, it is likely that there will always be some number of children that necessarily, with their families, come before the child welfare system, the criminal justice system or the child and youth mental health system, who don't need concerted focus and care.

Pillar 3 largely speaks to this need and our plans in the ministry to work to achieve better outcomes for them. There are largely two big chunks of work under this pillar. One speaks to the method and level of assessment that informs a plan, and the second big chunk of work speaks to the mix of services and resources necessary in order to support a more flexible and cogent response to support those plans.

Traditionally, the forms of assessment and plans have been based more or less on the door that the family or the child has gone to, whether it's a child welfare door, for example — in which case, as the member noted, they are more likely to receive some form of child protection investigation and risk assessment — or a child and youth mental health door in which the assessment tool would be clinical in nature and directed towards the mental health type of concern. The plans developed as a result of such assessments tend to be necessarily based within the scope of those programs and disciplines as well.

First of all, under pillar 3 what we're seeking to do is introduce a capacity for a more fulsome assessment to occur that takes into account not only the risks of the concerns but also strengths that might be available to the child inherently in terms of resilience or, with family and community, that looks both to the severity and the level of need, and to develop a plan and some means of intervention based around that need.

Part of that may in fact require further specialized forms of assessment, be they through the child welfare system, the child and youth mental health system, criminal justice through forensics or others. Then the development of a plan essentially comes with that richness, where we've had an opportunity to consider the level of need in addition to the program-specific issue that might have brought the child and family to the door.

Secondly, what we're looking for under pillar 3 is, on an increasing basis, to be able to facilitate some amount of change and increasing change — some which is occurring already — within our service delivery stream that allows for more flexible, more individualized approaches to plans for children and youth who are the most vulnerable and come before our different program streams.

There are some building blocks and some strengths that our ministry has experience with, which provide a sound starting point. The member also referenced family group conferencing and mediations, which the representative also noted is one of the newer approaches to child welfare. There's some thought as to whether they are new or just really old and rediscovered, I suppose. Particularly our colleagues on the first nations and aboriginal side would suggest that they've been engaged in some amount of work here for quite some time before we happened to stumble upon it.

Be that as it may, what we're looking to do and facilitate is increasing ability, as I said before, to engage with child and community and family, those who know

the child best; increase their ability to participate in case planning, case decision-making and caregiving for vulnerable kids; and make sure that the supports are there that best provide the opportunity to remedy the concern that may have brought the child to the door of MCFD and also provide the best opportunity to achieve better outcomes.

In 2002 we began a family group conferencing program throughout B.C. and had a relatively modest level of success with a little over 200 family group conferences. Just last year we completed 735. It's similar on mediation, where in fact we've had a child protection mediation program in place since 1998 and had a standard in place relating to mediation. This saw slow growth, once again, up until about 2002. We've been able to work through the Ministry of Attorney General to seek to increase its use. We're now seeing mediations close to 700 through last year.

Our goal here is to see family group conferencing and mediation and family development response as more the norm within our model. There will always be space within, in particular, our child welfare continuum for some amount of investigation and risk assessment. There necessarily has to be, just as there necessarily will be, some component of care that needs to be offered on an in-care basis.

However, our model at present is more or less framed up according to investigation and options that come out of that path. So what we're looking to create is more of a norm of an aid supported by necessary services around that for mediation and family conferences and family development response and the plans that those mechanism produce to be supported in our communities.

Another example on the youth side where we were dealing with vulnerable youths is increased use of youth agreements. Similarly, with the mechanisms that I noted before, we've seen an increase in the use of youth agreements from when they were originally introduced around 2000, where we did about 150 to 200 of them, I think it was, to closer to 700 this current fiscal year. So we found ways to increase some of the resources available through youth agreements in the short term, and we'll be looking to continue to do that over the life of this pillar and the operational plan that supports it.

Also noted in the operational plan, you'll see commitments to continue to work with our caregiving network on the kinship-base side as well as traditional foster care; review our resource continuum; look to support foster parents — they received maintenance increases last year, again this year and then next year as well — and continue to work with them in order to recruit the necessary resources needed in order to make our programs and services grow.

Then finally, also based on pillar 2 — and Randi noted it quickly — a growing emphasis will be placed on the points of transition in the normal lifetime of a child and youth and included at the back end of a child's time when they might be in care or otherwise being vulnerable so that we might be able to facilitate that transitioning, whether they're in our care or closer to the age of majority and perhaps past that age.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I'm just curious about the numbers you're giving us on agreements and family development response. Here we are back at that subject but appreciate it….

We see the number of calls remaining fairly stable over years and months, in fact, in terms of how the door — the one portal — to the ministry happens. Yet at the same time, successive years…. I think six years in a row we've seen the number of family service files or family service requests going steadily down. We've seen the number of youth service requests going steadily down.

So I'm trying to figure out how it is that there seems to be an emphasis on more of the interaction with the family or with the child or youth, yet statistics seem to indicate the opposite — that in fact there are fewer family service files being opened, fewer youth service files being opened and fewer non-aboriginal children being admitted into a care option.

In other words, we've seen a rapid increase in Child in the Home of a Relative. We've seen a sudden recent increase in the kith-and-kin, and I'm not sure about the statistics on the other sections of the act — 42(1)(b) or whatever it is. That was after I left.

There seems to be a discontinuity between what's being promoted here, in that we'll do more intervention, more working through, more finding solutions with family and communities…. Yet the statistics from the ministry's MARS system indicate the opposite is happening.

I'm just wondering: is there a lull or a bit of a backswing before things start to work? How are we going to know?

M. Sieben: That's a really good question. We'd look forward, perhaps, to having further discussion around it. We probably could do more work here.

I'd note three things to begin with. As the member knows, MARS tends not to be completely accurate in the data that it provides, given that it's somewhat dated. Part of the answer to the response relating to what we're seeing in terms of the family service files is a regular file cleanup and maintenance to some extent. However, the trends the member notes are generally accurate.

With that said, I'm not aware that either the CIHR caseload has…. From what I understand, having done some work with our colleagues at MEIA, we haven't seen a dramatic swing in where it's been at. We have sought to clarify what its role and purpose is in comparison to what the child welfare system might offer.

On the kith-and-kin side, on that too, frankly, since the provision was brought into force in 2002, we've seen relatively modest use. Part of what we're speaking to here, in fact, is what types of services and response and guidance to staff we might use in order to help facilitate its further use.

There's a bit of a misnomer that kith-and-kin is somehow a much cheaper service to provide than foster care. However, when you look at the kith-and-kin rate, which is around $510, and add in the child tax benefit that the kith-and-kin provider receives, it's in fact very close to what the basic family care rate is.

In fact, what we're seeking to do under these mechanisms and under pillar 3 is very much as the member said. It's to see if we can facilitate more of a shift in this area, but not to do it without turning our attention to not only the level of support but the types of supports in our service delivery stream so that they're better able to address the individualized plans and the flexibility that the plans develop through family development response and particularly that the FGC and mediation require.

My experience personally and via research is that the plans that come out of these processes are different. They're different than the plans that come out of the traditional approach between social worker as expert and family as focus of intervening. So what we're looking to do is build capacity within our system on a growing basis to be more innovative and more flexible and more in tune with what those needs are going to be. In fact, the plans are more effective, and the outcomes for the kids are increased.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): Just to clarify, I know that since 2003 until now the number for Child in the Home of a Relative has gone up to approximately 600 kids, which is a significant increase statistically. I think it's 14 percent, and we've seen a 3.4 percent decrease in the number of children being admitted into care.

I think someone needs to do an evaluation as to whether or not the threshold that's being used to provide intervention services and family development for the Child in the Home of a Relative kids…. When you see children placed without, really, the same checks and balances that kith-and-kin now has…. Kith-and-kin, I'd say, is closer to the restricted family care arrangement that we used to have because the rates have gone up.

I think that's a bit of a caution, because there's not much mention of child protection in this document. It just concerns me that the vast majority of workers in the ministry are front-line social workers who are being expected to probably spend more time on each case in order to do an effective job of strengthening and identifying strengths. That needs to be monitored really closely, I think.

M. Sieben: We'd agree. We don't see family development response as a truncated version of a response to a child and family's need. From what we've been able to estimate, based on the work that we've done with our managers and our staff, in fact, whether that be…. The hours involved are at least commensurate with what happens through a regular investigation.

At the end of the day, what it comes down to, though, is that we have a strong belief — based on research and, perhaps even more practically important, on what staff tell us from their experiences — that the plans are more effective. They work better, and there's a certain amount of cases where they simply make more sense to use. We're looking at ways by which to increase them and facilitate that.

R. Cantelon (Chair): I have one brief question, and that would be on the status of foster care recruitment and where we're at. Could you describe the general problem? Are there just not enough people willing to volunteer? Just summarize it, if you would.

M. Sieben: We always need more. Each year we embark on a campaign to bring awareness relating to not only the need but many of the benefits and some of the richness to life that can be gained through becoming a foster parent. That happens in the fall, often in communities where we have needs for particular groups, whether they're high-risk teens or really young kids. Those tend to be the areas where needs tend to be greater. It varies from region to region. However, at the end of the day we're looking to add what we have now.

What's reflected in the operational plan, however, is a commitment through Lesley to our community partners, as well as through MCFD and the REDs, that we take a look, basically, at how that care regime is established and set up and whether there might be some forms of impediments or barriers to providing care and how it might be made more naturally linked with some amount of care that's provided and supported through kinship-based care.

With that, I think we need to move on to pillar 4, which is certainly a major portion of the ministry's work — the aboriginal approach. Proceed.

D. Foxcroft: Good morning, and thank you. I’m honoured to be here today. I just wanted to say that I'll be speaking to pillar 4, on the aboriginal approach.

I just want to say, in terms of government supporting new relationships and agreements with first nations, Métis people and aboriginal people, that we also recognize and respect the recognition and relationships that we have to build and enhance and work on from now into the future.

We will work to support first nations and aboriginal people to be involved in the decision-making and planning for their children and youth. Who best to know what are the needs of their children and families and communities? That would have to be in partnership with the Ministry of Children and Families. This can improve the outcomes for children and families, and it would be based on the development of their own culture, practices and traditions.

We will support and enhance the development models of service delivery that meet the needs for their children and families in their communities to ensure the safety and well-being of the children and youth. We need to recognize the work, in terms of the delegated agencies and other aboriginal organizations, service

delivery models and governance models that are out there. There has been tremendous work already happening out there, and we need to recognize it and support it and work with them to move forward.

In order for us to be effective, the Ministry of Children and Families through its policy and practice must reflect and recognize traditional ways in order to be effective in aboriginal communities. That has to be in the leadership of first nations and aboriginal communities. They have the vision for their children. They have the commitment to their children, as do we for all aboriginal children and children in this province.

We have to work in partnership with aboriginal people to ensure that there will be better outcomes for children. All aboriginal children in care need and require support to encourage and connect them to their communities and their families so that they can be proud of who they are and become healthy adults and then parents for their children.

I think that retention, recruitment and training are critical to aboriginal people and also to this ministry. If we're going to support aboriginal children and families and support the unique needs, we need to have more aboriginal people working with us, for us and also looking at the needs of the aboriginal organizations who have the same needs.

Over the past few years that I've been here, some of the achievements to date that I feel are critical to ensuring aboriginal children have that connection to their culture and their communities are the children's roots projects. Many of them have happened over the last couple of years. We've had five homecoming ceremonies for children over the last year that reconnected 32 aboriginal children to their communities, and we have plans to do more in this coming year.

I have witnessed many of those homecomings, and I just need to say that it is inspiring for me to see the faces of the children who reconnect with their families, aunties, cousins, grandmothers and communities — the happy faces from both sides, from the children and the youth. The celebrations are just very emotional. Children are very proud to be part of those processes and have that connection, and they need that. They need to have that connection to be healthy children and youth.

There is another project happening right now in terms of the northeast pilot project — the Nenan Dane Zaa Deh Zona, which is underway — to build capacity and to ensure an effective governance service delivery model which engages community members in the development of the service action plans that are unique to their communities.

We also have established the two interim authorities, Vancouver Island and the Fraser region, which have done tremendous work over the last several years to develop their infrastructures, governance structures and policies. They're developing their boards and huge consultations in their communities to look at what kind of services they would like that are different than the Ministry of Children and Families that is going to work for their communities.

We signed the first adoption-enabling agreement in the new year with the Cowichan Tribes, the Lalum'utul' Smun'eem Child and Family Services, which will now return their children to their families and communities. This is the first in British Columbia and the second in Canada. Their children are now going to be placed within their families and communities and not be lost.

There have been partnerships with the Ministry of Children and Families and the University of Northern B.C. and the public agency in collaboration with aboriginal delegated agencies in the north to recruit and train aboriginal social workers.

I think that we've supported an initiative in collaboration with INAC and with the delegated agencies to develop an enhanced prevention approach model for B.C., to work to develop prevention services. It is in process, and we're hoping to implement that by 2009.

As you know, the government has also…. The Premier announced this year that we would be implementing Jordan's principle, which is a governmentwide principle, and the commitment that we would implement this plan in the spring of 2009.

MCFD will be the lead of the implementation plan, along with relevant ministries and federal governments, including aboriginal and first nations people. What that means in practicality is that whatever government makes the first contact with the child or youth pays for the necessary service without delay or interruption.

I think that our ministry and myself and my colleagues and staff have the same commitment for the aboriginal children and families, and we recognize that the work ahead has to come from them. If this is truly going to work, on behalf of government and for aboriginal people, they have to be involved at every level of process in terms of practice, policy, working groups, initiatives — at all levels — to have input into the work ahead of us. I believe that there's much work ahead, but we can do it together. We can do it in partnership. We can do it in a respectful way.

I just want to say that, for my own community, the children are important. In my language usma means the precious ones, the cherished ones. It means a lot to aboriginal people when we talk about our children, because it's a connection to their families, to their communities. It's the next generation that's going to be leaders and are going to be our community members. I think that we all want to have a vision for our communities that they grow up in a happy, healthy environment.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): Deb, it's good to see you. I know that we've sat around tables before in past careers, and I'm really pleased that you're able to put your passion into this. I know that you are passionate. You know, I've had an opportunity also to work with Usma. I found that to be rewarding as well.

I think that probably we have a few concerns with respect to the aboriginal approach, partly because it seems to me that there's one approach. But you probably

will recognize and agree that there are numerous approaches within a framework, within a broader umbrella.

Primarily, I'm concerned about how this plan was developed before important lessons could have been learned from the representative and before the Auditor General of Canada's report, which was released yesterday, and the Auditor General of British Columbia's report, which was released yesterday and which spoke very specifically to the delivery of child protection services in British Columbia.

I think some of the deficits that currently exist in the system could have been addressed in the ministry's response to the concerns of aboriginal people in the province. I'm concerned that there's also more dissonance within first nations now than there necessarily has to be, in terms of how the service delivery is framed. That's due to the emphasis on consultation with service providers who are not specifically land-based service providers, and at the expense, perhaps, of the first nations themselves.

What we saw in the Auditor General's report of yesterday, the British Columbia one…. In a way, it's a vindication of the Directors Forum and not only their strength but their expertise in designing practice standards and indicators, which the Auditor General says should be taken and used by ministry staff. That clear and public statement of support for the delegated agencies and the work that they do on reserve, in a way, contrasts with their involvement with the development of this regionalization.

I know that recently it's been very clear and public that first nations leadership have been concerned that their voices have been eliminated from the regionalization process. Whether that process ever really had a lot of chance of success without the involvement of first nations or the federal government since 2002, I suppose, is up for debate.

I'm wondering if it's possible to say unequivocally that first nations' voices will be invited in the same way that other service providers in the aboriginal community were invited to be part of the design and delivery of child welfare services.

I'm concerned that the Chair is going to start restricting the number of questions I have, so I better….

R. Cantelon (Chair): I don't intend to restrict the questions, but I might limit the preamble.

The creation of what some might think is the sixth region in the northeast…. Is that, in fact, another regional authority now? Have they separated from the Northern Aboriginal Authority for Families, NAAFF? Or are they part of NAAFF?

R. Cantelon (Chair): Maybe if we could take them one at a time. I'd be more than happy to let you….

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I'm sure they're fairly familiar with the concepts and won't have as much trouble as maybe….

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): Sure, absolutely. My apologies. Sorry if that was too much. I'll stop there for now.

R. Cantelon (Chair): You'll certainly have ample opportunity. I appreciate it.

L. du Toit: I'm going to start, and then Deb will add on, as will others if we need to.

Firstly, in terms of consultation and the delegated agencies, the authorities and different people as well as the First Nations Leadership Council involved in this work that has to be done. We have had for many years — since 2002 — a forum which was, in fact, set up on the basis of an MOU with all the people, including delegated agencies and service providers off reserve, First Nations Leadership Council and various chiefs.

That forum, JAMC, was in place right up until September last year, functioning over that many years. The intention was that everybody be part of the planning of the way forward. One aspect of that was the development of a governance approach led by aboriginal people in order to develop a model so that they could self-govern services.

Everybody has sat around that table based on that MOU, co-chaired between the First Nations Leadership Council and our minister. Everybody who was around that table was meant to represent a wider group of people. They have been involved in those consultations, as I said, for a number of years.

The other piece, other than looking at the governance, was to look at service delivery and how things could be improved for children and families in communities. Delegated agencies, we clearly recognize, together with the service providers off reserve, are the experts in service delivery. We do not see the authorities and those who've been looking to the governance approach as the experts on service delivery. We've been looking at governance with a certain group of people, and we've been looking at service delivery with others. Both have had a say in how — including the political leaders — this goes forward.

We absolutely have made it clear that the authority model that is presently being talked about and proposed, on and off the table, as you have seen over the last couple of months and the last week, is but one approach to the possible self-governance of aboriginal people over services to their children and families. We are absolutely committed — and you'll see that in pillar 4 — to the principle that aboriginal people should have jurisdiction over their own service delivery to children and families.

With regard to developing a new system…. Here's where I want to make a distinction. Developing a model for governance is one piece. Developing a new and more effective child welfare system which is founded on an

indigenous approach belongs in the hands of those who understand practice and service delivery, as well as community elders and others who, we believe, should be looking to the past in terms of child protection traditions that have been there. Bring those traditions back in and work with the present knowledge that we have on child welfare. Bring that together and develop a new system. That may, in itself, one day result in new child welfare legislation for aboriginal people.

Very clearly, the role of leading that development belongs, in our opinion, with those who understand that service best, but not in isolation of communities. Those agencies, as you know, are based in communities. The chiefs need to have some say. The community needs to have some say. Youth themselves need to have some say in what that service will look like. Then we have the potential of who governs. Do we use the structures that are in communities, do we create authorities, or do we have some other form of approach that we take?

The last bit that you mentioned was on the north and the northeast project, which is, essentially, focused on the treaty 8 chiefs. The treaty 8 chiefs approached us through our northern region some time back and actually have been focused on developing an agency over many years. They approached us a year or so back to have a look at how they may do things differently.

Essentially, there has not been a focus on developing an authority. What we have in the northeast is the development of a community-up approach on developing a new child welfare service to that entire northeast area. It is only very recently, when people seemed to feel that there was a pressure on them to go to authority, that the northeast actually responded with: "We want to split off from NAAFF and develop an authority of our own." We don't know whether they will. If they choose to, that will be respected. What that model will look like, we don't know, but we have made it very clear that the decisions are not ours to make.

The north is a huge region, as you know, and it's unlikely that one authority could take responsibility for that whole region. We would hope to play a facilitating role in this — that, actually, people across the north begin to develop approaches that fit for the north. If the northeast is to do something unique in that area and that's the choice of those people, we would be supportive of that. But at the same time, if the north approached us with a completely different aspect and showed us how they link into the northeast, we would be open to that.

No decision has been made, and it's not the intention of the ministry to tell people: "You need to have this authority here and another authority there." That is up to the regions to decide. The north is trying to find those answers, I think, as they move forward. NAAFF has played a leading role in that.

R. Cantelon (Chair): Just before we proceed…. I don't want to restrict the committee members, but I'm mindful of the time. It's my hope that we can move on to the next one somewhere around the half-hour mark, if you could be pointed in your questions.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I think it's important to point out that the MOU in December of 2002 was signed by UBCIC, the summit, the Métis association. There were signatories, as well, on that MOU who were not party. They were simply supporters. The supporters included such agencies as — the delegated agency had one — the B.C. aboriginal foster parents association, the Association of Friendship Centres, a number of service providers.

Fundamentally, that MOU, which in effect put into practice the Tsawwassen accord of June, was about regionalization. It was about setting up a system for first nations people in British Columbia. But then subsequent to that, the ministry chose the members of each regional planning committee. The ministry chose to put maybe one or two representatives on each of those regions from a first nations community, but not representing first nations governance.

When we're talking about the negotiation of an inherent right, a constitutionally protected right of first nations people to care for their children regardless of residency, one must assume — not seven years into a process and $39 million later — that the first nations should have been at the table at least at the first setting so that the planning and the delivery of any new governance model will be based on what the first nations, whose right it is to have input, say — if it is in fact going to be a community approach.

I think that, fundamentally, what we saw was a ministry approach to regionalization using boundaries defined for non-aboriginal regionalization that don't reflect even the traditional territories of first nations. So it's no wonder to me that you have the northeast breaking away from the NAAFF, after how many years? NAAFF was including the northeast. You have other regional authorities that not only don't have the buy-in of the first nations, but you have some first nations — on the Island, for example — who prohibit the regional authority from coming into their territory.

We're not talking about a flawed process that broke down after six and a half years. We're talking about a process that was fundamentally flawed from the beginning and that took away the voice of the first nations in the process. I'm wondering if this is an attempt to perhaps address some of that. Will this include the voice of those who are legally required to be part of the discussions, the first nations themselves?

L. du Toit: The very simple answer is yes. We would not disagree with you in terms of your characterization of the way in which this has happened and that it was indeed originally a ministry approach. We are quite clear that that has to be significantly different, and yes, we will involve those who need to be around that table.

R. Cantelon (Chair): I was tempted to intervene. I knew you were getting to a question.

R. Cantelon (Chair): I know you could hear me coming, and I thank you. You heard the footsteps and

moved on. I want to be as generous as I can. These are extremely important issues, and I appreciate that you need to provide context to your question.

Are there any further questions from the committee? Hearing none, we would move forward to quality assurance.

V. Roddick: I think that Debra Foxcroft was going to make some comments. I think it might be appropriate, at the Chair's discretion, of course.

D. Foxcroft: Nicholas, as you know from the delegated agencies…. You've been part of that. We do recognize and support the delegated agencies and have for the past 20 years. There are tables in terms of the partnership tables that we work with, with the delegated agencies on a regular basis to look at their needs, at their issues and at ways to move forward with them in partnership.

I think that there is a voice for them, and tables. They've been invited to all of those forums and consultations. I can't say it's been perfect, but I think that there have been opportunities for them to voice their concerns at all levels.

M. Sieben: Mr. Simons also made mention of the AOPSI standards that were referenced in the Auditor General's report. I'd note that MCFD looks forward to that report being tabled with the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. We have an opportunity to speak to it both within MCFD as well as within delegated agencies. The Auditor General met with a host of people in order to inform the development of that report.

With that said, also in terms of the AOPSI standards, we look at some of those comments with some sense of pride ourselves.

M. Sieben: Well, absolutely. They are based within that director's table. They're MCFD standards too. We did that cooperatively as a joint venture with that table — the only version of its kind in Canada, really. It speaks to the richness of practice within the delegated agencies as well as, as Deb was noting, our intention all through this process — whatever happens on the governance side — to pay attention and to work with them cooperatively on matters relating to practice.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): If I may just say…. I should really have recognized the cooperative nature of that development of the AOPSI standards. I think that that is actually a good thing to hold as maybe something to continue to work towards — continuing that relationship.

I hope VACFASS gets to use the AOPSI standards, even though they're off reserve. I'm not sure if that is occurring.

R. Cantelon (Chair): All right. We'll move to quality assurance. Just before we move to it, we have another topic in the presentation called "Infrastructure resources for the system." Is it your intention to deal with that? Okay, that's fine. That's for the committee's reference.

S. Griffin: Good morning. It is a real pleasure to be here today and speak on behalf of pillar 5, integrated quality assurance. You've just listened in some detail to the enormous amount of activity and undertakings represented in the first four pillars. When we talk about prevention, early intervention, intervention and support, we are talking about that full range of supports that are required for children, youth and families.

Integrated quality assurance — what does that mean? It means: how are we going to know that the prevention, the early intervention, the intervention and supports and the aboriginal perspectives are in fact reflected in the system that we're moving forward on?

The plan, you will see, has five basic principles that it identifies: that's it's strength-based; that's it's rights-based — based on the convention on the rights of the child; that it's holistic and needs-based; that it's child-focused, family- and community-centred; and that it's transparent and accountable.

The purpose of the integrated quality assurance system is to help us know that in fact the systems that we put forward have captured not only the pillars but those principles.

So what is state-of-the-art integrated quality assurance? The "integrated" means we're working together. It means it is not one silo within either our ministry or across ministries that's going to be responsible for the ultimate health and well-being of British Columbia's children. It means that we have to be able to work across our program areas, be able to connect out to other ministry areas, be able to connect out to research and other institutions. That's what integrated means.

What does quality mean? It means that we are able to learn from what we're monitoring and tracking in our systems. It means that we're able to include the research from our external agencies and institutions.

It means that we have a continuous improvement process for managing the information and making sure that the staff that are working in that important intersect — the face-to-face work with the children and families in the province — have the information and the evidence they need for best practice; have the opportunity to flow back into that system their own expert opinions, their expert insights, their expert knowledge in terms of what's working and what's not working; and that we also have the opportunity for that same evidence to be influencing not only practice but our policy and the system. So quality is about the learning component.

Assurance. That's where we're able to tell you, where we're able to tell the public, where we're able to tell ourselves that in fact we are doing what we set out to do. That's integrated quality assurance in a nutshell.

There are three major factors in an integrated quality assurance system. There's the tracking, the monitoring and the reporting. That's where we're able to tell what's happening in the system, how we collect the information and how we report out to the public, to ourselves, to our partners.

There's the continuous learning component. That's the information that we're collecting, that we're monitoring, that we're tracking. How are we using that information? How is that information coming back into the system? What are we able to tell from that information? What are the trends? What's the analysis? What's it telling us about what's working as well as what's not working?

Then there's engagement and voice. In an integrated quality assurance system, in all of the programs, the initiatives that you listened to this morning…. Central to that is that there's the voice of the children, youth and family served and that there is the voice of the service providers in the communities. It's about everybody's voice being represented in what we're doing, because it's about that holistic community — family- and child- and youth-centred — that we're all trying to get at.

We are already actively engaged in a number of these areas. On the monitoring, tracking and reporting…. We do a significant amount of that now, but we've been basically program-based in terms of our monitoring. So we have quality assurance across the ministry. Then of course we have it across our partner ministries.

What does it look like? We have a significant number of databases that are collecting information. We have audits. We have case reviews. We have databases that track what's happening for our youth in youth custody. We have all kinds of information pieces throughout the ministry.

Part of our task is to have a really good look at what we're already collecting, what we're already doing. Are we making maximum use of that information? Is it telling us what we need to know? That's an important first step that we're already engaged in — reviewing our current processes to see what we're getting from them. Are we making the best use of them, and are there ways that we can be connecting them? From information we're collecting in early childhood through to the information we're collecting in youth custody, what are some of the bridges that we can be creating? Then, of course, where are some of the gaps?

That takes us to the next piece. Actually, it's a very exciting piece, which is that we are well underway in the implementation of something called an integrated management framework. This is going to roll out over the next five years. It really is state of the art in terms of being able to, across our system and within our partner ministries…. We will in fact be able to make accessible consistent information that's easily accessible to those who need it, starting right there at the front line with practitioners, right through to the decision-makers and policy-makers.

When I say decision-makers, I mean in terms of the policies put together. Recall, as well, that the decision-makers are also at the front line. On a daily basis, practitioners are making important decisions that influence and support the lives of those children, youth and families that they're working with. So we want to make sure that they have access to the best amount and quality of information they need, that it's useable, that it's accountable, that it protects privacy, that it is integrated and that we have it for the long term.

That system will roll out over the next five years. Every year over this period of time we're going to be able to report more and more. We're going to be able to report better and better in terms of what's happening within our system.

Some of the other work that we're already engaged in is really important, and I don't think we hear enough of what's working. We have thousands of child and youth care workers, social workers, mental health workers, who are out every single day making a difference in the lives of the children, youth and families that they're serving.

One of the things we're doing is a review of a number of successful programs. You've heard about many of them already this morning. We're saying: what is it about those programs that is working? We've talked in focus groups. We've talked to the providers. We've talked to the children, youth and families being served, and we're identifying what within these initiatives is making a difference. What do we need to learn from those initiatives in order to continuously improve what we're already doing?

Also, public accountability is not just about getting back to the public when it's not working. What the public also wants to know is when it is working for our children, youth and families, what's happening, and what's making a difference in those lives. So we're doing a "what's working for children and youth" review of good practice in the province.

We're also moving toward something called the integrated case review. That's because we recognize that children's lives don't come in silos either — that when there is something happening in a child's life, it's usually not one practitioner who's involved. It's usually across a range of practice areas. What we need is not one single lens, one single look into that child's life. We need to be able to come together and look at all of those factors that are influencing that child's life.

The integrated case review framework is including child welfare, child and youth mental health, provincial services for the deaf and hard of hearing, nursing support services, child and youth with special needs provincial operations, youth services–delegated aboriginal agencies, the Maples Treatment Centre, youth justice and youth forensics. There is an implementation committee that's already underway. The framework has been developed. It's beginning to roll out. That implementation committee is guiding that work.

We've also implemented a provincial complaints process. The complaints resolution process is just rolling

out now. It has been a process that has had active engagement of the regions, of provincial office, of providers to actually be able to have a good look at a process that we already had in place and see if we could make it that much better and, in making it better, that we could also create a system where we're able to track and monitor what the trends are in that complaints process. What's the complaints process telling us? Who is using it, and who is not using it? That is an important piece that is rolling out now.

We also have accreditation, and I think it's important to know that half of our services for children and youth are offered through our contracted agencies. Well over 200 of them have budgets of over $500,000 a year, and 99 percent of those are accredited.

Accredited means that through a very rigorous process they have met the standards that have been set by international, national and provincial professional bodies, institutions, based on the best research, and that there is an ongoing monitoring function in terms of retaining that accreditation status. We are having excellent success in that particular initiative.

That's the learning piece, and we're learning from the accreditation process as well. One of the things we're doing is having a good look at what the similarities are in terms of the accreditation report. What are some of the challenges? What are some of the barriers, and what works?

The third piece, then, in our integrated quality assurance is the engagement and voice. At the front of your Strong, Safe and Supported you saw a commitment to the convention on the rights of the child. Canada and British Columbia are both signatories to that document.

What that means is that we have made it explicit within the ministry that we will be reviewing our policies, our procedures, our regulations, our initiatives, working with staff on how we are honouring the convention on the rights of the child. To that end, we have developed a new unit and new positions that are specific to advocacy.

The role of the advocacy unit is to both monitor our system for our adherence to the convention on the rights of the child and, as important, to support our system and our staff in learning what that looks like in practice. With the youth advisory council that is part of this unit now as well, they have already begun a provincial reference group with regional representation and are going to look at what kinds of opportunities we have for ongoing staff training, ongoing staff report and public awareness in the area. What kinds of supports can we be providing to make this a more explicit part of our system?

It fundamentally reflects the belief of this ministry that we are principle advocates on behalf of the children, youth and families that we're serving and that the people working with these children are there because they see themselves as important advocates in the lives of these children, youth and families that they serve.

A quote I came across the other day is: "Systems enable practice." I think the other voice within this is our staff. How is it that…? We've set up these learning systems so that we are providing what the terminology calls a KSTE strategy — knowledge, synthesis, translation and exchange.

Fundamentally, what it means is: how do we get knowledge out there? How do people and, also, experienced practitioners get that knowledge back into the system? That's a critical part of that engagement and that voice that we will be looking for in the development of an overall system, then, that is promoting integration.

Integration is about all of us taking responsibility for this work. It's about quality. It's ensuring that our children and youth are getting the services and supports that they have a right to, that we know that…. We all want them to have the best. And it's the assurance that we know, that you know and that the public knows that, in fact, they are getting what they need to be strong, to be safe and to be supported to reach their full potential. That's the commitment of the integrated quality assurance system that we're building.

B. Bennett: I'm really pleased to hear about the focus on quality assurance. In particular I was very interested in what you were going to be able to do in terms of training, which we didn't really talk too much about.

In the infrastructure section there's some information on training and so forth. I think it almost feels like a forbidden area to discuss sometimes. The people on the ground who are making the decisions are right there when good decisions are made, but they're also right there when bad decisions are made. So I'm happy to hear what you have on the go there. That's just a comment.

I want to ask the deputy minister a question about the relationship between the ministry and the Child and Youth Representative. How do you perceive the Child and Youth Representative? It's not my intention to put words in your mouth or be difficult, but do you perceive the Child and Youth Representative as a partner? I know that you don't perceive the office as a nuisance or anything like that, but do you perceive the office as a threat to what the ministry is trying to do? Are there not ways that what that office is doing could be coordinated with the ministry more effectively than what we've seen so far?

L. du Toit: The first thing I would say is that it is my personal belief, and I would hope that it is the belief of the rest of the ministry, that particularly where you have vulnerable children — and those who are most vulnerable are those in a care system in any country — there would be somebody outside of government who is there to advocate on their behalf and to watch over them. In our opinion, we would fully, and we do, support the office of the Representative for Children and Youth.

We also, I think, have huge potential to work collaboratively with them on a number of initiatives. What we wouldn't want to see is a duplication of work that needs to be done but is being done both in the representative's office as well as in the ministry. There are a number of pieces of work that we believe we can do collaboratively.

Some of the goals of the representative are quite logically different to those of the ministry. I mean that in terms of their job focus. She and her staff have to be able to monitor us as a ministry and anybody else dealing with children and be able to report out independently on that. Our job is to focus on getting the job done and being held accountable to government and to the public as well. We both have to reach those goals in a slightly different manner.

Ultimately, I believe and would hope sincerely that our common objective is to achieve better outcomes and effective services for children. With that common vision, I believe there is plenty of opportunity to work together.

Then there's the piece where we can't work together, where quite clearly, as an independent office, they need to do their work without us in any way being in their territory trying to stop or interfere with that. Then there are pieces of work that are fundamental to the internal operations of the ministry, which the representative and her office should remain outside of.

L. du Toit: For example, any staffing issues are fundamental to the internal operation of the ministry. Who gets appointed, what their job descriptions are, how they function or how we support them in the work that we do would not be part of what the representative would be involved in, in terms of decision-making.

In terms of what would be outside of our scope, anything that she is deliberately monitoring and reviewing in such a way that she deems necessary as an independent office is not for us to be involved in unless we are invited to do so — until the work is done, in which case we are often then invited to respond to that.

So there are certain pieces that are separate, and there are others that definitely have the opportunity for dovetailing.

What I would not want and not support under any circumstances would be us having an adversarial relationship and ending up losing opportunities and creating difficulties for the people in the field. One of the most important things, I believe, is that the staff in this ministry need to be able to get on with their work. They need to do it well and effectively, and we need to support them.

If the two offices, our ministry and that office, can work together to make that happen, I will always be supportive of what that office does. If we end up giving our staff double the work and take them away from the work of delivering services, I would have concerns. For the most part, I see no reason why — because we believe in the same objectives — we cannot work in a collaborative manner. That's what we are committed to doing.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I have a quick question for Sandra. It's around accreditation, and it's about the $500,000 contracts. That's the threshold over which agencies need to be accredited. Is that going to be rolled out for those smaller agencies with less funding?

The issue is specifically because many of these agencies don't have it in their budget to do this kind of accreditation. It's a bit of a hit that they have to take. I'm just wondering if there's any ability for the ministry to encourage it through friendly encouragement rather than more punitive or potentially punitive decisions.

M. Sieben: We've seen relatively strong rewards from our efforts to support community-based agencies in their desire to move forward with accreditation. It's a question that's come forward on behalf of those smaller agencies that a number of times have…. Due to the level of support that we've seen occur — through our accreditation efforts, in fact — part of what we're considering is where and what happens next with accreditation.

Initial objectives have been met, so it's time now to take a look at what in fact is the purpose of accreditation overall within our quality assurance framework, what it means for our regions and our smaller service providers and what steps make sense on a go-forward basis. The response to the member's question is: basically, it's something that we necessarily have to decide within that context, but it's an idea that has some merit.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): Well, I think we're closing up. I just wanted to make sure you all know that we appreciate the opportunity to meet with you — to meet you, maybe, for the first time and hear what your goals are. I want to just express on behalf of the opposition members of the committee that it certainly is appreciated, and to the staff and the backup that are ready to come in at a moment's notice. The relief pitchers and such are also here. Thank you for that.

R. Cantelon (Chair): I’d like to thank all the committee members and the members of the ministry and staff who came today. It is the aim of this committee to move forward in a non-partisan way, and I'd like to thank all committee members for keeping that in mind and moving in that direction today.

I'd like to thank, particularly, the deputy for comments regarding collaboration. That is certainly something that we wish to foster and encourage. Perhaps you earlier heard the representative mention the…. Although the sun is setting on the possibility of a joint report, I think it's very effective if we can move forward with that. I encourage the ministry to do that with respect to the Hughes report.

L. du Toit: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the opportunity, as well, and appreciate your patience in terms of the wealth of information. May I make a last comment, which I should have made to Mr. Bennett?

L. du Toit: Hopefully, it will also speak to how we wish to go forward with the representative. We are establishing a very specific office within the quality assurance team, called the interface unit, and we're doing that so that we can streamline the information that needs to be shared and the cooperative relationship that needs to be developed. It's been a bit messy, and both we and the representative have been learning. We have taken a very specific step to put that unit in place, and we think that's going to be helpful to everybody.

R. Cantelon (Chair): Well, I’m sure it will. It's been a learning curve for us as well, but we'll get it all right.

M. Sieben: Could I add another bit of business that the representative also left us with in her initial presentation? She noted that there are a number of reports that have been released that have been spoken to, to a certain extent publicly but not within where it matters here, within the committee. We most certainly had a desire to speak to the Hughes issues and the northern report, as well as the representative's monitoring brief, in a fulsome way before the committee as well.

R. Cantelon (Chair): We look forward to those — that reaction. Thank you very much again for coming.

R. Cantelon (Chair): We have one last piece of business to deal with this morning, and that is the report on our committee work, which is essentially a summary.

I have to mention, unhappily, that Jonathan has decided to move on to a new position. We congratulate him on that. I don't know whether we've moulded his thinking processes to enable him to take on things or whether it's frustration with dealing with us, but whatever, we congratulate Jonathan in his new position.

If the committee is ready, we would move to adopt this report. If not, then we'll move into camera to discuss it in detail. Are you ready to move it?

R. Cantelon (Chair): Yes. It's coming; it's coming. You can go ahead. We're not in camera.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I move that the committee adopt the report to the House as presented today.

N. Simons (Deputy Chair): I move also that the Chair present the report to the House at the earliest available opportunity.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH