2009 Legislative Session:
First Session, 39th Parliament
Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth
This is a DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY of debate in one sitting of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. This transcript is subject to corrections, and will be replaced by the final, official Hansard report. Use of this transcript, other than in the legislative precinct, is not protected by parliamentary privilege, and public attribution of any of the debate as transcribed here could entail legal liability.
REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard Blues)
Select Standing
Committee on
CHILDREN AND YOUTH
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2010
The committee met at 10:07 a.m.
[J. McIntyre in the chair.]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to bring our meeting to order, please. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As you know — you all have an agenda before you — we are going to be looking at two different reports today from the Representative for Children and Youth, who we're delighted to have with us today. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Perhaps, Mary Ellen, I'll let you introduce your two senior staff members when you get to the appropriate moment. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We're going to be looking, first of all, at Kids, Crime and Care: Health and Well-Being of Children in Care. I thought we would have the representative present the report, and then we should have plenty of time for the questions. Then we'll end that section, and we'll go on to Housing, Help and Hope: A Better Path for Struggling Families. We'll do exactly the same thing. We'll have an overview from the representative and whatever staff members she would like, and then we'll have opportune time for questions and then any other business. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
At that time the representative had asked for five or ten minutes for a brief update on the work of the office. But at her request, we've now just moved that up to the beginning before we go into the two reports, which I assume will be fine with everybody. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Also, as you see — thank you to the Clerk — we have lots of refreshments there. I thought we would go through…. There isn't a lunch planned, so if we would like to adjourn before one o'clock and get through our materials, we will. But just enjoy the refreshments before you. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That's sort of the layout for our meeting this morning. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the Representative for Children and Youth, for her overview. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Update on Work of
Office of the Representative for
Children and Youth
M. Turpel-Lafond: I'd just like to open by saying happy new year to those I didn't get to say it to personally and wish each of you all the best for 2010. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
At the table with me today is my chief investigator and associate deputy, John Greschner, as well as my deputy representative, Jeremy Berland. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I also want to introduce a special visitor today. His name is Andy Nieman. Andy is visiting from the Yukon. He's been recently appointed the Child and Youth Advocate in the Yukon, which is also an independent office of the Legislature. Andy is from the White River First Nation, a Northern Tutchone First Nations peoples. We've had a very good week visiting with him, and we wish him all the best with establishing his office. He's come to observe the committee today to learn a bit more about how the representative is working directly with members of the Legislative Assembly. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Welcome.
A. Nieman: Thank you, Mary Ellen. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): If I could add my welcome, as well, on behalf of the committee. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A. Nieman: Thank you. Good morning. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I want to just give a very brief operational update before we jump into the more detailed discussion and, hopefully, question period around the reports. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
First of all, just an update around a few areas of the office's work on advocacy. I just will note to you that the advocacy work in the office continues to be challenging and continues to increase in volume. We have now received over 4,000 advocacy cases since we opened. We are seeing a steady increase in the annual volume as children and their families become more aware of the services we offer. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I've also written to the Minister and the Deputy Minister for Children and Family Development and Child Care and asked to establish a process of automatic notification to children and youth with respect to the availability of advocacy services in the representative's office. I hope to be able to give you a further update on that process in the near future. We may look at prioritizing that process around, for instance, children living out of the parental home first and so on — but to make sure that they are notified of the advocacy supports that are available. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Two recent reports. First of all, the report on Christian Lee, Honouring Christian Lee: Protecting Children Living with Domestic Violence, which was released in September 2009. As you know, the inquest into the death of Christian, his mother and his grandparents and his father completed in December, and we look forward to an opportunity at another sitting of the committee to go through the representative's recommendations. I can also say that with respect to that, I've been involved in some significant discussions with a variety of ministries around the issues of children and domestic violence. I'm hoping when we do have an opportunity to come to that issue that there will be a number of updates to provide. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Secondly, we released a report last week — a joint report that I had indicated would be released in my last meeting with you — with the Ombudsperson called Hearing the Voices of Children and Youth: A Child-Centred Approach to Complaint Resolution. You've received an electronic copy and, I think, also a hard copy. The Ombudsperson, Kim Carter, has indicated that she's very willing and open to attending a meeting of the committee for us to review what we found about the complaints process and also how we, in our joint work, have thought through and encouraged a more focused approach to complaints for children and youth. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
While that report is focused primarily on services provided by the Ministry for Children and Families and some of its entities, we did prepare a report that would have wider application — say, to the education system, the health care system and so on. How we listen to children. How we take up their concerns, and how we respond to them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Just with respect to some of the work in progress. The Hughes review report will be the next report released. It's in the administrative fairness process at the moment, and so we anticipate that being released in the near future. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We will also be tabling with the committee an update on services and supports for children and youth with special needs, which will follow up on our report of November 2008. I can indicate on that front that I recently met with the advisory committee on special needs that advises the representative's office to go through the areas of that report, and I've received some very helpful feedback from that advisory committee who are experts from a variety of areas like education, health, supporting families and children with special needs and those representing children living out of the parental home with special needs. That report will be a good opportunity, I think, to return to the two prior reports that my office has prepared around the system of support for children with special needs, including complex developmental disorders and a full range of situations. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We also will be posting fairly soon the report on the sexual abuse intervention program, and we are in the process of writing the findings of an audit that we conducted on the Child in the Home of a Relative program. So that will likely be released as well in the winter period. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
With respect to some of the work in progress around critical injuries and deaths and investigations, there is a great initiative underway in my office to complete all of the historic referrals and the reviews of those. We have one full case investigation that's underway where evidence is being taken and an investigation is being conducted by our investigators, and we hope to complete that in late spring, early summer. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There are two aggregate or group reviews. First of all, deaths of children under two, and a group of self-harm deaths and injuries more focused on adolescents. Although, as I indicated to you in the past, the youngest child in that cluster is nine. Those two aggregate reviews are being completed now. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I hope those will be released…. We were hoping for spring 2010. We decided to extend it slightly because we wanted to cover a full two-year period of reportables from June 1, 2007 to June 1, 2009. That allows us to have a bit larger of a cohort, particularly in the self-harm, critical injury and suicide deaths. I think that is valuable for us to have a greater understanding of the circumstances for at-risk adolescents. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Three other investigations are on hold awaiting the conclusion of criminal processes. I would indicate there that of course the representative's work is affected very much by the pace of these matters. Even when there has been, say, a conviction for murder or manslaughter, it may take up to a year from the time the conviction is recorded at the trial level through to actually the appeal being considered, so there are some significant delays. I've communicated some of my concerns about those delays in the criminal justice system to the Attorney General. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm watching particularly these three cases because if too long of a period passes, we lose an opportunity to really learn from some of these circumstances. Expect to hear more from me about that in the near future. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
To date we have completed 38 sort of thorough reviews on independent cases, individual cases. We will give them a regular update. We report every four months on the cases that have come in. We break them down by region, identity, age and so on. We expect to do the next update to that effect in March. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Generally, I can just report that with respect to the operations of the oversight body, the work is proceeding well. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We have one challenge with respect to the Ministry of Children and Families that I'm hoping I will be able to resolve with the minister in the very near future, and that is a concern with respect to the reports that the representative prepares. The ministry has taken the view that they will not respond to the representative on recommendations made but will respond directly to the committee on recommendations made. The representative is perfectly happy that they respond to the committee. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I feel very strongly that for the oversight function to work effectively, because this committee doesn't meet periodically…. This committee, while it is a very important entity created to support the work of the representative's office and support improvements to the system, is not sort of an expert body that can evaluate those submissions and determine whether or not work that is stated to have been completed has been completed. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I have written to the minister, and I have asked her to put an effort into requiring the ministry to work directly with the oversight body around the recommendations — in particular, respond to the recommendations, make a formal response of some kind to the report. They don't have to accept the recommendations — they can reject the recommendations — but to engage and respond to them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think that this has been a persistent issue. I'm hopeful that with the minister's involvement we will be able to resolve that — I think to the benefit of not only the oversight office's work but to the benefit of improving children's services in British Columbia and also in making the work of the committee more meaningful and deeper. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That concludes the operational update. I'll just pause there, Madam Chair, before I go into any of the reports to see if you have any questions with respect to that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Okay. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: I'm just wondering. Is it an issue around the timing of the release of the report by your office or the issue of whether the ministry has an opportunity to respond prior to the release of the report? What is at issue here? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Presumably, if the report is released to the committee, your office will have an opportunity to evaluate the ministry's response at the same time. So is it a timing issue? Obviously, we aren't going to be able to have the research available to assess whether everything is factual or whether it's interpretive. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Can you just elaborate on that? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: Uh-huh. Whenever a report is prepared, whether it's an investigative death report, whether it's a monitoring report, whether it's an annual report, what have you — but particularly if it involves any type of a review or evaluation of any actions by the ministry — the oversight agency follows a process of administrative fairness. In advance of a release of a report, we submit to the ministry a copy, and we invite them to make any comments on the document with respect to the substance of the findings. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Then that process may lead to a meeting where we discuss, occasionally, recommendations and other areas. By the time a report is released to the public, there has been significant discussion and involvement with the ministry in order for us to fulfil our administrative fairness requirements — to allow them to have a look at the document, to bring to our attention any errors or omissions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We take a fairly generous approach to allow them to identify themes or other matters. In particular, if there is work that's being done to accomplish a recommendation, we're always willing to look at it. So when a report is released, there has been a significant amount of administrative fairness. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Once the report is released, it's the issue of engagement. If I take as an example the report into the four northern deaths, which was issued by my office two years ago, we have not received any reporting…. They will not report at this point to us on the recommendations, on whether or not they have been implemented or the progress of those recommendations. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I appreciate the ministry has chosen to report directly to the committee. I think that's a challenge for the oversight body, because there's no way for me to look to see if, say, risk assessment or these other key areas identified in that report — whether changes have been accomplished. I will ask the minister, and I have asked the minister, to resolve the issue so there will be more, shall I say, fulsome discussions and some reporting. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In particular, I was hoping to prepare for the committee a roll-up of all the recommendations made to date — where they are and the progress that has been made on them — but I will not be able to do that. Again, today when I go through the reports, you will note that in some instances I will have to report to you that there's no response. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Okay. So with that, if we could move on to the first report, Kids, Crime and Care: Health and Well-Being of Children in Care. Again, I'd like to turn it back over to the representative for your presentation, and then we'll have questions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Joint Report:
Kids, Crime and Care:
Health and Well-Being of Children in Care
M. Turpel-Lafond: Great. Thank you. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The report that I will first speak to is the Kids, Crime and Care report, which you received in electronic version. I know you have a hard copy today. Some of you, I think, I provided a hard copy to as well, because I appreciate that not everyone works off electronic versions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This report was released by the provincial health officer and myself on February 23, 2009. Dr. Perry Kendall sends his regrets that he's not able to be here today. I continue to collaborate and work with Dr. Kendall on a variety of other projects around our joint interest in improving outcomes for vulnerable children and youth. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
He was particularly pleased that the committee would have a chance to consider the report. Certainly, if there are questions or concerns directed to him, I know that he's available and willing to attend on a future date. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This study is one of the largest studies undertaken in Canada in examining the youth justice system. It's a very important example of the type of work that the representative's office feels is required, particularly in British Columbia as we move forward, to look at an entire cohort year, or birth year. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We looked at all the children in British Columbia born in 1986. So 50,551 children were born in that year, but then a smaller group were those attending school in B.C. in 1997-1998. Some people leave; some people come in. There's in and out. But we looked at an entire birth cohort. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I would just say that methodologically, it is extremely important in assessing needs and assessing outcomes for children that there be large cohort assessments done regularly around outcomes that are achieved for children year to year and across childhood, so not just a simple snapshot of one day. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Very often when we look at how we're doing with respect to children and vulnerable children, we look at a snapshot, like how many children are in care today or how many children are in jail today. While that is a significant indicator, in a way, it's very difficult to understand the impact of the environment and the child's opportunities with a one-day snapshot. It's much more important to look at an entire birth cohort and follow them through a period of time and learn during that period of time: what vulnerabilities did they have? What experiences did they have? Who was graduating from school? Are they healthy? Were they still in the family home? And so on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So we get an understanding of British Columbia around strengths, challenges and so on. This study was a very significant one, and I give complete credit to the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the then assistant deputy minister, Alan Markwart, who leads the area of youth justice, for fully supporting this work and working in a very positive and collaborative way from the outset — first of all, indicating how valuable and important he felt it was to do this type of large evaluation and following children through a period of time. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In order to accomplish this study and look at data over a ten-year period, as you can imagine, it takes a significant amount of work and effort. It also required the representative to go and obtain a court order to get access to both Young Offenders Act records and Youth Criminal Justice Act records, so we could look at the ages and so on, which is all very confidential. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
My office has confidentiality requirements, but we did have to go the extra measure to get a court order to have access to that data. That data was very protected, and once our piece of work was done, our interest in that expired. So special measures are taken to have respect for the privacy of children but, at the same time, learn from what we can. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Among the questions we were looking at were, in this birth cohort, look at their education status, their special needs, their justice encounters and outcomes, their family structure, their income assistance reliance and histories of violence. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I would just note that we should be very pleased in British Columbia because despite the high media profile around youth crime and individual youth crimes — which, albeit, can be very heinous and disturbing and distressing to individuals and to communities — the report finds that there really is no youth crime crisis in British Columbia. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The Canadian rate of property crime among youth fell about 40 percent from 1986 to '99, levelled off and then continued to fall after 2003. Much of the decrease in reported property crime by youth was in thefts and burglaries. The decline in reported property crime both before and after 2003 has been offset by some increase in other youth crime. This includes some variety of offences. The majority are minor drug offences; the administration-of-justice violations, like not meeting bail or probation conditions or the terms of their release, if you like; mischief and minor property damage. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I would say that B.C.'s trends, British Columbia youth justice trends, are more positive than the country's as a whole, so in terms of national standards, British Columbia has very strong trends, positive trends. In British Columbia the rate of youth in contact with the police, both charged with, leading to a formal charge and dealt with informally — mainly put into, maybe, a restorative justice program or returned home — has declined from about 86 youth per 1,000 youth in 1998 to 59 per 1,000 youth in 2007. That's a significant decline. British Columbia can be very proud of that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The national trend showed some increases, but B.C. youth's violent crime rate has also had a significant decrease, down about 33 percent from 1993 to 2006. Certainly, national data like Statistics Canada data reports that B.C.'s youth crime rate declined 54 percent from 1991 to 2007 and also that in 2007 B.C. had the second-lowest total youth crime rate and the second-lowest violent youth crime rate. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The lowest rates in Canada were recorded in Quebec, so British Columbia was the second best, if you like, with respect to pro-social activities on the part of youth as opposed to the antisocial and criminogenic activities. So there is much evidence of good practice and positive signs with respect to youth in the criminal justice system. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What the representative's office was particularly interested in with Dr. Kendall was seeing that as a significant finding, but then: what about for those children and youth from 12 to 18 that do become involved with the criminal justice system? Who are they, and what makes them different than other children and youth that have no involvement with the system? Is there additional work, even though we've seen these trends improving? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We're certainly not the perfect society, where we still do have youth crime, and we still have youth jails and so on. But what about those kids that are still involved with the system? What can we learn about them? What risk factors were in their lives that maybe placed them in a position where they may have contact with the criminal justice system? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What risk factors place them in a position where they're going to have ongoing contact with the criminal justice system over a period of years, possibly graduating into the adult system? And what protective factors were playing a role in their lives that might see them come out of the system? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
These are significant questions that we need to ask in B.C. That's one of the reasons why this study was completed as a first study and a type of evaluation that the representative — and, I know, Dr. Kendall — were hoping very much would be done regularly, either by my office or by government, as a sort of standard way of understanding this area. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We found, in addition to the data, that some of the environmental circumstances — like a strong environment for the delivery of youth justice programs and services, with a significant focus on child development…. Keeping the youth stream aside from the adult stream and not treating children and youth like mini–Criminal Code offenders, but actually a youth stream, was a very engrained and embedded concept in British Columbia through the work of many people working very hard to build the system over a long period — probably about 25 years. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That had paid significant dividends, rather than having it simply as a system of sort of punishment and isolation and retribution. So there were some very strong environmental factors. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
With respect to the findings, though. Of those children that were at risk of criminal involvement and ongoing involvement in the criminal justice system, some of the findings were quite significant. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
First of all, the disproportionate number of children living out of the parental home who become involved with the criminal justice system. Again, what we might call various vulnerabilities that a child may have in their life — not having a stable family unit; not having, perhaps, early intervention and supports in their life or the life of their family — correlated by other circumstances like poverty, isolation and so on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We found that 13 percent of the children in care in this birth cohort, as we followed them, had been sentenced to custody by the age of 18. That was in contrast to 0.7 percent of the general population of kids — a very significant variance. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Aboriginal youth, whether they were in the parental home or out of the parental home, had heavy involvement with the justice system. They were five times more likely to be incarcerated than youth in the general study population. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Children in care, we found, those living out of the home…. And again, some of those will also be aboriginal children, children living out of the parental home, children who have experienced poverty deprivation early in their lives and had multiple experiences of vulnerability. Children in care get involved with the justice system at an earlier age — namely, closer to 12, which is the age of criminal responsibility in Canada until the Youth Criminal Justice Act. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That early involvement was really almost a year earlier than children not in care, which is very significant because the research and evidence is very strong that early involvement with the criminal justice system — unlike what some people sort of anecdotally think will straighten up kids — actually tends to, through the research, expose them to greater likelihood of further involvement with the justice system. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The correlation between the corrections system and the high incidence of special needs in British Columbia was a very significant finding in this study. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Behavioural issues. There would be some conduct and behaviour issues identified — particularly the education data was very valuable here — and significant issues around mental health and mental illness. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Overall, we found that of the children in care who became involved with the corrections or justice system…. Mainly, they were incarcerated at some point either because they were being held in custody to be released or because they were sentenced. Of that population, 72 percent of them had intensive behavioural issues or serious mental illness within the school system. So they were already identified in the system — in some instances well before the age of 12, when they had criminal responsibility — with some challenges. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There was a high level of aggressive behaviour in the administrative data — like in the education data, in particular — around these children living out of the parental home. Now, that is not surprising, particularly for children who've experienced trauma, removal, possibly coming into the foster care system. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
While we're not going to speak at length about the 13 percent of the children in care that were sentenced to custody and each of their individual circumstances, you will see when we come to the recommendations component that we were particularly troubled by what we call instability in their lives — the lack of stability. There seemed to be a fairly strong correlation between those unmet special needs, those mental health issues and multiple placements, say, in the foster care system, compounding their likelihood of becoming involved with the criminal justice system. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Around 29 percent of the children in care have been identified as having serious mental illness and related special needs compared to about 1.8 percent of the children overall in British Columbia. So 31 percent of the children in care involved with the corrections system have violent histories in contrast to 19 percent of the general population who are involved with corrections. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Children in care — and this, I think, is probably one of the most staggering findings for Dr. Kendall and myself — had a higher probability of ending up in the correctional system — 36 percent of them would — than they did of graduating from high school, which was 24.5 percent. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I would note that the youth justice system in British Columbia, both from my own personal observance of it and the advocacy cases we do, places a very strong emphasis on reconnecting to school and improving education supports for children, whether children are placed in a local community resource facility instead of a jail with a strong school focus, as exists in some places like Campbell River, or in the facilities themselves. There is a strong emphasis on school for those that are captured. They may be there for a very short period of time. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
But the likelihood for those children living out of the parental home to be involved in the youth justice system versus graduating I think speaks to a very core issue that you know — at least those who have been on this committee for a period of time know — has been a major concern to me as representative, which is improving opportunities and education outcomes for this group of vulnerable children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The study also found a very core relationship between, of course, living out of the family home and likelihood of police contact and involvement in the criminal justice system. The graduation rates, curiously enough, were actually lower, and there were fewer children graduating from high school of the cohort of children that ended up in this children in the home of a relative program. They actually did worse than the children in care in terms of their outcomes. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I thought that was quite interesting, because it would appear that for children in care, those who have more stability in their lives will have better outcomes. Those who have less stability — namely, more moves — will have poorer outcomes, but the children in the home of the relative have the poorest outcomes of all. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Even aside from that, of any child in British Columbia that becomes involved with the criminal justice system, whether they're in the parental home or out of the parental home, it was a staggering finding that really only 30 percent of them would graduate from high school. So a significant challenge around…. If we wish to lower the criminogenic risk profile for those children to go on to, say, become adult offenders, there's a huge opportunity there to improve their education outcomes and to do, perhaps, some more targeted work in that regard. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Now, with respect to the recommendations that we proposed, I'm not going to go into the data and the charts and so on, unless there are questions at the end. I'd be happy to review that. With respect to the work of the representative's office, for those who are newer to the committee, one of the principles that we operate on is to be as limited and focused as we can in our recommendations. Certainly, government that has incredibly important responsibilities to support vulnerable persons and others doesn't need hundreds and hundreds of recommendations. It needs very focused recommendations that can be accomplished that actually speak to the circumstance after identifying it fairly and fully and looking at the data. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The representative's office is very committed to only bringing forward, including to this committee, recommendations that can be achievable, that are concrete and practical and that could be accomplished with as little difficulty but have a good impact and a fairly significant, immediate impact on the lives of children. That is a very significant principle for me as representative in particular. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The recommendations that we put forward are really going to be focused on these improvements and priming the system to pay more attention earlier to meeting the needs of this group of children that are most vulnerable for involvement with the criminal justice system. We're talking about school-based supports, because the education issues are so significant. We're talking about focusing on graduation rates. We're talking about focusing on stability. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Really, there's a key theme that comes through this report, like other reports we produce about this group of vulnerable children in British Columbia, and that's that the state — the government of British Columbia, as the guardian and parent, if you like, of children in care — must lead by example and create the best possible learning and living conditions for children and, in order to do that, must pay attention to certain aspects of their lives and report regularly and demonstrate its attention by reporting regularly and having a high degree of transparency, having a high degree of commitment and consistency to these areas. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The first recommendation, a very straightforward one, is that whenever a child or a youth in care or in the CIHR program has more than three changes in placement outside of the parental home within one 12-month period, there is a report made to a regional director of integrated practice. This recommendation speaks to the issue of stability, so multiple placements of a child…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Particularly, you can say: "Well, why, representative, did you say three? Is there a magic in the word 'three'?" No, two placements can be very disruptive in the life of a child, but often a child is brought into care, and there is an immediate placement, a very sort of short-term, often sometimes emergency, placement. Then there will be a second placement. That's understandable — at least one to two. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When you get to three, there tend to be some questions about: was it a bad fit in the second placement? What happened? Are people paying attention? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When you get beyond three, there become very significant questions in the child welfare or our system around: why is this child being moved more than three times? What's happening? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Again, I do encourage you to think of these things as you would think of them as being a parent, because we have to be sort of a corporate parent with respect to children in care. Yourself as a parent…. If you were the parent of young school-aged children and you moved the children three times in a year, you would certainly, probably, not be too excited about that third move and be thinking about all of the issues in the lives of the children that are impacted. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
For these particularly vulnerable children, multiple moves are connected to behaviour changes and feelings, of course, of being uncertain, of rejection, anger and abandonment. So the living arrangements must be stable, must be consistent. They must have qualified caregivers who know something about meeting their needs, understand the circumstances they're coming from and also are capable of paying attention to things that will make a major difference in their life. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The recommendation called for a detailed implementation plan by the Ministry of Children and Families by October 30, 2009, and for a process for tracking moves of children in the CHR program and in care to be developed by October 30, 2009, and that report-outs of moves in care would be submitted to the representative's office and that we would in turn submit them to the public by January 1, 2010. Now, my office has not been informed of the ministry's response to this recommendation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The second recommendation is that the Ministry of Children and Family Development "revise existing policies and practices to ensure that specialized training, appropriate supports and resources are available to foster parents and adoptive parents to support and care for children with mental health and behavioural issues." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We know from this research and our work that one of the reasons for placement instability, if you want to call it — children moving from place to place to place — is the issue of the fit between the child, the needs of the child and the youth and the skill of the caregiver. There's no question that many of the children living out of the parental home have special needs. They have high needs, and a skilled caregiver will be extremely important for them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Certainly, in our community and advocacy work we still hear from caregivers regularly about the sense of being overwhelmed by the special needs of the child placed with them. They're not prepared to deal with it, or if they run into a crisis, they're told to call the police, that there isn't other support that comes to them. These are really significant — the supports to caregivers so they in turn can be an effective state parent to the child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The recommendation called for the Ministry of Children and Families to publicly report on these enhancements by October 30, 2009, with some detailed implementation plans in place by November 15, 2009. That's the area of specialized training — so really around the mental health and behavioural issues. We have not been informed by the ministry of its response to this recommendation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Recommendation No. 3 is that upon each new occurrence of a youth in care having involvement with the youth justice system, including police, the youth's plan of care be reviewed within 30 days, with the youth justice professionals and service providers involved with this, and modified as required to address the criminal behaviour. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This is really, again, about treating kids living out of the parental home as you would treat them if they were your son or daughter. If your son or daughter became involved with the police or the courts, I'm sure what you would do is step back and look very carefully at what is going on in their lives. What differences? Is it peers? Is there a mental illness? Is there substance abuse? What is it that is changing in the life of this child that has caused this antisocial behaviour, if you like? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What is going on? We'd stop, certainly, I think, as parents, more quickly than 30 days. Probably after we picked the child up from the police cell we'd stop and do some very significant soul-searching and thinking and planning for the child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In the current system there is no requirement, when a child has contact with police or has been convicted, to revisit the care plan. So this recommendation — again, very practical, very focused on the needs that we've found in the study — was that when they have a contact it triggers a process to review that plan of care. Is the plan of care adequate? What is actually happening in the life of the child? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Of course, anytime you have a plan of care it's very significant to me as the representative that you actually talk to and involve the child in that plan. It's not just professionals sitting down but, again, as you would as a parent, talking to the child. What is happening? What is going on? What can we do to support you differently? Help us understand this. That's very important. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So a very practical recommendation for the state to, in effect, do what any responsible parent would do in the circumstance. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
To make this recommendation meaningful, we called for an audit plan to be in place, that MCFD, by October 30, 2009, provide quarterly reports of children in care involvement with the criminal justice system — that they have an audit plan, so they actually audit and really look at what is happening with these plans in care when there is a known involvement with the criminal justice system. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The representative's office — my office — has not been informed of the ministry's response to this recommendation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Recommendation 4. That the Ministries of Attorney General and Public Safety and Solicitor General examine policies and practices to ensure that youth in care and youth living out of the parental home are not being charged in situations where adolescents living with their families would not be charged. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Let me explain this a little bit more. This arises from a concern that Dr. Kendall and I had that the justice system is sometimes used as a babysitter, if you like, or a holding centre for vulnerable children. A child living in a family setting would very quickly be released back to the family. But when they're living out of the parental home — they've lost a placement — they may be held in custody for a period of time, which in and of itself can increase their risk of future criminal behaviour. So that's a concern. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The other side of the concern is the reporting to the police and involving the police in activities that happen in a home which, while technically criminal, other families would not normally involve the police. I'm sure for any of us, if we called the police every time siblings pushed each other and said that there was touching without consent, which meets the full definition of assault under section 266 of the Criminal Code…. "We'd like you to respond immediately and lay charges on the 12-year-old." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Really, we don't do that — do we? We try to work it out. We do peacemaking. These things happen. Things get thrown. Things get broken. Children have very unstable periods, particularly adolescents. I'm not saying that it's ideal, but we have to come to expect that there will be a certain amount of conflict with every child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A child that is in care, has experienced abuse or neglect…. In some instances, as you well know, in order for a child to even be taken into care in British Columbia there has to be a fairly strong record of significant abuse and neglect, because the system doesn't lightly remove a child. The children will have conflicts. They will act out. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If the caregiver's response is to call the police, then the children will be more often charged, and there's nowhere to put them. They will stay in custody longer. They will be, if you like, doubly disadvantaged by the fact that they're vulnerable to begin with, and there isn't a parent that is going to show up to support them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This recommendation was directed toward the Attorney General and Public Safety and Solicitor General. I can report on this one that I've had very good discussions with prosecutions, Attorney General, and Public Safety and Solicitor General to talk about this recommendation, and there is work in progress on it, including training, etc., so we've seen some movement on this. It's not completed, but there has been some significant movement on it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Recommendation 5. Again, a very practical issue is that every school in British Columbia assign a single staff person to oversee education planning, monitoring and attainments of the children in care that attend their school. This function should be in place and functioning by September 2009. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Now, this is perhaps for me one of the best examples there is of how a recommendation from the representative's office can be positively dealt with by government and, as a result, make a real difference in the lives of kids. This recommendation again deals with the connection between education, kids in care and the youth justice system. Again, like any responsible caring parent, this is about knowing what's going on, on a daily basis, in the life of a child that's in care and in your school. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In each school someone has to have a bigger-picture understanding or be primed in that school to consider the unique educational needs of this child in this cohort of children that will be in their schools. Better planning, working together, making sure kids are involved in pro-social activities around the school, like extracurricular activities, sports and so on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Also, because we know they're more likely to become involved in the youth criminal justice system, making sure that they feel welcome, that they're attached to school, that there are positive opportunities to change the life course that they've experienced in their young lives. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The Ministry of Education, principals, trustees, superintendents, teachers and others responded very positively to this recommendation. I'm extremely pleased about this. Much more is to be done, but it does appear from a recent look at it that almost every school in British Columbia has assigned a person and that greater attention is being paid to children in care. Some schools and districts are doing, I think, just a marvellous job. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There's more work to be done, and there should be more reporting-out on this. But there has been some very, very good progress, and I'll be meeting with the Minister of Education soon to talk about next steps. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'll give you an example: Kamloops. A superintendent in Kamloops recently shared with us how an assistant superintendent came into the room in December with a binder with one page for each child in continuing custody in their school, where they'd actually stopped to pay attention to how they are doing in school, who they are and what's happening. That's a very significant step, and that's the type of practical and important change that I think can assist in this area. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It looked at their academic situation, their behaviour, their social connections and how they're being supported in school. In the past some of these adolescents in particular would be the kids that would be asked to leave school. They're a problem. Now really reversing it in those schools that are being very active to say: "Let's understand what's happening." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm very pleased about this. This is also building on the work we did on educational outcomes. It's a good example of how I think my office and the Ministry of Education in particular have been working in a very collaborative way around trying to find some real-life areas where children can be supported in education. There's much more to be done. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I also know there's a similar initiative happening in Comox and other places where it's that concrete. So I think it would be very valuable for us to see some reporting-out at a provincial level, school by school, district by district. How many of the children? Are they at grade level? Are they doing well? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Some of that reporting was called for in earlier reports, so I'll take this up again with the Minister of Education to see: can we ramp up? Again, as we prime the system to pay more attention to the outcomes for these kids, see if we're making progress. I suspect that just by priming up the system, we will make progress. But we want to see that we're making progress. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Of course I just want us to not forget that young person in care, perhaps feeling somewhat lost and alone and being away from family members, maybe being in a big scary new school — how special they must feel with the reassurance they get that there's an adult in the school paying attention to them and wanting them to do well. No matter who that person is — if it's a teacher, a principal, a superintendent, whoever — I think it's extremely important. It's a very good-news story. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Recommendation 6 is that MCFD publicly commits to ensuring that youth justice continues to have provincial leadership with executive representation by an assistant deputy minister. Again, this recommendation is very straightforward. It's a public commitment that youth justice will have provincial leadership by an ADM. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Youth justice is a unique program because it operates under federal legislation: the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the criminal procedure of the Criminal Code of Canada, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act — a whole suite of federal legislation comes into play in British Columbia through provincial legislation for the administration of justice to then touch on the lives of children. It's a complicated area — federal-provincial interplay and then, of course, ensuring that the needs of children are met. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In the representative's view, it requires a dedicated advocate and an experienced leader. In the history of British Columbia that has migrated somewhat, from the Ministry of Attorney General to the Ministry of Children and Families. I think that the success to date has been a result of that type of leadership. The credibility of British Columbia has been, in part, driven by that experience and that knowledge. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This recommendation asks for the deputy of MCFD to provide confirmation of this by May 31, 2009. The MCFD deputy minister recently announced that she had restructured the MCFD executive team, and I am disappointed that this reorganization did not retain an ADM responsible for youth justice. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Recommendation 7, that the social policy ministries of government — which include Education, Health, MCFD, MHSD, Healthy Living, Attorney General and PSSG, Public Safety and Solicitor General — produce a cross-ministry plan that identifies an interlocking network of services to support and assist children, youth and families throughout the developmental stages from prenatal to adulthood. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A focused cross-ministry approach is essential because in British Columbia the network of services to children, family and youth is not seamless. It's not clear to families, to caregivers, who supports what at what stage from the point of birth. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We know that at age five, kids come into school. But exactly what happens to support children who have a high criminogenic risk profile for some of the vulnerabilities that we've identified, whether because they're in families that are struggling, whether they experience poverty, whether they experience limited parental attachment in the early years — what have you? Some type of cross-ministry framework or plan that actually identifies the services and supports to children at different vantage points so we take every opportunity to boost the resilience of this group of vulnerable children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So looking at different life stages from prenatal through to adulthood, to be based on evidence, to identify risk factors, as we looked at in this complete study of an entire birth year of children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Pay particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal children and families because of their gross over-representation here in the youth justice side and, of course, in the child welfare system. This is to be developed with some cooperation, at least for the aboriginal side, with aboriginal communities and organizations. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This recommendation called for a lead ministry to be identified by government by September 30, 2009, for service providers to be consulted by November 30 in a draft plan to be completed by January 4, 2010, and a detailed implementation plan and evaluation plan developed by February 1, 2010. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I understand that ministries are working on an integrated framework of sorts. I've received insufficient detail to assess whether this is a response to the recommendation or a different initiative. But that is the final recommendation, so I now would be pleased to answer any questions that committee members might have before we move on to the next agenda item. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Thank you very much for that, I think, thorough overview of your findings and, certainly, of the recommendations. I'd like to thank you and your office for the work. That's a very big, major piece of work, to look at a cohort of children in British Columbia. I think there are some very, obviously, interesting and sometimes shocking findings. Thank you very much, on behalf of the committee, for the work you're doing and for the time you've taken to present to us. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm very happy to open it up for questions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: Thanks, Mary Ellen. What I think resonated with this report was the issue of stability — the issue of stability, whether it be home stability or school stability. I know kids who've gone to four schools in kindergarten. I'm going to visit one in jail this afternoon. I've known kids who have had incredible instability, even in their foster home placements, in their social workers. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Ultimately, I think what we're not looking at, perhaps, is the issue of income levels and poverty. I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to try to evaluate outcomes of children who are living in conditions…. I know that you've addressed it in other reports. Where does that factor in? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Why would the number of children who are placed with relatives — in the CIHR program, for example…? Why would their stability be the same as children in care who are moving from placement to placement? Why would their educational achievement be lower or their involvement in the criminal justice system be higher? It doesn't seem to be consistent because CIHR ultimately is supposed to eliminate that moving around — to place a child with a family member and the state, the ministry, to stay out of it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Conversely, maybe this is an opportunity to say: "Oh, being involved with the ministry actually benefits you." If you're not in the Child in the Home of a Relative program, you're in care. And if you're in care, you have a social worker. And if you have a social worker, you have access to certain funds. But if you're in Child in the Home of a Relative, it's just a social assistance program. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm trying to figure out how the difference can be explained. To me, there must be another variable that we need to look at. I think that if you do, you'd find that the child in the home of a relative is not receiving the same amount of money as a child who's living in foster care, in terms of what services they can be offered. I'm thinking that to explain the difference between a child in the home of relatives and children in care, you'd have to look at income, and you'd have look at support. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm bursting with questions around this, but I'm also, as a secondary thing…. I didn't keep track, and I didn't keep score, and I probably should have, but how many of those recommendations have you had responses from, from the Ministry for Children and Families? There was a theme, I think I heard, that either we passed deadlines without hearing or you didn't hear anything even before the deadlines were passed. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: First of all, with respect to the Ministry for Children and Families, I received no response to the recommendations. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
On the issue of poverty, if you look to page 33 of the report, you will see that we looked at income assistance. Again, you know you've identified a very significant point around: how does deprivation — poverty, socioeconomic deprivation — impact a child? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
For the children that were at risk here, the granular level of analysis…. Did they experience deprivation? Was the mother poor during her pregnancy? Did she have adequate food? Did she have adequate supports? Were they born into poverty, say, or did they experience deprivation later in life? Or did they come into care because the presenting issue was poverty? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This is a very significant issue that you've raised. There's no question that there's a very strong correlation between socioeconomic deprivation and the child welfare system and the criminal justice system. They're very closely linked. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What we were able to look at here, which is interesting, was: how many of these kids, then, ended up on social assistance? Because even if they had experienced deprivation — I mean, the assumption is that every child…. It's an equal society. They can then flourish. They can go to school, and they can be a success. They can obtain employment and so on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Many do, but what we've found here, if you look at page 33, was that many don't, and that of the children in care, almost 90 percent of them — both in the youth justice and not in the youth justice — are on social assistance. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
For the children in the home of the relative, even more were on social assistance. What we've found is that the children in the home of the relative were living in families on social assistance. They were living in families in deprivation as an out-of-home placement. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Whether or not there are adequate resources to meet the needs of the child is another issue. Was it early deprivation that raised their criminogenic risk profile? We know that what happens in the early years is very significant around criminogenic risk profile. But just from 12 to 18, many of them…. As Dr. Kendall and I say, poverty impacts a family in a manner that increases each of the risk factors that we've described. I mean, every single one of them is impacted. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Ultimately, we don't want these vulnerable kids to graduate from the justice system to the income assistance system. This is where we want to intervene. Again, it explains a bit why so much of my emphasis is on things like stability, connectedness to school, because education is an enormously important leveller with respect to improving the circumstances for these children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Could I add just one question there, too, on that topic? I'd be interested in knowing whether some of the children in the home of a relative…. Are they, unfortunately, some of the cases that are very difficult to place — I mean, the reason they are not in care and the reason these outcomes are even lower? I've been puzzling about that too. It's a shocking finding. That may be hard for you to answer, but I guess…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Is that one of the possible answers — that some of these children, unfortunately, are in such dire circumstances that they've not been able to be placed and have somehow been placed away from the parent but with some relative? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think Jeremy Berland, who has been overseeing the audit of the program and has knowledge of it, probably is in a better position to answer that question from a historical viewpoint. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Berland: I think that you're right. It's a very complicated question to try to figure out what's the beginning. But part of the question probably revolves around the way in which children end up in CIHR placements, which is often without very much planning, without really an effective guardian. So although the parent remains the legal guardian, there isn't anybody actually responsible, able to sign documents, able to pay the kind of attention that a parent would pay to the ongoing life of a child. If you couple that with the poverty that most of those parents are living in, it compounds the problem. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Very often we see multiple placements in CIHR amongst different relatives as well as the child feeling quite disconnected from their family of origin or their birth family. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's probably a cluster of factors that happen. Predominant among them may be that it has traditionally been a fairly poorly defined program, and so you see lots of different doors in, people remaining there without very much supervision over a long period of time and not really a very effective guardian. It may be a series of things that are happening for the child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Okay. Thanks very much. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Thornthwaite: Thank you very much for your report. Also, the good news, I guess, from your perspective, is recommendation 5. My background in the school system…. I think that's great that the boards of education and the Ministry of Education have taken your recommendation very seriously and acted on that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
My question is more specific to the aboriginal issue and how we, for the risk of another word, categorize aboriginal children. It just seems to me that the children in care — that's one issue. You've indicated that they're in care, why they're in care. It's a whole multifactorial issue. You've also clumped aboriginal kids into one category. They're five times more likely to not be living at home. They're going to be in care. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm just wondering whether or not there's a difference between being aboriginal per se, given the fact that a lot of aboriginal kids are vulnerable and have grown up that way. I'm just trying to distinguish the difference between kids in care, all of them, as opposed to saying it's the aboriginal…. In other words, maybe it's the children in care and their vulnerable situation. It's not actually the fact that they're aboriginal. Do you see what I'm getting at? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: Yeah. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Thornthwaite: If we could make a distinguishment on that. I know that you're pushing for tests to specifically evaluate vulnerable children and aboriginals. I'm just wondering whether or not we've got the categories wrong, and we should focus more on their vulnerabilities and not their race. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think if you look at page 30 of the report, which that looks at graduation rates of those involved with the justice system, and you look…. The first category is children in care as a complete group. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So the ones that aren't involved in the justice system, about 30 percent of them graduated in this year — this birth cohort — okay? The ones involved in the justice system was about 13 percent. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Interestingly enough, when you look at the aboriginal data, 51 percent of the aboriginal kids graduated — right? These are going to include aboriginal kids in the parental home, out of the parental home; 51 percent graduated. Of the ones that were involved with youth justice, whether they're in care or not, 17 percent did. I guess my point is that I do differentiate very carefully between each category and look at different vulnerabilities. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When we get over to the CIHR kids, there isn't an aboriginal identifier that the government keeps in CIHR. We've audited it twice to look at. It's about between 40 and 60 percent that are aboriginal kids, but they don't have an aboriginal identifier in that database. We saw about 32 percent of those not involved in the justice system. Again, 11 percent of those were in the justice system, and then you see the provincial-wide. You know, 76 percent of the kids graduated that year. Of all the kids — of every origin, background, culture, community, what have you — only 30 percent of the ones involved in the justice system graduated. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Certainly, I think the issue for me as representative is: who's vulnerable? Anyone involved with the criminal justice system, regardless of their background, is vulnerable. Only 30 percent graduate. We shouldn't target our responses so that we only capture this group and don't capture that group. We should capture them all. But some have multiple or intersecting vulnerabilities. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
One of the other things we found in this piece of research was the first, I think, really strong data that I felt confident to speak to in a very reliable way. Instead of a snapshot that tells us that more than 50 percent of the kids in care are aboriginal, we found here that in fact during their life courses as children, one in five aboriginal kids were going to be living out of their parental home at some point during their childhood. That's a dramatically different life than other children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think understanding the reasons and the circumstances…. It doesn't matter if they're out of their parental home, living with an aunt in an informal relationship where the guardian passes them to an aunt or what have you. It's just the degree of challenge that they face around the stability in their lives. Each of these, as we look them, has various challenges. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think the goal when we formulated the recommendations was to say: look at the cohort of children in care to begin with — okay? — especially in the education system. Then we'd like to triangulate off that to find how we can look at other children, like children in the home of a relative, because it's hard to identify and plan and begin working there. How can we expand it so that we actually get that whole 30 percent? That will be the goal. Some are particularly needy. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The response in the recommendation is good. It's a subpopulation. It's extremely positive, but I think it presents that facility in the education system to reach some of the other at-risk kids. I mean, having someone look at it is a good beginning, but you have to actually do something too — right? Someone has to actually say: "No, we do have to have pro-social involvement by this adolescent in a sports team. Oh, guess what. They don't have any running shoes. We've got to figure out how we're going to get them running shoes, and we've got to get them to the games." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
You have to look at it. Then you have to actually do something to make it happen. We're kind of moving into that part now. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Thornthwaite: Could I do a follow-up, or do you want to go around first? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Is it related to that question? I think if it relates question, it's fine. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Thornthwaite: Yeah. Okay. Then just one follow-up on that, sticking with the question I had about aboriginals and now the difference between children in care and children in the home of the relative. If in fact the graduation rates are actually lower — if I remember you correctly; I was quickly taking notes — in the cases where the children are living in the home of a relative versus those in care…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think in one of the other reports there was a recommendation to try and get aboriginal kids staying with aboriginal families. If that's the case, is that helping that aboriginal child to specifically focus on that goal, or could that perhaps be hindering if their graduation rates are lower when they are actually in the home of a family member? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: There's very little research or evidence that's been done yet because keeping aboriginal children…. If they're in the home of a relative, there's a good chance that it's going to be an aboriginal relative. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There is a whole group of kids that are not in this report, who are kids in the guardianship financial assistance program, which is the equivalent of CIHR that operates on reserve, for which there is no data. We don't know how many there are. We don't know how they're doing. We just simply don't know. I've tried very hard to find out what goes on with those children, but we don't know. There's just no evaluation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There have been some studies done — not in British Columbia but elsewhere — of improving education outcomes for aboriginal children by keeping their continuity and connection to their aboriginal culture, family and so on, which have proven that that's a protective and supportive factor. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
But we don't have any research, because we don't really have any data here, and we don't necessarily have a clear policy. The CF&CSA talks about this as a policy objective, but we're going to talk about it a little bit, when we look at the next report — how that actually lands on the ground in terms of these children. But there is some evidence that it's a protective factor to keep aboriginal children with their aboriginal families or other aboriginal caregivers to pay attention to supporting their cultural identity and language and so on and their connection to school. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
L. Krog: One of the things that…. The great question is: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? I'm looking at page 31 in particular and "72 percent of children in care involved with the youth justice system have been reported…." I mean, that's the intensive behavioural problems or serious mental illnesses. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That's a very striking number, and it's certainly borne out by my experience in dealing with constituents or way back when I used to do a little criminal law. Was there any breakdown — and there might be both, I suppose — of behavioural versus mental illness in those statistics? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: Absolutely. That's a very good question. I think you're getting to a core point that we're really trying to drill down on in some of our other work. I think we're probably going to have a bit of an opportunity to look at this in this cluster of adolescent self-harm and suicides. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The challenge is that most of the identification of behavioural issues or mental illness would come through the school data. Now, would there be an existing diagnosis of a child, like a DSM-IV diagnosis that this child has anxiety or what have you? Even if there was a diagnosis, how much of that is sort of neurobiological, or how much of it is environment? If a child has been traumatized, a child has been moved around or a child has been physically or sexually abused, we can expect certain indications of acting out at some level. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Children are resilient. They can recover. Some children may have some lifelong impacts, so the behaviour — the origin of it — is not perfectly understood. But what it certainly suggests to me is that for these children living out of a parental home who are recorded in school as having serious mental illnesses and behavioural issues, we don't have a diagnosis to support that. We don't necessarily see evidence of a connection with mental health supports. We don't see evidence of a connection with child and youth mental health supports. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Then of course, that drives me to the schools again, where I would look at things like programs that are offered, like the Friends program to reduce anxiety. You know, is it offered in every school? No, it's not. Why is it only offered in some schools? Is it offered in the school where the kids that need it are? Are there therapists? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That then takes us into a very significant issue, which is: if children have been abused and neglected and are living out of parental home, chances are that in addition to someone paying attention to their immediate needs, their well-being, their full assessments of their medical needs upon admission to care are really significant. Looking at their mental health situation is important, and then doing something about it. These are steps that we need some assurance on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This report showing that high level — 72 percent — with special needs really speaks volumes about the fact that there must be some unmet needs. If that means there's a behaviour being manifested in school such that they can't meet the learning objectives of that year, so it's impairing their ability to learn, well, we've got to try learning differently. We've got to try to manage that, and we've got to try and control that. We have reported a bit on use of psychotropic meds for this population of kids, which can be quite elevated. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
But I think you're right. There's a very significant issue here, which is: are we meeting the needs of that vulnerable group of children? It's the combination of the health care system, the child welfare system and the schools working together. I don't think that the integrated work is certainly there in this study to demonstrate that that is any type of a seamless approach. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): I'm just going to make sure that everybody has a chance to ask one question, and then we'll come back…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Rustad: Thank you very much for the presentation. It's striking. Nicholas was driving at some of the determinants — poverty and those issues. It strikes me when I think about some of the first nations in my riding, in many areas on reserve where you've got a very high unemployment rate, 75 percent plus, and the challenges that that creates in terms of the socioeconomic environments, the home environment — the challenges around that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It reminds me, as well…. I've heard it said that one of the factors that can be devastating to a family, just in terms of pride in ability and skill to move forward, is basically to pay them to do nothing, because it's hard to break out of that cycle. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm just wondering, in terms of the work that you're doing in terms of those determinants of children, whether or not you can actually go deeper to look at some of the conditions, on reserves and for first nations people in particular, that have led to some of these conditions, whether that be issues with the Indian Act, whether that be some of the things we deal with in terms of society — whether or not your mandate could actually go that far and deep and look at it so that we can maybe start finding a path that ultimately may be able to lead forward to changing some of those conditions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think there is no question that the deep intergenerational poverty in some first nations — not all but some — has a significant impact on children. It has a significant impact on pregnancy, on the development of the child, on their ability to reason and to remember. I mean, we know so much about the biology that's affected, in terms of their brain development, by deprivation and poverty, so I think there's no question that there's a connection. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Then if you are in a circumstance where you have deep intergenerational poverty, there is social assistance. There's some protection, but it's still there. Then you also have it compounded by residing in a house that's overcrowded and mouldy and exposes you to addictions, potential abuse, what have you. I'm not trying to paint a stereotype here but just to say that there are multiple areas where children will face challenges when it comes to things like being ready to learn for school — huge challenges. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When it comes to early childhood opportunities to support resiliency, because children are resilient…. Yes, poverty is there, but things can happen to overcome it. The challenges at the first nations side, which I speak to here a bit but will speak to more in the next report, is: do we have a response to that, which actually focuses on the children? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Yes, there may be social assistance. But do we have a response that actually focuses on good, healthy development, social innovation and community development? Of course, the majority of aboriginal children in British Columbia live off reserve, and their poverty follows them off reserve — where they experience, in some instances, the same intergenerational poverty but now in an urban setting. So it's really landing on that, around how we can innovate and change that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I can report that I had a very good meeting at the beginning of the year — January 4, I think it was — where I had my second meeting on the work I'm doing with first nations leadership and all of the organizations like first nations education, first nations social development, first nations housing, Métis, friendship centres, on- and off-reserve — every entity that has anything to do with children and social development, including the leadership, the chiefs. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We actually had a full two-day session talking about children, poverty and what the opportunities are. What are the housing issues? What are the education issues? What are greater chances and opportunities we can find to support stronger development opportunities? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It was the first time many first nations education sat down with housing people, off-reserve, on-reserve. We all worked together, and it was really quite a remarkable process to come together and say: "Can we work on this problem in another way to try and break some of these intergenerational cycles?" I was very encouraged by that but also noted that it's the first time some of this planning had ever been done, the first time people had linked on- and off-reserve, education people talking to housing people talking to social assistance people talking to early childhood development people. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It was very positive, but I think everybody there acknowledged very clearly that the current system seems to be entrenching poverty and poor outcomes. While we've made some headway, we just can't seem to make headway in other areas. So we're trying to find some more creative approaches to address this, particularly for children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think you're absolutely right from your observation, which is that it's very difficult to turn it around when that's what you start with. But it's not inevitable. It can certainly be changed, yeah. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Elmore: Thanks for the report. My question is just following up in terms of children who present with special needs and that they are a larger proportion in terms of the children in care. I know you addressed in a couple of the recommendations — recommendation 2 in terms of providing more training for the homes and the caregivers as well as recommendation 7 in terms of greater integration with the ministries in terms of being able to provide the supports and programs for the children in care.... [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I know you have a subsequent report coming out specifically on children with special needs. That was just my question in terms of…. I know there needs to be greater integration in terms of being able to address the support for children with special needs throughout the system and from the different ministries. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'd just like to hear a little bit more on that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: The issues for children with special needs are a major concern. You see them in almost every report that I prepare, in part because they are such a vulnerable population, and again, they intersect. They may be aboriginal children in care with special needs. They may be children with special needs not in care. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think looking at the system of support for children with special needs is crucial — that it be a system that's easy to navigate, that you can access supports and that something happens for the child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
One of the big challenges, though, that we didn't go into in great depth here — we did in our prior education report, and I suspect you're going to hear more from me in the future on it — is the issue of what actually happens in the classroom for the child with special needs. How many children are in the classroom with special needs? What are their needs? Are they being met? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Here what we are learning is that if you have a major behavioural issue or mental health issue, you can't just shelve it for years and years. It has to be addressed in some way. Asking children to switch to another school — more instability — isn't going to work. So what about that special need component? What actually happens? Is there an IEP? Does the IEP inform? Is it being followed? Are people working? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
These are issues that I will take up in some depth with the Minister of Education, because this vulnerable group of kids…. It's the whole issue of what happens to the children. Children with special needs have been integrated into the education system in B.C., but there really isn't any outcome at the level of the child. There really is no process. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Let's say a child is in grade 8 and has special needs. They're in a classroom, and the teacher and others come to the conclusion: "We're not going to be able to meet your needs in this classroom." So they send a letter home to the parents saying, "This is a child that we know has special needs, but we can't do anything for them" because we've got too many kids with special needs and what have you. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The year goes on. What happens to the child? What does the child do? Where does the child go? Do they get to march to the principal's office and say: "Does anybody care about my right to an education? I just went through a year where I didn't meet the learning objectives. Is someone going to do something special for me so I'm ready for the next year"? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As representative, I'm very concerned about how much we actually focus on the child — the environment is important, but what goes to the child. Some places it's worked really well, I think. In many respects I don't think we know enough about how it works. In many instances I've seen it be dramatically terrible the way it works, where a child with special needs can't be accommodated, and a letter is sent home to say: "We simply can't help your child." What are they to do? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think we have to really land on it, especially for this vulnerable group. We can't say: "We can't do it." We have to make sure we do it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm going to certainly speak to the Minister of Education about how creatively we can do more tracking and reporting at the level of a child and create greater expectations around what will happen for those children and their actual educational needs being met. It's so crucial to keep them out of the criminal justice system, keep them out of bad outcomes. The school component is so important for them and for society. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): I'm mindful of the time we want to allocate to the second report. That gives us, I'd say, roughly ten minutes for four questions, so if we can be mindful of that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Dalton: Mary Ellen, thank you, first of all, for the report and the thoroughness of the research done by yourself and the team. It's excellent and very useful. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Just a question with regards to budget. As you know, it's tight, and it is difficult. I'm just wondering: what is the number one thing that the government can do, in the light of its fiscal situation, to help improve the outcomes for children in care? Perhaps you've already alluded to it with the work being done in the schools as far as having a representative in each school and in the school districts. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Are there things that can be done that you see as, well, the number one thing, but other things that can be done that are keeping the budget really in mind? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think the prevailing issue for me as representative is that spending with respect to children and youth in British Columbia is significant already. Is it going to the outcome for the child? I think this is the major question in this area. What do we know we get for what we spend in this area? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So reports like this one, which are very pragmatic, are things like: tell us if there are more than three moves in care and what happened; tell us what you're doing about this population — so that accountability is more connected to the outcomes that are being achieved for the children as opposed to a broader funding of something that is sort of a theory as opposed to an actual outcome for a child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The issue about if there are adequate resources in system…. You know, I don't have designated all the legislation with respect to kids, so I can't say to you: "Oh, the School Act and all the money that flows from it is perfectly adequate." I don't think anybody actually looks at that. It's a big fight — right? But I think it's important to look at that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
But more significant is: what are you doing, and why are you doing it? When you look at an entire birth cohort and find out who's at risk, you do actually find out: "Well, these are the things you should be doing. Are you doing it adequately? Are you reporting on it?" [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If the system comes back and says, "Well, we have to have more than three moves in care because we don't have enough workers to do the work," or "We don't have enough caregivers," then we'd better look at that. You have to actually have a system that's functioning. In British Columbia our systems can be somewhat wobbly in this area. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm not a person that says, "You need to spend this much money on this issue," but I think we need to be primed and be looking at what we're achieving for the kids and make a priority for the at-risk kids. I'm not saying that all children don't have needs, but at-risk kids need to have some type of priority on the public purse, because we will pay. When the kids are on social assistance or in jail or in the emergency ward, we will pay for them. I don't think we want that type of outcome. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So I don't have a number, but I can say that improving the system and making it a significant effort — a transparent effort with outcomes and measures — I think is a very good beginning. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Mary Ellen, I'm quite disturbed by the fact that almost a year has passed and you have referred several times and alluded to and referred directly to the fact that the Ministry of Children and Family Development has not responded or engaged with you on this report and on others, as I know from past experience. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This committee is your body. This was created for you, as a conduit for you into the Legislature. What can we do to help encourage the engagement of the Children and Families Ministry? The ministry itself has been going through transformative change for a number of years. I would expect that the information you've provided here would be very compelling for them in that process. So I'm disturbed that a year has gone by and you have not had some reassurance or some engagement from the ministry on these recommendations, all of which are extremely valid and direct and not ambivalent in any way. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So what can we do as your committee, as your conduit into government here, to improve the situation for you? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, I think that first of all, I mean, I can't say to you that MCFD isn't working on them. They may very well be. But I think the challenge is…. My office was created as an oversight agency to look at some of these key areas and to engage around some practical, stable changes for children. I think the challenge is really just getting that engagement around them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's perfectly fine, of course, for any oversight agency, the ministry or the government to say: "We reject your recommendation. We don't agree," or "We're going to accomplish it this way." That's fine. But I think there has to be some type of…. In order for oversight to work and for change to happen when we do major pieces of work like this, there has to be engagement. I think there has to be a discussion about it. Valuable as I like to think these reports are to look at core issues, they're really not going to have value for children and youth in British Columbia unless we can land on them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If the ministry is accomplishing these through other methods or goals, well, fine. I'm happy to look at that. I'm delighted to look at it. I'm delighted to report out to the public and to this committee progress that's being made. My job is to support the Ministry of Children and Families to succeed in its meeting the needs of children. I'm not against the Ministry of Children and Families. I'm very supportive, but I need to hear something. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think the suggestion that they report back directly to the committee and not report to the representative…. I mean, it's not up to me. I can be the representative and continue to do my work. It's just that I don't think the work will be of as much value in the end because I don't have that opportunity to support them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): In your remarks earlier, Mary Ellen, you did say that you were dealing and corresponding with the minister and deputy, so we'll hope that moves forward. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
D. Horne: Thank you, Mary Ellen, for the report. One of the discussions that we've had today quite a bit is around poverty. I'm interested in your thoughts. Obviously, poverty is an indicator and is very difficult for many families, but I think, also, that to a certain extent, it's not just about the money itself. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The reason why, I think, many families that don't have the financial resources others do and that are in poverty…. One of the difficulties they face is the fact that they can't provide the stability and the supports and the attention to their children that other families that aren't in that situation can. Obviously, families that are more financially well off can spend the time providing the attention, can spend the time providing the supports necessary. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When it comes to poverty sort of as a general indicator, what are your feelings as to what supports we could put in place for the children themselves? You've made a number of comments about the fact that we need to provide supports for children and stability for children. One of the other aspects in bringing up children — I have two children — is respect, and discipline as well. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I note on page 28 of your report that you talk about the high proportion of charges laid against youth being in care — administrative charges like breaking curfew and not attending counselling and things like that. It appears that for those children, the criminal justice system, to a certain extent, is being used as a disciplinary function. You mention, too, about children in care perhaps being incarcerated or charged where children who aren't in care wouldn't be. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think that all goes back to the fact of the supports and the attention, discipline and respect and all of these things. I'm just wondering what your thoughts would be as to how we can address those issues and how we perhaps could get better outcomes with that type of situation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think, on your latter point…. It's a very good one, because there are so many system-based offences that we're seeing around these breaches of curfew, breaches of undertaking, breaches of probation. That speaks a lot, again, to that issue of stability. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As anyone who's a parent knows, it doesn't matter what your income level is. It doesn't matter anything. You have to say, "It's bedtime" or "It's time to go to an appointment, and I will take you to an appointment," and you have to have the means to be able to do it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The challenge for many of these children is their desperate lack of support. They have a curfew, but nobody is really supporting the curfew. Or as we see many times with the cases, children are missing. They're not at their residence for some period of time, and there's no report that they haven't been home for a long time. There's no real standard process there. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Again, the system isn't necessarily primed, because we're not necessarily supporting good self-regulation by kids that have needs. I'm not saying strict discipline or whatever, but an understanding, patient, kind parent takes the time to help kids learn self-regulation. If you've got to get to school, you get to school — right? — and you do a lot of work to teach your kids to do that and to get up and do things. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If you're in the system where you're just lost — you know, running around — it's not always there. But it is there for some of the kids, and they do very well. I think, on the issue of parenting differences and so on, there are some challenges around that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Being a society in British Columbia that understands what good attachment is and that has the time for and the commitment and so on to the children is very significant too — and having the environment that reinforces it. Like, British Columbia has made a very significant effort to start up StrongStart centres in many, many ridings — probably the ridings of all members of this committee. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When Minister Bond was the Minister of Education, I made a very strong plea to Minister Bond and said: "Could you just cover the bus fare for the children in the home of a relative so that the caregivers can get the kids — where there is a caregiver that can be home during the day — to the StrongStart centre so they could be involved?" [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A simple thing like bus fare. I think she did it for a period of time. I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but in any event, I was really grateful because that's how simple it is. There's no bus fare to get to the StrongStart centre. Then what happens at the StrongStart centre? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
These things about connecting and making sure that families that are vulnerable.... We understand just how profound their vulnerability is and how the kids do feel isolated and all of these issues that we sort of take for granted, which are so much more compounded in their lives. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
On the first part of your question around poverty. I think that if we actually proceed into the second report, we can talk about it on more of a systemic level of what actually happens with families in poverty, and are there opportunities to improve that? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Nick, had your question been touched on by anybody else? If not, that will be the last question. I am mindful that we want to go on to the second report. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: I'll make it very brief. I just find it absolutely shocking, really. You've got good cooperation from the Ministry of Education to implement bus passes for people in CIHR. You've got perfectly good cooperation with the Ministry of Health, with Perry Kendall. You've got cooperation from the Solicitor General. The only ministry you're not getting answers from is the Ministry of Children and Families. That's the unstated thing here. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's ridiculous. The ministry is dissing the office of the representative. Almost a year has passed since these seven recommendations, and not even a response from the deputy minister? Not a response from the minister? Not a response from senior bureaucrats? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Maybe now, with five assistant deputy ministers for the region, someone is going to be able to respond. I think that has to be stated. That's what has to happen. The question is: what needs to happen? You need to have communication with the ministry primarily responsible for children in this province. I think that's the big gaping hole in this whole process. Until we recognize that, we can talk about policy all we want. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
You know, it's very interesting. I find it a fascinating discussion. But ultimately, there are kids out there who need the cooperation of the ministry that is responsible for almost every aspect of their life, and you don't even have a response from them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I find that shocking, Madam Chair. Thank you for your indulgence. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Well, we will have an opportunity at our March 3 meeting, when the ministry will be here, so I will say to all members of the committee that we'll have opportunities for questions along that line. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
D. Horne: I just have a question on that point to the representative. Nicholas's point is a valid one — that there seems to be a breakdown in communication. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
From your standpoint, what do you think is playing into that? How would you view your relationship right now with the ministry? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: Any oversight agency sometimes has challenges when you're looking at sensitive subjects. I think that to be effective as an oversight agency, to do the things that Mr. Hughes contemplated that the office should do…. The ministry needs to respond to the representative's office and needs to engage with the representative's office. I've made every effort to do that, and I'm pursuing that with the minister. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This isn't something that just came up yesterday. This is something that has been a challenge for three years. I'm hoping that it will change, but enough evidence has accumulated, if you like, that it now receives a public airing before the committee. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm sure I'll update regularly on it, but there's not much more I can do except to say that I'd like to do my job effectively. In order to do my job effectively, I need a response. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Perhaps one of the things that this committee could do is send a message to the ministry that if it's their intention to report and respond to any of these recommendations directly to us before they have engaged with the children's representative, we would request that they engage with the representative's office first, before responding to recommendations here. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Part of our role is to be that resource for the children's representative. With the greatest of respect, we were not created to be a resource for the ministry. We were created to be a resource for the children's representative. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I would ask, through the Chair, that a message be given to ministry staff that we would expect them to provide a response to the children's representative before presenting that response to this committee, as a courtesy and as part of the appropriate protocol. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If you'd like a motion to that effect, I'd be happy to make it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Initially, I think my reaction is: why don't we wait? We do have the ministry coming to the very next meeting. I think it's perfectly in order to ask for all that. Then I think I'd like to consider it, and then we can consider it as a committee, really, in terms of if and what steps we might want to take. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think we need to consider it, and I think we also need to hear from the ministry. I think it's quite appropriate that we might ask those questions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Rustad: Although I understand where the member is coming from in wanting to try to give that directive, I also want to remind the member that this committee was actually created in conjunction with the office, as it was created, to try to improve the situation for children in this province, particularly the children in care, and to try to work in a non-partisan, cooperative type of environment. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I see that when the ministry comes here, there is a great opportunity for us to be able to discuss that particular issue of communication with the ministry, and I wouldn't want to put us in a position where we are sending some sort of ultimatum that says: "You have to do this before we'll talk to you." That would not make much sense to me at all. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I look forward to the opportunity to actually talk to the ministry about her strategy in terms of how she's going to be engaging in the coming years with the Children and Youth Representative so that we can achieve the goal, which is to try to improve the system in a non-partisan, cooperative type of environment. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): I think the representative has already made it clear in her opening remarks that she is in correspondence with the minister and ministry, so my recommendation is that we at least hear, and then we have a further discussion on this. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): I'm not going to respond to the comments about partisan or non-partisan, because I think, in fact, that what we've heard is that the children's representative has not had any response or engagement from the ministry. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
My concern is that if the ministry comes and presents as their report a response to the Children and Youth reports, are we going to refuse to listen? Are we going to refuse to accept that? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In fact, we will be allowing what I consider discourtesy to occur. If we have a presentation here from the ministry where part of their presentation to us is addressing responses to a number of the reports from the Children and Youth Representative's office, then we are actually allowing that discourtesy to take place. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Again, if you're not looking for a formal motion regarding this, I would ask, then, that the Chair at least send a message through to the deputy minister, who I presume will be presenting to us, that we would expect that that engagement will have occurred with the Children and Youth…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I certainly will make a point of making that the very first question before we receive a presentation — to ask: "Before you present to us, have you engaged with the Children and Youth Representative's office in this, or are we hearing the first response?" [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think, as a courtesy, we owe that to the children's representative. She has brought the issue forward to us, and I think it's important that we actually address it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Well, my suggestion, if you'll agree, if you'll defer to the Chair…. I'd be happy to speak to the ministry prior to the next meeting and say that this issue has been raised. It is a concern. It's a concern of the Deputy Chair and others. Let's see what their intention is. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There is some time between now and March 3. They may, in fact, perhaps prompted by discussions today, further the conversation with the rep. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If I have the agreement of the committee, that's what I would be happy to undertake. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Is that satisfactory? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Yes, that would be acceptable. Thank you. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Okay, with that, we'll get on to the second report that we're looking at today. I'll turn it back over to the representative for Housing, Help and Hope: A Better Path for Struggling Families. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We are at, if I can see the clock, about ten to noon, so it leaves us over an hour, but I'd like to make sure, again, that we have time for questions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Representative for Children
and Youth Report:
Housing, Help and Hope:
A Better Path for Struggling Families
M. Turpel-Lafond: This report was released in July 2009, and I spoke to it very briefly at our first meeting. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It was a report that I was looking forward to having a discussion on with the committee. This is an investigative report into the injury of a child. The first report we dealt with today was monitoring a large area of the system with a lot of children. This one pertains to one child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I wanted to just make a note, by way of introduction for those who have not received reports of this kind before, that when we investigate the injury or death of a child, although we look at and collect evidence under oath and so on around what happened with the child from a variety of sources — like caregivers, government officials and so on — we also look at practice. We also look at whether there are provincial policies, guidelines and so on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
While it affects a single child, we do look at the full environment setting, the policy framework and so on. We're always very careful, in looking at an instance with respect to one child, to be clear that there are grounds to make recommendations that would apply more widely. Or was this just a single case that happened, and it was an unpredictable outlier, if you like. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This is the report on a boy, an infant. This child has not been identified by name. Nor has his family or where he's lived, in any way. This is out of respect for the child now and into his future. It's also out of respect for the ordeal that his parents have been through and are still going through. Today this boy is back with his parents and his community, where he's much loved and supported. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This case was referred to me by the committee in 2007 for investigation. My investigation focused on a five-month period: July 2006, when the first child protection report about the infant was made to MCFD, to December 2006, when he was admitted to hospital on an emergency basis. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
He was taken into care when he was 2½ months old. He was assessed as a healthy baby. Today, three years later, he has cerebral palsy, is blind in one eye, has significant hearing impairment and will need lifelong supports. Last week his mother spoke to staff in my office and said that the child continues to show improvement and is making some progress toward walking and speaking. For that, we're all very profoundly grateful and supportive toward that family. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When the baby was removed from the parents, the baby was placed in three different foster homes not connected to his culture or community. In the first three months after being taken into care, he suffered injuries consistent with having been shaken. He was released from the hospital and placed in a fourth foster home. Charges were laid against a foster parent, and they were stayed. The stay has now expired. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We do have a significant opportunity to learn from what happened to this child and to his family. The state entered into this child's life in response to child protection reports, but its ongoing impact on the child's life related to his parents' poverty and inability to afford short-term housing that met ministry standards. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Poverty and the lack of affordable housing played a major role in creating the conditions in which this baby was removed from the care of his parents, and insufficient support was provided. The stressed and struggling young family, who themselves had some involvement with the child welfare system in their childhoods, needed short-term housing assistance so their baby could be safe. Instead, the child was taken into government care. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The system of supports and services failed this baby and fell below the prescribed standards. This was not just the result of practice issues, which I report on. It was also an overall failure to look at the big picture of the issues in a young family's life and to offer help that would provide an appropriate and even commonsense response to those issues. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Our research, combined with recent discussion with front-line workers and organizations — I have had regular forums with front-line workers in income assistance and child welfare, including aboriginal agencies, on this issue — show us that this is not an unusual situation. By that, I don't mean the injury, necessarily, but the removal of children, given the circumstances of poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The state has the power and responsibility to intervene and remove children, but it also has an equally important duty to use this power to support when parents are capable but going through a rough patch. In a good society caring for families, social supports are essential because some families do struggle. They often struggle with poverty, as we've been talking about in this committee. Sadly, this is more common for young aboriginal families such as the parents of this young infant. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In this case, two relatives of concern were not to have unsupervised access to the baby. The child's parents were put in a no-win situation. Choose to stay with relatives and lose care of their son, or choose to keep the child and leave the security of staying with family, without having any money required to move out. They didn't have anywhere else to go, being young and living on a reserve with limited available housing. Importantly, they wanted to be within their culture and their family as new parents of a young child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
After the child was taken into care, the baby went through the series of different foster homes in a short time. As I indicated, he was critically injured, transferred to Children's Hospital, and for a time no one knew what the outcome would be for him. In many ways, it's a miracle that this child survived. Eventually, severely disabled, he was returned to the care of his parents, who had miraculously stayed together through their ordeal, although they continued to struggle with their poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The Hughes review summed up the purpose of our investigations by noting that "the primary purposes for reviewing injuries and deaths of children and youth who were in care or receiving ministry services is to point the way to continuous improvements in policy and practice so that future injuries and deaths can be prevented." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The recommendations from this investigation, I believe, are pointing the way to improvements in policy and practice — in particular, looking at developing proactive and explicit policy for front-line staff serving families whose children are at risk of being removed by MCFD due to housing-related issues; a call for an aggressive strategy throughout B.C. to recruit, retain and monitor aboriginal foster homes; and an action plan to reduce aboriginal child and family poverty in British Columbia. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In terms of the key findings, I'm not going to go into them at length because they are, I think, articulated there. This report was made available to you, and I hope you've had a chance to review it. I'll just touch upon a few key findings. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The system of supports and services fell below standards. The investigation and removal were not conducted up to standard. Care planning was inadequate for this child. However, the way this baby was failed went beyond the practice standards that were not met, which are articulated in the report. Poverty and lack of affordable housing were the root conditions that led to this baby being found to be in an unsafe environment and being removed. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Insufficient support was provided to the family. There was a two-month delay in the referral of the family to a service agency. This did not match the urgency of assisting the family so that their baby could be returned or, preferably, not removed in the first place. There was a lack of clarity about who was responsible for what between a ministry, a delegated aboriginal agency and a first nation. This contributed to suboptimal service delivery. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Legislative provisions and service standards were not fulfilled. There was insufficient effort to place the child in a home that would allow maintenance of connections to his community and culture. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
"Recommendation 1(a): that the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Ministry of Housing and Social Development work collaboratively to develop a proactive process and explicit policy for front-line staff serving families whose children are at risk of being removed by MCFD due to housing-related issues. The intent should be to avoid such removals whenever possible." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This recommendation is really just stating what it states in the CF&CSA legislation, which is to use the least intrusive measures with respect to families, including families whose presenting issues are housing and poverty issues. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The process for dealing with families who are struggling should be "user-friendly for parents living in poverty who have challenges with transportation and child care." It should be "accessible and welcoming for young parents, including those who have been children in care themselves" — as these young parents were — "sensitive to the poverty and housing dilemmas faced by aboriginal families; provide for options that work in different types of communities — urban, rural, remote; and be consistently available in all regions." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This recommendation called for the mechanism and policy to be in place not later than January 1, 2010. To date I have received no response as to whether or not this recommendation is being pursued, and there is no indication that the recommendation mechanism and policy are in place. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
"Recommendation 1(b): that the government of B.C. engage the federal government and first nations leadership and communities to develop a plan to reduce aboriginal child and family poverty in B.C. This plan must include concrete measures and policies and provide for resources and monitoring of progress." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This recommendation suggested that there be a first meeting to formulate a plan by October 15, 2009, and a progress report toward a plan by March 31, 2010, with regular progress reports every six months thereafter. To date I have received no information that would indicate that this process is occurring. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
"Recommendation 2: that MCFD work in consultation with the delegated aboriginal agency, the child's first nation and Indian and Northern Affairs" to ensure that the provisions of the CF&CSA are fully realized and that the purposes and intent of delegation confirmation agreements are fulfilled. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This recommendation asks for a progress update to be provided in writing to me by January 1, 2010; that amendments be made to practice standards or advisories and protocols by January 1, 2010; that front-line staff and supervisors be fully trained by April 1, 2010; and that the outcome of this work be formally shared with ministry staff, other delegated agencies and first nations across B.C. I have not received the requested progress report. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
"Recommendation 3(a): that MCFD, working with the delegated agencies and partners in aboriginal child welfare, including the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents, develop and implement an aggressive strategy throughout British Columbia to recruit, assess, qualify, retain and monitor aboriginal foster homes.
"The system of qualifying prospective foster parents should be reviewed to ensure that there are no systemic biases. The strategy should incorporate measures to inhibit overallocation of children to new or existing homes. The strategy should include methods to measure and report on progress and challenges. The strategy should be fully implemented by April 1, 2010. The recruitment should attract foster parents from first nations with children in care to ensure cultural and linguistic continuity for the child."
I've received no information about the status of the implementation of this recommendation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
"Recommendation 3(b): that MCFD, starting with this region as a model" — in which the infant was removed — "and eventually provincewide, develop a routine mechanism for tracking and reporting on efforts to find aboriginal placements for each aboriginal child that comes into care. Such recording and reporting is necessary to be able to demonstrate improvement over time."
This recommendation asks that "tracking include maintenance of cultural continuity and match between the cultural identity of the child and the caregiver" and that public reporting occur semi-annually. This mechanism is to be in place in this region — the region of origin of the child — by April 1, 2010. I have received no information about the status of the implementation of this recommendation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This case of the infant brought some of the stark realities of the day-to-day lives of young families living in poverty with young children into focus for my office. As I've reported to you before and as I state very strongly in this report, this case led me to make a more urgent focus on poverty in British Columbia, particularly as we looked beyond the individual circumstances of this family and looked more systemically at what is available for families in crisis and families whose children may be removed by the child welfare system, particularly vulnerable families like aboriginal families. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As members of the committee know, poverty has a devastating impact on the day-to-day lives of children, and it has serious effects on their development. We know that these effects last a lifetime, and we know that serious consequences occur for children living in poverty and present considerable risks — like the risk faced here by this infant — of removal. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As you might recall, last year Premier Gordon Campbell publicly directed me to this committee on the issue of child poverty, saying in the media: "There is a legislative committee that the child rep reports to, and I think it's appropriate for her to do that." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
At our last meeting on November 17, I spoke to this issue of child poverty. As noted then, for six years in a row B.C. has had the highest child poverty rate in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. The problems are serious. Are there presenting problems in cases such as this one that we investigated and reported on? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We can endlessly discuss the definition of poverty, but StatsCan is comparing provinces on the same basis, and year after year British Columbia ranks at the bottom. B.C. has the highest child poverty rate in Canada by all three commonly used measures, and there's no consensus in B.C., no accepted definition of what constitutes poverty. As representative, I've been inquiring with the government as to whether or not they have accepted a definition and what definition they will adopt. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I prepared some background information relevant to the report on child poverty in British Columbia in terms of what information is available and what the current situation of children living in poverty is, and I'll table it with the Chair of the committee for her to consider and review, with the vice-Chair, and see whether or not it can be circulated more widely to members of the committee. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
With respect to the magnitude of the issue, we investigated one child. We made some very focused recommendations about one child. The broader issue is an issue that I feel is so significant that it has to come to this committee, as I was directed by the Premier to come to this committee to consider: to what extent does British Columbia have a response to child poverty, and is it an adequate one? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Using the low-income cutoff, which is the measure used by Statistics Canada to look at performance of provinces and territories across Canada, approximately 105,000 B.C. children live in poverty. Of course, that's enough to fill B.C. Place and still have 45,000 children lined up outside. That's close to the entire population of Kelowna. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think that the recession has greatly increased the number of children at risk. Compared to November of last year, the number of single-parent families in B.C. receiving income assistance has increased by 41.2 percent. The number of two-parent families in B.C. receiving income assistance has increased by 68.2 percent. There are now 20.4 percent more children living in families who receive income assistance compared to the same time last year. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If we look at the daily struggles of those 100,000 children and their families, we know how difficult it is for them and how the outcomes that we're talking about improving for children — in the education system, in the health system — and preventing them from coming into the child welfare system are such an enormous challenge. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In B.C. it costs, on average, $715 a month to purchase a healthy food basket for a family of four. That's based on the 2007 data from the Dietitians of Canada. The average rent for a one-bedroom unit in Vancouver is $910 and about $625 in Prince George. A two-bedroom unit goes for about $1,165 in Vancouver. In Kamloops a two-bedroom apartment would be $825, while in Prince George about $723. I appreciate that these fluctuate dramatically by neighbourhood and so on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A family of four on income assistance uses 65 percent of their income on shelter and 42 percent on food, leaving nothing at all for essentials like school supplies, transportation, clothing, personal care items, etc. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A single adult on income assistance can cover about 45 percent of their basic living expenses, while a single parent on income assistance with a teenage child can meet about 62 percent of their basic costs. I think that we have a very good understanding — and certainly, as representative — of a very profound concern about whether or not the social assistance rates to families are adequate to meet their basic daily needs of food, shelter and clothing. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I note for the committee, as this report really placed the issue of poverty squarely before the office, that as we looked at the policies that were in place in British Columbia — the policies in the income assistance side in Housing and Social Development, the housing policies, the child welfare policies, the education policies — that what British Columbia clearly does not have at this time is a plan for child poverty. It has a great opportunity to put in place a plan, a non-partisan plan for child poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm not the only one concerned about this. In 2009 the UBCM unanimously passed a resolution supporting the need for a child poverty plan, including the implementation of a comprehensive, cross-ministry strategy to address child poverty. B.C. school trustees at their 2009 AGM passed a motion urging the provincial government to develop and adopt a comprehensive plan to eliminate child poverty by setting a target, creating a plan and taking action. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
B.C. Teachers Federation made a recommendation to the Budget 2010 consultation committee — of which several members of this committee are also members, I understand. The BCTF said that poverty can be eradicated and government should act, calling for the government to adopt a plan to eliminate child poverty that addresses a range of supports that are necessary to overcome poverty. "We urge the province to set a target, create a plan and take action to eliminate poverty," said the BCTF submission. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The B.C. Association of Social Workers also submitted to the 2010 budget consultation a list of six recommendations addressed at child poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The B.C. Health Officers Council also noted that "around the world, and especially in Europe, many countries have developed dedicated, coordinated, intersectoral strategies for reducing health inequity that are demonstrating positive outcomes." They, in their submission to the Conversation on Health, called for an anti-poverty or poverty-reduction strategy. Last fall they passed a resolution at their annual meeting — the Health Officers Council — and they wrote to the Premier asking the government to spare all programs targeting the health, welfare and financial well-being of families with young children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Another example of the concern is the meeting I indicated to you just recently, with all the first nations leaders and their organizations, looking at aboriginal poverty and aboriginal child poverty. Last summer the First Nations Child and Family Wellness Council, which speaks to issues for children in British Columbia, wrote formally to the Premier of British Columbia supporting the need for a concrete and resourced action plan to eliminate first nations child and family poverty in B.C. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Canada's chief public health officer perhaps put it best when he said: "Although clarification and better understanding is needed in many areas, waiting for all the answers is not an acceptable option given what is already known, what can be done and the consequences of neglect while waiting." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I note for the committee that it's not just organizations calling for a child poverty plan in B.C. As representative, I call for a child poverty plan. As an independent officer of the Legislature, I am convinced by the evidence that I have seen that British Columbia needs a non-partisan plan for child poverty. I'm delighted that the Premier directed me to this committee because I think this committee could play such a significant role to make that a reality. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I also note that the public is very supportive of a plan for child poverty. I note that there was an Environics public opinion poll just over a year ago that found that 83 percent of British Columbians support the goal of reducing child poverty by 25 percent in five years; 91 percent said they would feel proud if a premier took leadership on poverty reduction. They found that British Columbians believe an economic recession is exactly the time when governments need to act on poverty reduction. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I have been very active on this issue. I have been meeting with the Premier, the Minister of Children and Family Development, the Leader of the Opposition, the Chair of this committee, the vice-Chair of this committee and others to raise issues around poverty and its impact on the lives of children. Certainly I, along with the general public and other organizations in B.C., remain strongly of the view that we are lacking that coherent plan for child poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm hoping that this committee will take this up and look at the issue because child poverty is in every constituency, including every one of yours in this province –– some more than others, I understand. Every constituency has children struggling mightily and many good and supportive people and organizations working to support them, but not a plan. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What is happening in other jurisdictions? In British Columbia I don't find that the level of coordination is there around issues affecting child poverty. Other provincial and municipal settings see strategies underway. Numerous provinces have embarked on poverty reduction programs –– Newfoundland in 2006, Ontario in 2008, Nova Scotia and Manitoba in 2009. Quebec launched their strategy six years ago. The Ontario government's poverty reduction strategy commits to reduce poverty by 25 percent over five years. An interministerial results team is monitoring progress and has begun reporting. New anti-poverty legislation was passed in Ontario with unanimous support from all parties. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Manitoba recently announced the launch of a series of public consultations on its new strategy to reduce poverty that it introduced in May 2009. New Brunswick is launching an innovative public engagement process to bring everyone to the table called the Choir of Voices to reflect common notes that are being heard. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Quebec, six years into its strategy, is showing that its investments are producing good results and making steady progress. Quebec took a comprehensive approach, investing in an array of services that parents needed to work and to raise children, with a strong focus on child care. The Quebec strategy is also backed by legislation. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I know that British Columbia has many programs and strengths around responding to poverty. I'm not suggesting that there are no programs and services that are available to address different aspects of the lives of those who are struggling, but there is not a system. It is not integrated. There are not targets, measures or accountability, nor does it have a dedicated focus on children. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What am I recommending in addition to considering the report and the recommendations, of which I have had no status or update in this report since it was tabled in July? What am I recommending to this committee? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I am recommending that we get a plan in British Columbia, that we have strong, single accountability and a commitment by everyone that it become a non-partisan issue to make progress on reducing child poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What do we need in the plan? I think we need what was set out by the National Council of Welfare. Four foundations of an effective strategy are vision, targets and timelines; a coordinated plan of action and a budget; accountability for consulting British Columbians and ensuring results; a set of indicators used to plan, monitor, change and assess progress. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As you know, I have the legislative responsibility to advocate for systemic change on issues that affect vulnerable children and youth. This is why I am bringing this issue up to you as a systemic concern. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Ted Hughes, in his report that led to the creation of your committee, said…. I note that the MLA, Mr. Rustad, indicated this earlier, probably almost virtually quoted from Mr. Hughes — probably because, in large measure, Member Rustad had a key part in creating the office of the representative in getting it started. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Mr. Hughes said about this committee that "the establishment of the standing committee will help members of the Legislative Assembly to understand that the relationship with the representative should be a collaborative one. It should also help to develop a greater awareness and understanding amongst legislators and the public of the child welfare system in our province." He continued to say: "It is my fervent hope that it will encourage government and the opposition to work together to address some of the very real challenges facing the child welfare system now and into the future." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think this committee has an opportunity to take a leadership role in changing lives by addressing a challenge that 105,000 B.C. children face every day. So as representative, I'm asking the committee members to consider passing a resolution to strike a subcommittee on child poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I respectfully submit that the action plan for this subcommittee include a White Paper for public discussion and a quick round of consultations with key stakeholders throughout B.C. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I further respectfully ask you to consider a subcommittee commitment to report to the Legislative Assembly with recommendations for a poverty reduction plan within four months. Time is of the essence on this issue as day to day B.C.'s children and youth struggle in poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I believe that a smaller working committee of this committee can quickly act to receive full briefings on the issue, to understand the depth and breadth of poverty and see the real face of poverty for children and youth. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As well, there's a wealth of Canadian-made knowledge already available on the strategies currently underway in other provinces to more effectively respond to poverty. Existing current research into poverty trends and the costs of poverty and inequality show that wiser investments can translate into effective economic stimulus and a better quality of life. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The new subcommittee doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, but the more than 100,000 children in B.C. for whom poverty is a harsh reality do need this committee to act. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
As representative and officer of the Legislature, I think this committee is the only committee within this Legislative Assembly which has the mandate and the capacity to actually bring together representatives from both sides of the House in a constructive fashion to actually develop work around a child poverty plan. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I respectfully encourage you to consider the proposal that I brought forward and consider if it's a priority for members of the committee. I offer, as representative, my full support to the committee, should it be struck, to assist you with developing a White Paper and designing and reporting on a consultation process, and to provide any other support I can provide, because I am that convinced that British Columbia needs a child poverty plan. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Thank you. I really appreciate, obviously, once again the work that your office is doing and the issues you raise. They're very, very serious issues, and we have had a number of discussions around this. I know there has been active engagement with you in terms of different members of the Legislature, the Premier — the communications you've described — and in the media. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What I'm suggesting, because this is new…. This is brand-new that you're asking for –– this subcommittee and asking for resolution. I'm going to suggest, with the Deputy Chair's agreement, that since the Deputy Chair and I already sit on a subcommittee that does the agenda planning and everything else, I would like the opportunity to discuss this with the Deputy Chair and, obviously, take seriously your request. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We'll have to discuss this and come up with some sort of a plan of action or some formal response. Certainly, today we have the report on the agenda. I know that the report spawned and lays the foundation for the interest in poverty. I think we all take it seriously. But I think the fact that this has just been drawn to our attention, that this official request has just come today brand-new, I would like the opportunity to discuss it with the Deputy Chair in a non-partisan fashion and see what we can come up with. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Then it may or may not come back for further discussion to the committee or whatever, but we will report back to the committee. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: With due respect, hon. Chair, I think this is exactly the committee where this kind of discussion needs to take place. I think it would be inappropriate to put off a decision just simply to strike a subcommittee that will have responsibility to look at the issues of child poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We don't have to decide on the membership of that committee right now. I don't think we have to decide on its entire mandate. But I think it would say quite clearly, beside the litany of names and organizations…. I think even the mining association called for a reduction in child poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We've got a number of issues, obviously, on our plate but none more important, as we've seen from the reports presented today, than the issue of child poverty. It is our responsibility as a committee to discuss this, to suss it out. I don't want to leave it simply to another time. I think this is our opportunity to say: "Yes, this is the kind of direction we've been mandated to provide and subsequently endorsed by the Premier to provide — direction on child poverty." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We don't have to even ask for the four months to present a White Paper. We could design parameters…. We have an opportunity as a committee to actually discuss this issue and make it clear that it is a priority because it underlies almost all of the other variables that contribute to children not achieving their fullest. I think we should probably, perhaps, hear whether it's an option to actually consider striking a subcommittee or establishing a subcommittee now. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Just to clarify. This is not putting this off. This committee has already delegated a subcommittee of the Deputy Chair and Chair. That's what I'm suggesting: that we would immediately start this discussion. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm suggesting it should start with the subcommittee that exists now, which is Chair and Deputy Chair, because this is the first time this has been formally brought to the committee, and I think it's reasonable to take some time to consider where we want to go from here. This is not stalling on the issue. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: Well, my understanding, hon. Chair, was that you said that you'd want to discuss it with the Deputy Chair before making a decision, but since you've decided that the subcommittee already exists and exists for this purpose, I think we've accomplished that goal. If you're in fact saying…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): I'm not saying the subcommittee exists for that particular goal. I'm saying there is a subcommittee in place, and I'm happy, with the Deputy Chair's agreement, to take this on. It's been raised to the committee. As Chair and Deputy Chair, I think we have a responsibility to address it and respond. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: Then, hon. Chair, what's the responsibility of the committee but to discuss it? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): With respect to my colleague's passion on this topic, I would agree that we sit together as a subcommittee and pursue how exactly we will accomplish the goals and recommendations made by the Chair and whether or not we would, in fact, like to strike other members on the subcommittee and what the terms of reference might be — all of those things. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think we can accomplish that and still satisfy my colleague's concerns here. I'm in agreement with the proposed direction that the Chair has taken, with the understanding that we are, in fact, taking action on the recommendation. That's my understanding of how we are moving forward. We are taking action on the recommendation of the Chair, and the subcommittee will look at how that's accomplished. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
D. Horne: As the Deputy Chair has just said and to my hon. colleague opposite and his points, I think that we all — all members of this committee — see the protection of children and youth in this province as a paramount concern. Obviously, poverty is a major factor in that. We've looked at the statistics, and obviously, it's a huge issue. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think that the course of action where the Chair and Deputy Chair decide how to address that is the best course of action, because perhaps a subcommittee isn't the best route. Perhaps the entire committee should be involved, as I think all of us as members…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This isn't a huge committee. You know, we don't have 40 members of this committee. This is quite a small committee already. So I'm thinking that perhaps the passion that all of the members of this committee show might see it as best that the committee as a whole explore this further, and rather than having a subcommittee, that perhaps, we do it. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
So I fully support yourself and the Deputy Chair sitting down and figuring out what the best way to approach this is. Perhaps the entire committee should be looking at this. I'm not suggesting what the best route is, but I think that we should figure out how is best for all of the members of this committee to continue to be engaged and that we take this issue very, very seriously and that we move it forward. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Thank you. We also have to be mindful of the terms of reference and everything else too. So I think it does deserve consideration, and the Deputy Chair has agreed. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Leonard, do you still want to speak to it? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
L. Krog: I just wanted to say this. You know, it's an honour and a privilege to sit in this Legislature. I've said that over and over again. It's an honour and privilege to sit on this particular committee. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm very mindful, having sat on it as long as I have, of what Ted Hughes had to say about this committee and non-partisanship and the difficulties surrounding the Ministry of Children and Families. I appreciate my friend's passion, and I appreciate what my friend Mr. Horne has had to say here this morning. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This could have come forth from the opposition and been seen as a gauntlet thrown down in front of the government. I think what we've been offered here this morning through the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth is a proffered hand, and I think it should be treated that way. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think the suggestion that it be handled by the Chair and vice-Chair with respect to recommendations is a far better start to what everyone in this room agrees and understands is a significant issue around…. I hate to use the term "child poverty" because children don't live in isolation; they live in poor families. So I prefer to avoid the term. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Setting that aside for a moment, this is an opportunity at a time of no small economic difficulties, at a time when statistics clearly recognize the seriousness of poverty in this province, for us to move forward. I would respectfully suggest that the proposal of the Chair and the vice-Chair, to which there appears to be agreement — to consider the content of this committee, its terms of reference — would be the appropriate way to proceed. As much as it's nice to jump on the horse right away, sometimes you have to figure out where you'd like the horse to go. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Thank you. With that, I'm assuming we're in agreement that that's where we'll move on. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Nicholas, I hope that you'll be happy enough with that, but it seems to be the…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: Well, I didn't say we should establish the terms of reference today. I'm just saying…. I'm hoping that we all know what action is going to be taken. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Yes. I think we're all pretty well…. I mean, I see nodding heads here too. We take it seriously. We take the representative's recommendations. She has been directed…. This is her only conduit to government. I think it's reasonable that she brings it forward to this committee. Then we figure out how we'd like to go forward from here, but we'll need some time to consider. The Deputy Chair is agreed. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
With that, that's what I would like to say that we've all come to agreement on. Then I'd like to go back to the report, actually, for questions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If we can agree as well…. I know that poverty is a significant part of this. If it's a part of the question, I guess, so be it. But be mindful that we are now also going to be looking at this issue in different directions as we go forward. So if we could focus specifically on the facts, I guess, of this case and the report and the work that's been brought around this report specifically. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'll start a speakers list. Maurine, were you leading the charge there? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Yes, I did have some questions directly related to the report. Again, greatly disappointed to hear that there's been no response from any of the ministries. Now, I know that the recommendations that you put forward deal with several ministries. I'm concerned, I guess, about the issue of cooperation between the Ministry of Housing and Social Development and the Ministry of Children and Family Development. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We have queried some of this in either question period or estimates debate in the House and have been assured that there has been some action as a consequence of this report. After it came out, it certainly did engender some engagement with government and the opposition. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I just wanted to ask at this point what the recommendations…. If there has been no response from government whatsoever, do you have any assurance that the information that came out of this and the recommendations and some of the public discussion on this have in fact changed some of the protocols with how the Ministry of Housing and Social Development addresses these kinds of issues, or do you think that that still remains very much the case as it was when the report was tabled? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think it's important for me to just indicate to the committee that I have requested responses to the recommendation. This report was tabled in July 2009. In the process of preparing and finalizing the report, the administrative fairness process, I did have an opportunity to engage prior to that with the ministries that would have been subject to recommendations. So the issue has been there for some time. I've received no response. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Only through another means has it been clarified to me — one point. That was that when the infant's mother was basically given the ultimatum, "Either find somewhere else to live, or we remove your child," she went to income assistance to receive support. This was off reserve. She called, and she was told that she had a three-week waiting, or a longer waiting period, in order to receive emergency assistance. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It has been brought to my attention that there have been some changes around that waiting period process. However, again, as the representative, I would like to see how that change has been communicated to front-line staff. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A very significant issue in the forums that I've had with income assistance workers and child welfare workers throughout the province has been the issue of sharing information about a family in crisis. When a parent is told, "You must find another accommodation, or you lose your child," and they then call income assistance, income assistance requires some proof that the Ministry of Children and Families will actually remove their child. Then they are directed to the Ministry of Children and Families social worker or a child protection investigation worker that may have had contact with the young, vulnerable family. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In some instances, in some places — in fact, in several places — there is the belief that the Ministry of Children and Families worker cannot share information with the Housing and Social Development worker. So you have sort of a circus situation occurring, when in fact the legislation is clear that information can be shared. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The issue is: does the Ministry of Housing and Social Development receive phone calls from the Ministry of Children and Families, or do things get e-mailed to a general intake box and then responded to? Does a prospective client get a response? How does this work? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
This is extremely complex, and it varies place to place. We have found numerous instances, apart from this child, where the response is inadequate. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Namely, a family is in crisis. They need support, so there has to be some bringing them to support and assisting them to manoeuvre through the process. Their making pleas for emergency assistance and then being told, "Well, I need you to sign a confidentiality disclaimer so that I can speak to the Ministry of Children and Families about you" and so on…. It's not required by legislation, but sadly, it's still in place. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Your question, I think, is: what has been done? Well, to my knowledge, I've received no report on any recommendation in this report with respect to any of the areas that I've identified that require further work. That's not to say that further work hasn't happened, but nobody brought it to my attention. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I have written to and asked for updates around these recommendations, and I have, in the forums I've had with front-line staff throughout the province, attempted and asked them: "What happens when you're going to remove a child and there's an emergency housing need? What happens? What happens on the income assistance side? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Certainly, I see that there are some challenges around how these systems are working together which disentitle eligible individuals from receiving short-term support and could, by default, mean that their children go into child protection. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
L. Krog: I took some time last week to meet with a recently retired career public servant who worked for the ministry for a very long time. One of the issues he raised was — how shall I say? — the lack of trust that's sometimes given to front-line workers, the greater reliance on a scheme. "So many points here, and we figure we have to apprehend a child." None of that sort of traditional gut instinct approach. That's the kind of thing I would expect to hear from someone who'd worked for a very long time. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
One of the concerns that plays into that approach is a social worker arriving and saying, essentially: "I'm here to help." Charlie Wyse, my former colleague, used to say, "Those are the most terrifying words you hear: 'I'm from the government. I'm here to help you.'" [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The joke part of that aside, when the issue is housing and you have a social worker there who's going to decide whether or not a child is apprehended and no ability, because we're talking about separate ministries, to do something about the immediate need, which is housing…. I think you can get where I'm leading with this. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The whole approach in terms of having a ministry separated from the ministry that has the ability to provide the funds necessary to provide housing — does this make any sense? When I hear from agency after agency that…. Whoever they're dealing with in crisis — whether it's mental health, addictions, whatever — it all gets back to housing being the first step necessary in order to make any of their programs effective. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I guess I'm asking in a very general way: is the whole approach a wrong one when you have someone who's there to protect children, but they have no ability, realistically, to provide the basic housing, which is not often but fairly frequently a substantial cause of the social worker being involved at all. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think I'm going to ask Jeremy to respond to one part of that question. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Berland: I was one of those people who went to help. You raise a very honest question in terms of the difficulty of providing help when you don't have control over all the levers of help that might be provided. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think it's really why, in this report, the representative is calling for a system that recognizes the interplay between the various agencies and supports that should be providing services to families. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There isn't a magic formula about what is the right combination of ministries or services within a ministry. The ministry of social services and housing where I grew up included those services, and it wasn't necessarily any easier to find housing support for people when we were all in one place. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It certainly became easier in terms of the children's services when we all merged in 1997 into a ministry for children and families. But really, it relies almost exclusively on the ability — through relationship or through a coordinated policy or integrated plan that we've described in this report — of the worker and the local office to engage with the other service providers to make sure the service is provided. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In this situation we see that there are a multitude of service providers. We have a social worker or child protection worker for the Ministry of Children and Family Development; we've got an agency worker from the delegated child welfare agency, the aboriginal agency; we've got workers from the Ministry of Housing and Social Development — all involved clearly if there's a child protection concern. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Our report doesn't shy away from the fact that there are issues around this family's decisions about where they were going to live. What was required was for that group of people…. It's not beyond the ken to think about people actually getting together and discussing what would be the right way to solve the problem for this family. It didn't happen. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There wasn't a will. There wasn't an approach. There wasn't a cross-government or a cross-agency perspective that we need to find a way to help this young family find a place to live that is going to be safe because there are some serious concerns about their decision-making. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Unfortunately, everybody pursued their own single path. It's that lack of a plan that is really at the core of this report around the need for people to get together, whether they are in one place or three or four different agencies. There is no bar to people working together, and it seems to have been seriously lacking. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I guess the short answer to your question is that the organizational structure is not quite as important as the will that comes from leadership, from a policy direction, that says: "We expect that you will work together on these kinds of issues when families like this come forward." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Next was Nick Simons. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: I don't mean to come to the defence of social workers. Others on the committee and Jeremy have done that as well. But when you remove the levers…. I used to call them the tools on the tool belt. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There was a time when a social worker could take a situation like that and not even contemplate removing a child because of a housing issue. Their responsibility, their job as a social worker, was to go and find, with that young family, a place that would adequately serve their purposes. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I can't imagine standing before a judge — I never had to do it — and saying that this child was removed because there was no housing. Clearly, they would frame it as a parent unable or unwilling to look after a child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Ultimately, the systemic issue here is that when you remove the levers, and then you take those levers and put them somewhere else where you can't even go back to the office and get them, you have a serious problem. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
When there are fewer people to exercise those levers, when there is no one to cover when you're away for a day because you're sick, something has to happen. When you're under pressure as a social worker, it's impossible. It's impossible with the time and the resources around you to adequately meet that child's need. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We should be really clear that the social worker is the one that should be adequately resourced to provide for that family's need, just as the social worker should be the one that has enough time to know if the children on their caseload are achieving in school. They should be the one to go and advocate on behalf of the child to the Crown prosecutor to maybe not charge the child or, if they do charge the child, to get a mental health assessment or to put a curfew on that child. Obviously, situations are different, but ultimately, what I'd say it comes down to is social workers are already working at capacity. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I expect social workers to be leaving the ministry. I don't think that the hiring is adequately meeting the caseload needs. You are getting more and more burnout, and I anticipate that without dealing with that fundamental part of the system — adequately resourcing the front-line social worker staff — then we're going to have situations like this. And that’s untenable, obviously. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm once again shocked that…. Well, not shocked. Yeah, I am kind of disappointed that the ministry has spent more time doing what Hughes said not to do: reorganize the ministry and spend all sorts of money on reorganization and not pay attention to the front line. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Whether that happens now or in the future, I think that we have make sure that the ultimate need for vulnerable families is someone who can guide them through the difficult process of adequately accessing the supports that they need: educational in the criminal justice system, health, education. You name it. The social worker should be that person. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Was there a question? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: The point that the member makes…. I think it is just really significant around the report to be clear that the legislation requires the least intrusive measures. It is the legal requirement that you not remove a child unless all other measures have taken place. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The member has raised an important issue, which is that there is a presentation hearing to approve removal of the child, and so on. Like, you know, there was an order to remove the child, but as we see with these very vulnerable young families and aboriginal families, and as the Ombudsman found in the report that she did on the income assistance system that I've referenced in this report, it's an extremely complex system to navigate. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If, even with the presence of workers, the responsibility is placed on the young mother — who has been given, basically, an ultimatum, "Find housing or your child is removed," and she has to then make phone calls to say, "I need support," and they say, "Well, you have this waiting period and this process and that" — it's that whole system of how easy is it to navigate for a vulnerable family. It's important, but it's also legislatively required, and there is nothing to suggest that the Ministry for Children and Families does not have the power or authority to give temporary support. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The social worker would, under the legislation, be empowered to do that. There may be an administrative decision that says: "We'll send them to the Ministry for Housing and Social Development because we want them to go there." There may also be an administrative decision made by the Ministry for Children and Families, like sometimes might happen, to say: "We're going to refer you to local resources like a food bank, or what have you." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I mean, decisions are made on the ground, but the legislation is clear. "Least intrusive measures" means you do not remove a child. If the presenting issue is short-term housing, you should deal with the presenting issue. The policies that have been put in place may be actually at variance with the requirement of the legislation, which is: "Don't remove." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Now, of course, for many of these aboriginal families in particular, you know, whether or not there's a full consideration of least intrusive measures throughout the process — these are some major systemic issues for them. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Thank you. Next is Jane. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Thornthwaite: I'm just listening to the dialogue and questions. Taking what Mr. Berland said and what the member across said, are we looking at your recommendations as having one individual ultimately responsible or, if there are a lot of individuals, like what Mr. Berland said, at least getting together and talking — kind of like the health care model, when you've all these health care professionals sitting in a room talking about a particular patient and then going, after they've consulted, with their various goals? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Are you looking at that kind of model, or are you kind of looking more at what Nicholas is saying? I just want to get a feel of what your recommendation is. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think the recommendation 1(a) is that the Ministry for Children and Families and the Ministry of Housing and Social Development have a proactive process and an actual explicit policy in place. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's not just an advisory or: "We think we'll do this in this office." It's actually a policy to make it clear what happens and make it a friendlier process for families that are struggling. A family that requires temporary housing assistance is not going to require assistance forever. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's an emergency situation. You know, a user-friendly process for parents, for families — particularly where the child welfare system is bearing down on them — welcoming, sensitive to the poverty and housing dilemmas faced by aboriginal families. There's no housing on the reserve. They're moving off a reserve, but they want to live close to the reserve. What's the situation there? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Then provide opportunities for things that will work in different environments. The urban and rural are different, and you have to be sensitive to that, but a policy framework needs to be put in place. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Currently, the policy framework makes it so complicated to navigate and places the responsibility on the parent who is in peril of losing a child. That is what happened here. Mom just gave up. She didn't keep calling and pressing and pressing, saying: "Please give me assistance. Please give me assistance." She just walked down the reserve pushing her baby in a stroller, and the RCMP came with the social worker, and she passed the baby. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
That's what happens in the reality on the ground. Systems have to do everything not to allow that to happen. But without explicit policy, walls develop. Housing and Social Development doesn't receive a phone call from the Ministry of Children and Families, because everything goes to a drop-box e-mail. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
These are really key issues — how it functions, how it works — so the recommendation was very direct. Different people are going to work in your system — an aboriginal agency, a social worker for a band, a social worker for the Ministry for Children and Families, an income assistance worker — but your policy has to allow that to be a system that functions. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's that coordination, explicit policy. Make it work, and make sure we don't lose touch of how it works on the ground. Certainly, in this investigation there was a very big disconnect of these workers. These three different social workers and two different income assistance workers didn't even understand what the other person's role was, even though in some instances they had a delegation agreement — "You're delegated to do this, and you're delegated to do that" — but they didn't know what their delegation agreement said. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's very significant that policy be explicit, that training be clear and that you be, again, knowing what you're trying to accomplish for that group of families that have this crisis where the default is that the child gets removed. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Dalton: The report says that the planning area has had 110 foster parent homes that were non-aboriginal and five aboriginal foster homes, of which all were restricted. So given the clear capacity issue in that planning area, I'm just wondering how the representative can suggest that the ministry erred in making no effort to locate an aboriginal foster home. And also, I believe that the second foster home was Métis. I'm just wondering if you can give some clarification on that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: First of all, a restricted foster home, as you know, is generally a family member that gets particular approval for one child, so they're not a resource that's available more generally. The challenge here was that there are not aboriginal foster homes available that are connected to this child's cultural identity, language or whatever. The pool of aboriginal foster homes is limited, in any event, for a variety of reasons — open, not restricted. So a significant bit of work has to be done. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
But also, in this instance, the day that the child was removed, he was placed in the emergency first placement with responsible, experienced caregivers, which was not an aboriginal foster home. But two potential caregivers from the child's community were identified to say: "Here are two people from our community that we think could care for this child while we work out this housing situation." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It was very difficult in the investigation, because that was never followed up on. We couldn't find any evidence that that was taken forward and followed up on. So that's really crucial, because aboriginal isn't one-size-fits-all. If this is your tribal identity and your language and your culture, you want someone that's from your identity, language and culture — perhaps even extended kinship, which is really valuable. I think that's crucial. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Did they take it? Did they follow up on it? Whose job was it to follow up on a resource? Was it the delegated aboriginal agency? Was it the Ministry for Children and Families generally? Was it the band? There is significant confusion around who's supposed to do what. The delegation agreement seems pretty clear to me, but they didn't seem to understand that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The crucial thing is what happens. First of all, let's not remove a child when the presenting issue is housing and poverty. But when you do, and they say, "Here are two caregivers in our family that we think you should consider," look at it. We couldn't find any documented evidence that they'd investigated it and considered it. Instead, the child began this journey through four different foster homes. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: I don't understand why that wouldn't have been a voluntary care agreement and not a removal. Ostensibly, in a situation like that, if it's a temporary thing to address an immediate need, you wouldn't necessarily have to go through court and all of the conflictual nature of that judicial process. So I'm still just wrapping my head around…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's good to simplify it down to the issue of poverty and access to help, but I also think that we need to make sure that this is an issue, partly, of the continuing reluctance of the ministry to talk to delegated agencies. We're talking about an issue that was identified long before any cases I was involved with. When I worked for a delegated agency, the issue was that I was funded by the federal government in order to implement the regulations and legislation of the province, and my boss was the chief. So you have complicated relationships. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I don't think that the delegated first nations agencies have an opportunity to influence the ministry whatsoever in terms of policy. That's a fundamental problem when you consider the percentage of aboriginal children in care and first nations children in care from on reserve — federally funded, a "federal responsibility." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I think, fundamentally, what has to happen to address this kind of issue, in part, is that first nations–delegated social workers need to have at least the same access to resources as their off-reserve counterparts and at least have some influence on government policy as it affects them directly. You know, a first nations–delegated social worker will not be able to even have the same lever as to call social assistance, because on reserve they have a federal social assistance system. So you have the added complication. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
I'm just wondering if, in fact, to address your other recommendation — that is, to get the parties together to figure out a system where it's not just a bunch of complicated snakes and ladders — do you think that would address this particular type of issue, as well, and open the opportunity for more resources for the social worker? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
M. Turpel-Lafond: I think that recommendation 3(b) really speaks to your first point, which is that whether it's the delegated aboriginal agency or whether it's the Ministry for Children and Families, track and report on your effort to find a caregiver resource for a child that's aboriginal. It's one thing to pronounce: "We will try and keep aboriginal children with aboriginal caregivers." It's another thing to actually report on what you did to do it. So be practical, report, and be systemic. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
The challenge with the delegated agencies that I found in this particular instance — it may not be in existence with other delegated agencies — is that when they get the level of delegation to have responsibility for children in care, does that bring with it a proactive obligation on their shoulders to actually go out and find resources? Or do you just have the delegation, and you pass the children over to the Ministry for Children and Families for them to go find homes off reserve? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
What's the obligation on the delegated agency to actually prequalify and find resources and caregivers within the community or outside the community — connected? I think this was a major point of confusion, and agencies feel that they don't have that authority. I think it's quite clear that they do. Are they doing it, are they funded, and are they accountable? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If you're going to have kids in care, they're going to have to live somewhere. So make sure you're finding resources for them that are connected to your community, and don't just simply pass them to the Ministry for Children and Families and say: "No, they're in care now. They're yours. Go take them off the reserve to somewhere else." [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
These are crucial issues around how the systems integrate. But if we report on efforts made by whomever, we'll get a better understanding. Here there wasn't an effort made. So what's the effort that's going to be made for other children? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We also know that it may be that you're returned home more quickly if at the second foster home placement, the third foster home placement, there had been consideration of an aboriginal family connected to this child. But there wasn't consideration at each juncture for this child through four. So that's quite a concern. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
N. Simons: Just to satisfy my curiosity, hon. Chair…. As we saw in other public cases of problems happening and tragedies occurring, the issue of whether or not…. If the mom had found a place, was the ministry offering support? Was the ministry going to say that was going to be a "child in the home of a relative" circumstance? If you didn't find some place for the child, they'd remove him, but ostensibly you'd presume that support would go to the family, if a family was found. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
It's very difficult — and we've both practised in the field — to ask a family member who is living far below the poverty line themselves to take on the care of another child with all the potential problems that are associated with it. Maybe it's your sister's kid, and your sister is having certain issues, or what have you. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
There needs to be the proportional…. It's not compensation, but it's to allow that family the ability to look after that child. It's not getting paid to look after the child; it's being able to feed and clothe that child. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Was any investigation done as to whether or not options were given that mother, that if she found a place, they would be able to provide support beyond what we've seen that guardianship financial assistance or CIHR off-reserve is unable to provide? Like, you throw the family into worse poverty. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Berland: That really is our finding from this report. The core of it is that it was an insufficient support offered by any of the providers. If you follow your earlier argument, which I agree with, that the first person in contact with a family should do the right thing, which is to help this family to find an alternative…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
If you say that's not an acceptable place to live, with the relative, then what's the alternative? The alternative ought not to be that the state is going to step in and remove your child. The alternative ought to be: "We will help you to find an alternative place to live that we believe is safe." The legislation provides for that, and that's the foundation of child welfare — to operate in that way. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
In this case, that didn't happen. Neither the Ministry of Children and Family Development worker nor the worker from the delegated agency took on the responsibility of making a good referral, of saying: "I'll go with you. I'll walk hand in hand with you down the road to find a place to live." Instead, it was a more coercive approach taken, which is really at odds with what the legislation calls for. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Thank you very much. I want to extend, on behalf of the committee, our thanks to the representative and gentlemen, Jeremy and John, for your support. Our terms of reference are all about educating legislators, educating and creating public awareness about these issues that are so critical, so I thank you for your work in helping us to do that. We have much work before us. Thank you very much. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Other Business
J. McIntyre (Chair): With that I just want to remind everybody — March 3. The agenda will be forthcoming, but we will have opportunity to have the ministry here. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. Rustad: Sorry. It was brought to my attention that, of course, we'll prorogue, so the March 3 date, I would say, is tentative at this point, until the committee has restruck. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Thank you. I had forgotten that slight little thing. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
A Voice: To prorogue. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
J. McIntyre (Chair): Yes, prorogue. We will do our best to honour that date, to go forward. Yes, we will be prorogued. But we're still doing the business of the people — right? [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Can I have a motion to adjourn, please, with that? Thank you again to all. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
Motion approved.
The committee adjourned at 12:59 p.m.
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