The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Ontario's Child Welfare System Working?

Episode Date: September 26, 2024

Why are some Ontario agencies placing foster kids in hotels? This is one of many stories of concern in the child welfare space right now. We invite agency representatives and experts to The Agenda to discuss the current state of Ontario's children's aid system.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is Ontario's child welfare system in trouble? Well, agencies across the province are reporting a funding and staffing crisis. The Ombudsman is investigating the use of hotels and office spaces to house children. What can be done to fix these problems? Let's ask. Solomon Owu, Interim CEO of Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies. Irwin Elman, President of Defense for Children International,

Canada and Ontario's Child Advocate from 2008 to 2019. Kyriss Garabagui, Dean of Faculty of Community Services and Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at Toronto Metropolitan University. And Irene Tomituck, Executive Director of Peyo Katano, James and Hudson Bay Family Services. And we are really grateful to convene all of you four around our table today because you have a vast array of experiences in the area in which we are going to discuss.

And let's start off with some facts and figures to help set up our conversation. Sheldon, if you would, bring this graphic up. Here are some child welfare facts in this province for fiscal year 2022 and 23. There are 50 designated children's aid societies. Three are religious, 13 indigenous. That's 7,200 full-time staff working in this sector. 117,500 referrals made, 61,000 child protection investigations, and 8,600 children and youth are in care in this province. This is a very busy sector. Solomon, you represent Children's Aid Societies in Ontario.

What are the most pressing? Okay, let's just do one. What is the most pressing issue on your plate these days? Thank you, Steve, for the question. And at Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies, we represent 47 of the 50 mandated child welfare organizations that you talked about. Child welfare is one of the subset of organizations

that support a broader children's services system across the province. And the work we do has to be integrated, and it has to look at the total well-being of children across the province. And if you ask me what is the number one precedent, the number one precedent is not just a child welfare issue, but a broader children's services system issue,

where we are looking at children and youth in this province not getting some of the supports, the treatments, and the services they need to thrive and to do well in their communities when they need it. And because they're not getting those services, what are the consequences? So the consequences are some of the things, Steve, you would have seen in the recent media stories where parents literally are showing up at the doors of CASC and saying, I am surrendering my child because I've done everything within my community. I've gone to various places that I believe I should be getting help.

They are not getting help. So kids are not getting the help they need. And parents sometimes believe child welfare will be able to help navigate some of those systems but we are equally going through the same challenges that parents are going through. And the other piece you'll see is that now we have children within child welfare spaces that are simply not getting the treatment they need. So we are able to offer them what I call housing, a shelter and accommodation, feeding. But that is not enough.

As a province, we should be doing better than that. Let's continue the story here. Irene, your focus is more in the remote and northern areas. What are you seeing up there? Well, we serve a population of about 10,000 community members within seven communities. But I want to tell you that, you know, our communities have survived 350 years of colonialism. And I believe that it speaks volumes at First Nation,

about First Nation communities everywhere. And I think the Ontario child welfare system can really learn from our communities, our kinship practices of taking care of our children, taking care of our own. Because right now, we're experiencing many of the challenges that Solomon talks about. We're having to send children south to access services

because those services are not available in our communities You have enough people up north to deal with these issues. No, we don't we we don't have access to doctors dentists Optometrists we don't have We have very limited opportunities with autism support complex special needs We have to send our children south and I can tell you that I left my community of 2,500 people. Which is where? In Moose Factory to come to Toronto where we have millions of

people and that's hard for me to do as an adult and we're doing this with children. We're taking them from environments where they feel safe into environments of unknown, where they don't know anyone or this way of life. There are going to be people watching us and listening to us right now who don't know where Moose Factory is. So maybe you should just tell them how challenging it is to get from way up there to way down here. How do you get here? So we service seven communities, and none of our communities are connected by road.

They're all fly-in communities. So when I left home on Monday, I took a boat over to the mainland, and I took a flight from Moosonee to Timmins. I stayed there overnight, and then I flew here yesterday. So I've traveled about 1,000 kilometers to be here today. It's a big province, and we're grateful you made it. Thank you. Kyriss, OK, it's probably eight years ago

we did an episode on this program looking at the overrepresentation of Black and Indigenous youth in the child welfare system. That's eight years ago. Anything different today? Well, there have been lots of attempts at making things different. There is no question, and one can

credit the hard work of people in children's aid societies and other sectors who really tried. But if you ask me, is anything really different? No, it's not really different. We've tinkered with systems, we've made adjustments here and there. There continues to be a massive over-representation of black and indigenous young people

in child welfare and in any of our contained and sort of carceral or jail-like systems, with very little prospect of that changing anytime soon. There are no doubt myriad reasons for that. Do you want to just lay a few on us? Absolutely. I mean, look, racism is at the root of it all. There is no question that anti-black and anti-indigenous racism are still very much prevalent in all

of our, as Irene pointed out, colonial institutions. And that applies to child welfare as well. It also applies to the university sector and other sectors, to be perfectly fair. But it goes beyond that. It also goes to the lack of strengthening of community, where communities that could serve their own children effectively and well, but that have very little support in that. It goes to the instability of government funding and support

to those communities that one day it's huge and there is a great press release, and then the next day it's gone again. It goes to a lack of commitment to really think differently about how to keep young people well. And I just want to say, because we're going to talk about child welfare and child protection as if these were the same things,

we have a child protection system in Ontario. We do not and never had a child welfare system in Ontario. A child welfare system, as the name would suggest, is a system that aims to keep children well, healthy, to keep families and communities well and healthy. A child protection system is a system based on a mandated allowance to enforce rules, to enforce standards that are usually

value-based on children and families to keep them away from harm. It's a risk and liability based system, child protection. And that has very little to do with child welfare in the sense of trying to keep children well. So we need more of the former and less of the latter. Well, we need to in the immediate sense, we need to improve the latter.

So we need to have child protection that actually protects children. And that means supporting children's aid societies. But the goal has got to be welfare. But the goal has to be supporting young people, their families and communities. Okay, Irwin, let me get a comment of you, from you out of this. And you've been on this program many times in the past as the former child advocate in the province of Ontario. So you know this stuff well.

The ombudsman for the province is apparently investigating the use of hotels and Airbnbs, even office spaces, to house kids in right now. Is this a new phenomenon in the province? Absolutely. So hotels and Airbnbs are new, but hotels I had heard of, usually teenagers, and few. And when we raised it, there were some rules about when to use hotels that the ministry put in place.

Of course, I don't know if they were used. But what's new now, really new, and people should understand, this is not teenagers. And Solomon can correct me if I'm wrong. But I've seen the data, not just your data, and the data that you gave to the Toronto Star didn't include the ages. I'm sure children as young as three years old.

There's an 11-year-old in an office for 12 months who's autistic with social workers that, and I feel for you, and I know you've been living with this for decades. So this is new. It's come home to the rest of the province. Social workers who are not trained to be child and youth care workers, working overnight shifts to just manage this child living in an office.

11-year-old us to take. We take children, Solomon, we take children from their home. Kyrsten's right. It's a child protection system. We say to them, you are in danger. That's your job. That's your job. You are in danger, child.

Timmy, John, Madeline, we have to take you for your own well-being and safety. We promise to care for you, to love you, and support you. And then you put them in a whole in an office for 11 months. And the idea is supposed to return them home and help them deal with whatever they're dealing with in that quote-unquote placement you've created. And you have social workers who are not trained to support the youth to learn how the child to learn how to self-regulate. And we expect something to happen, some miracle, so they can go home.

And then we've got the mom at home with her other kids with no nothing. So we are not fulfilling our commitment to these children. This, and I'm pointing at Solomon and looking at him, but I'm telling you this, and I hope you let me say this. It's a context that Solomon and Irene are working in. And the context is a perfect storm. We've undermined child protection

by trying to force it to be a child welfare system. And I wish the people in child protection would stop saying child welfare, because it isn't. It's built to be a system 130 years ago to surveil parents. Whether it's good or bad, That's it. That's the system Do your job. Okay, and wait, but we've also hollowed out Every other support to families in this province everything and we I mean our province our government and it created a perfect storm That's battering our children and families 136 deaths in

2020 223 connected the child protection system. 136 that's a record for Ontario and you and I have been around a long time, a record, every three days. And it's not acceptable. It's not acceptable. So Steve, one of the things that never makes it to the news or the news media is 97% of investigations that child welfare gets involved with, children stay at home. So it is not that child welfare brings kids

into the child welfare system. In 97% of our investigations, children stay with families. And families is always a first place to go to try and find support for children. You will be looking at things like uncles, aunties, grandpas, so all the supports within the communities. Over the years, one of the greatest support structure

that we've had within child welfare is a foster caregiver system, where we've had parents that have showed up and said, listen, I'm putting my hand up, I want to take another child into my family. Well, we don't have enough foster parents anymore. Yes, just in the last three, four years, foster caregivers have dropped by 30%.

It speaks to some of the economic challenges and how that is affecting families and their willingness to take in some of the child children we are talking about. Is that because the province doesn't give these foster parents enough money to help support the kids? Is that one reason we don't have enough? There are a number of reasons. One of them, obviously, Steve, includes some of the legislative requirements. So foster caregivers are feeling like there's too much of a bedding in doing this work from a legislative space.

And then the other piece you're looking at, because of some of the complexities of care that we are seeing in the child welfare spaces. So when they talk about kids presented with autism, sometimes a long wait list that they are on to be able to get supports on the other side becomes a challenge. Some of the mental health supports. And it's not that these community service providers are not interested or willing to.

It's just the same capacity issue we are talking about. And that is a challenge we're dealing with. I just want to jump in, because something you said triggered me. This is exactly the same capacity issue we are talking about. And that is a challenge we're dealing with. I just want to jump in because something you said triggered me. This is exactly the same conversation we had 10 years ago. You know, it is very common for the child welfare sector or the child protection sector to say, look, 97% of the work we do actually is really positive and so on,

and nobody wants to talk about that. And I tell you why nobody wants to talk about that. Because it's an expectation. You exist for things to go well. And so we're not going to talk about things that we expect to happen. We're going to talk about the things that we don't expect to happen, which

is why it doesn't matter that 97% of the work goes well. That's just what we expect. The other piece I want to pick up on, which is a very important development in child protection in Ontario, you know that lack of foster parent capacity and so on, that is true and that is really a significant issue, is resulting in a very, very rapid move toward privatization in care.

So we have a rise of private for-profit foster care. That is one of the fastest growing systems. And especially in the context of kids with complex needs, the care for those kids is being constituted through private for-profit actors. And this is a disaster. We have done this multiple times. That's how we created group homes for profit.

And we know how that ended up. And now we're doing it again in the context of complex care. In fact, the children you're sending south are making money for, have a price tag. You know, I hate to say it, but they have a price tag on their back. Can I find out from you, Irene, we've talked about Airbnbs and hotels and office spaces.

I presume that's not an option in Moosonee, right? It's not an option, but I can tell you that we were using an OPR right here in- What's an OPR? It's an outside paid resource. It's privatization. We were using one right here in Brampton. However, they're going through the licensing process,

but they haven't completed that process. So they're very limited as to how many children they can have in their care. So they can have a maximum of two while they're going through the licensing process. We had three. So yesterday we didn't have any children in hotels or Airbnbs. Today we do. So we have one child in a hotel today and he will be staffed by one of our staff. How old is he? 15.

Is he OK? Yeah. He is doing well. However, that's really not where we want him to be. No, that's not our home. We want him to be in a home. Although, OK, can I just say, you know, it's important that we don't get stuck

on the negative connotation of being in a hotel or an Airbnb. The reality is you've got to ask yourself, is it better to send a child thousands of kilometers to a different community where they can be in a licensed place of whatever type, the quality of which we know nothing about, or is it better to stay in community even if that means you live in a hotel which ideally has a little swimming pool And say the letter you think the letter I would say well at the very least I would say we have to think that through a little bit before we start

You know sort of really committing to the idea that Airbnb's and hotels are the wrong way to let me get this on the record If I can right now because the Ministry of Children Community and Social Services is the is the ministry that oh, Erwin's already shaking his head. But you know, here's their position. Let's get it on the record. Sheldon, if you would, bring the graphic up. Our government is redesigning the child welfare system to focus on high quality and culturally appropriate services that prioritize safety, protection, and the needs and circumstances of children, youth, and families.

We welcome the ombudsman's review and recommendations to augment the work already underway within government. Over the past 10 years, the average number of children and youth in care has decreased by about 29 percent. And the average number of ongoing open protection cases has decreased by about 49 percent. This year, we increased funding for child protection services by another 14 million dollars in addition to last year's increase of 76.3 million dollars. Erwin, this is a government certainly claiming that the numbers indicate we're going in the right direction. What do you say to that? Well I'm listening to Solomon who's saying absolutely we're not but I'll say this. 136 deaths is the

record for Ontario it's about 20% higher than the previous record thank you system redesign even though there are less kids in care the number of serious injury and bodily harm reports that lands on that minister's desk has stayed the same or gone up with less kids in care. What does that tell you? That tells me that the system is in crisis. That the system is in crisis and his redesign, which has meant that workers, because it's a child protection system,

workers were told it's important to leave those children at home. And workers, and that's so important to understand the context of your workers, Solomon. Workers are caught in this absence twice. We leave kids at home, this is what happened to Nivea, if we talk about her. Nivea, we should just say, is that four-year-old girl in Toronto who was, I mean, who died an appalling death. Yes. Appalling. And found in a dumpster. Found in a dumpster.

Community dead. And what happened to her was that workers, judges left her at home because yes that's where the minister wants to go. By the way it saves money to the minister. That's where the minister wants to go. And more children are dying in families at home. But I don't think just dying. We have those children and we didn't talk about them. Parents of complex care kids coming to your agencies and I'm not speaking for you and Pia Catano because I think you've experienced before but Solomon across the province come to you and saying help us. We cannot take it anymore because

there is no support in the darn province for our kids, whether the autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, the kids in struggling with mental health issues in Windsor. And they're coming to you and saying, we need your help. And you can't because you're a child with a tension system. Let me get Solomon to react to this. One death of a child every three days is outrageous. How do you react to that? So Steve, the death of a child every three days is outrageous.

How do you react to that? So Steve, the death of one child, even if it's for the entirety of a year or multiple years, is a tragedy. And child warfare, over the years, what we've tried to work with is to build support within communities to make sure children thrive with their families. So the story that you read generated a conclusion. What the story didn't tell you is, if a child welfare agency gets a call right now to show up at a hospital because a child presented

with a situation that requires child welfare's involvement, with that child potentially being discharged and unfortunately passing away, that is one of the things we would have to report as a child welfare involved death. So I think it just speaks to the kind of reporting requirements that do not really take us to the causation. Why is CS getting involved in spaces where it shouldn't be, there's even no

protection concerns when it comes to some of these things. So it is health that is required. And some of the conversations that we've been having are beyond the boundaries of CESs. So one of the things you would have seen is the Ombudsman's investigation. It is focused on child welfare. But then the question is, why is a child who is waiting for nine months or 10 months

to get into treatment stuck on the child welfare side? Why is Ministry of Health not part of that investigation? And that was one of the calls we've made to the Ombudsman that if we want to have a conversation, not just about child protection, like you said, but the total well-being of a child, let's look at it from the end-to-end spectrum. What I want and what drive it is so difficult.

I do not ever want to hear one death is too many again. It is. It is. But we're not talking about one death. We're talking 136 deaths, 2,000 serious injury and bodily harm. And you know what, we're not talking about the kids. And that's what really drives me crazy about systems

when we talk about changes. Why systems and ministries can't change themselves. We need something bigger. It's because we need to focus on the children and the needs of the family. And let's talk about, I'm not talking about your system, Solomon, I'm talking about the child, Nevia, who died and what she didn't get and she was in care for two years. So it's not that she wasn't in care. And three different agencies.

Yes. So can I- So come on. Let's have an honest conversation. I'm not blaming you. But let's talk about children. Solomon, come back on that. And this is a conversation we blaming you, but let's talk about children. So we'll come back on that. This is a conversation we are having. It's a conversation about children, because what you need to understand is we can only

have conversations. At this point, some of these deaths are under the investigation of police. So we can get into so much detail. But what is actually challenging is having conversations about children, and you're getting a ministry statement saying we've put money in there. That is really not what we are talking about. We are talking about the needs for children.

Why are children in this province not getting the supports they need? Why can't we have system or community investment? So Irene doesn't have to take a child three or four days away to find the supports in those communities. The lack of community investment. So child welfare has actually gotten to a place where literally we are holding the bag for the lack of system investment in other sectors.

Ari, I haven't heard you in a bit. Let's hear from you. So I wanted to talk about that funding piece. You know, they have fit us all into one box in Ontario. And I don't know any other agency that has to charter a plane three times a week. It's $17,000 per charter. So we're looking at paying a salary 52 weeks out of the year.

And we have to find that in our budget. So we know agencies in the South that have the same budget that we do, but they're not looking at the cost of living in the North. I can tell you we get about $1.3 million a month from the ministry, but I'm also going to tell you we spend about $4 million a month to keep our doors open, to make sure we have adequate supports for children and their families, to pay our employees, to keep our doors open, to make sure we have adequate supports for children and their families, to pay our employees, to keep our lights on. And it's our responsibility to find that money somewhere else.

So you would like some recognition from Queens Park that things are far more expensive doing things north of the French River, and they ought to recognize that. And they do need to recognize that because when we look at, and I'm sorry I'm going to use this as an example, if you're going to buy a case of beer in downtown Toronto, you're going to pay the same thing in Moosonee. Why? The shipping is the same as how they ship our groceries and why shouldn't our groceries cost the same?

Why shouldn't we have the same quality that I can get down here for our families? What's the answer? Why is there no recognition of that? Why is there no recognition? I'd like an answer. You'd like an answer to it. I can jump into that, yeah.

Sure. So one of the solutions to that, and we have offered this to the ministry, is that we have a funding formula that has been in place, developed by the ministry for the last 10 years, and it is a funding formula that is just based basically on volumes. And one of the things we've been calling for is a needs-based formula. You have to be able to identify the needs within communities. So if it is required that in Irene's case, the needs of children needs to be looked at differently, that's what it should be.

The ministry hasn't really moved on the funding formula. And so that is one of the pieces that we're looking at. But then that is because we are talking of the child welfare space. Before we even get there, why don't we have early intervention support for children so we all don't end up in a crisis space that we all find ourselves in?

And those are some of the bigger investment front end, early intervention prevention services we should be getting into. You know, I, geez, I don't know. I hesitate to read this statement from the ministry on the deaths that take place within the system, because I know you're all going to roll your eyes at the first line here, but I don't know.

Or death is too many. Well, there you go. Erwin, you read my mind. Here we go. Let's put this up. Sheldon, bottom of page four. Here we go. The death of any child is aeldon, bottom of page four. Here we go. The death of any child is a tragedy, and our thoughts are with the family's friends and

communities impacted. The ministry and the office of the chief coroner have a joint directive that must be followed by children's aid societies in the event of a death. The process includes the requirement for all parties involved to review the circumstances surrounding the child's death, to take immediate action if required, and to identify larger opportunities for systemic change where appropriate. Making the child welfare system safer with increased accountability and oversight has been a key element in the ongoing work of the child welfare redesign, and we will continue that work. Can I jump in?

Let me go to Karest first. Okay, let me jump in to that work. Can I jump in? You believe? I'll go to Karis first. OK, let me jump in. Karis, go ahead. You know, I really cringe every time I hear the child welfare redesign. I just want to walk you through this over the last 20 years. You know, 20 years ago, we had the Child Welfare Commission. That was followed by a residential review in 2006, a child welfare transformation in 2008,

about half a dozen blueprints, frameworks, and strategies between 2008 and 2015, followed by another residential services review that we talked about 10 years ago, followed then by what was briefly called the child welfare modernization, and then changed to the child welfare redesign, and the outcome is a girl in the dumpster. So these processes, when a minister keeps talking about this tinkering with the system,

that is just a rejigging of the same variables. So if that's not getting it done, what do we need to do then? Two things. One, we need different people actually thinking about what is required for children to be well in our society. And different people means first and foremost children. Their voices need to be well in our society. And different people means first and foremost, children.

Their voices need to be represented. Their voices are less represented now. And because the children who have come to the attention of child welfare are usually children with complex needs right now, they are even easier to push aside and to say, well, they can't possibly have a voice. So that's one problem.

Can they really advocate on their own behalf? They can advocate with adults for sure, but they can advocate on their own behalf. And in fact, I think the advocate office at the time just had done a session with young people with disabilities to advocate on their own behalf and they were very effective. Okay, second thing. What we cannot do is to continue to have redesigns, modernization strategies and frameworks that are produced by the same people who are in the system. And I hate to say, and this is not at all meant to be a criticism of child welfare professionals,

but child welfare professionals are child welfare professionals. They are stuck in that system and have been for 130 years. They cannot come up with something better. They are bound by the constraints of the system that has shaped them. That's also a comment on the profession of social work as it manifests within the child welfare system, which is a constrained profession. What is the status of the child advocate office you used to head up?

Well, it's closed. It doesn't exist. Right. Do we need it back? Of course. Of course we do. I mean, that goes without saying. There's one group, maybe two now.

The ombudsman might say no, because he's got some skin in the game. The government will say no, because it's one promise they don't want to. The one thing they've done they don't want to go back on but I haven't heard anybody say No, we shouldn't we do need it. I'm not gonna say the Child Advocate Office would have There wouldn't be this crisis and it is a crisis if we were around still what I would say is Navia who died invisibly

would have been visible and and the idea of children being visible, of children, your children, who so long, especially in the South, nobody has seen them or heard them here, they have a presence. And this catastrophe couldn't be going on. I just want to say what needs to be done. So, Solomon, you're talking about money. And just want to say what needs to be done. So Salman, you're talking about money.

And I'm not here to get you more money. That's not my purpose. But do I think that we should stabilize the child welfare system? Absolutely. If that means more money, absolutely. If we take children at the center, then yes, Kyrgios is right about the placements

that you have in trailers and parking lots of your children's aid societies, in office spaces, in Airbnbs. If that's best for them, children at the centre will do it, but you have money for others. We should shore up all community services that touch families, whether clear the 50,000 people autism list, clear it. It doesn't matter right now how much money it costs because we're losing our family. It would cost six billion dollars. I hear we spent money to put beer in the corner stores and I hear we're

building a highway underneath the 401 which is going to cost 110 billion. So it's not just priorities. Let's deal with the catastrophe in front of us But that's not the only thing it's not about money premier We need to build a child well-being child family well-being system Allow child protection to do its job if we're gonna keep them do child protection running out of time here child and family well-being center System that has been posited by the representative for children youth in British Columbia. I want to hear from Solomon and then from Irene. So you did talk about children that need a voice.

Some of us here as leaders are the voices of those children. The children we are dealing with, talking about our children that are vulnerable children, some of them, even their parents who have been the advocates have showed up at different organizations trying to get them the support they need. They haven't been able to find those supports. So all of us jointly working this together

is where we need to go. Because at this point, it is, Fox sees as a child welfare issue. It is a children's services system issue. And that is where we all need to pull together. So that no child in this province should be dumped at the front door of a CS building

because the system couldn't take care of them. That shouldn't be happening. Irene. It's really a time of all hands on deck. How are we going to do this together? Because we can't do it alone, and none of the service providers within our region can do it alone either.

And you're right, Erwin. It needs to be child-focused, family-focused, and it's time for us to start working together and doing it on a needs-based, with a needs-based system. I mean, the name of the ministry starts with the word children. You would think it would be child-focused.

Well, there used to be one that was child-focused, didn't there? That was the first thing the government did when it came into power, was get rid of the Ministry of Children Use Services. The one ministry responsible for the well-being of children, gone. That's when redesign started. That's redesign. Okay. Friends, that's our time.

I want to thank the four of you for coming into our program tonight. Mr. Director, thank you for the wide shot there. To thank four splendidly passionate voices on an issue that is of great importance to the province of Ontario and onward. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you.