ISSUES IN THE NEWS


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A new day for Child and Family Services


O


n the wall of my home office is a yellowed news- paper clipping. I taped it there on November 13, 2015, in the dying days of the NDP’s 16-year


rule over Manitoba. It tells a tale of dysfunction in so- cial services with 42 children dying while in the care of Manitoba’s Child and Family Services. Another 14 died in 2015/16, a total of 56 in just four years. Many of these children died by their own hand; there were 32 suicides in the four- year period above. These are shocking statistics that can- not be justified and cannot be allowed to continue. It is a great relief to learn the cur- rent Manitoba Government is embarked on an overhaul of the system. In 2016, there were 10,293


Dorothy Dobbie


children in Manitoba’s “care” up from 6,629 in 2006, an 85


per cent increase in just one decade. That number has ap- parently now risen to over 11,000. In the recent Throne Speech, plans for change announced in October by Fami- ly Services Minister Scott Fielding were backed up by the government. Most heartening among these was the un- derstanding that the current adversarial approach doesn’t work. With over 90 per cent of the kids in care being indigenous, it just makes sense to take another approach, one that respects the way these communities deal with conflict and family breakdown. Children Need Families, Not Courtrooms


In 2016, Dr. David Milward, a professor of Law at


the University of Manitoba who also prepared a paper on criminal justice for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, tabled a report for the of the Office of the Children’s Advocate Manitoba. Entitled “Children Need Families, Not Courtrooms”, this 66-page report presents an alternative to the current court system. Dr. Milward proposes a mediation approach that would bring families and authorities together to seek solutions in a collabora- tive way. Currently, overworked and ultimately cynical child


welfare workers have an “inordinate amount of power” and few sensible resources. (A former social worker lately told us that he had left CFS because the promised work- load of seven families had burgeoned to 20 and he just burned out.) They are forced to rely on the turgid court system with its anachronistic procedures to deal with cri- sis issues and so they often end up doing the opposite of what is needed for the welfare of the child, let alone the family. Snatching a newborn from a mother does irrepa- rable harm to both, but in 2015, one newborn was being taken from a mother every day, “as many as 40 a month”, according to the Canadian Press. The reason? In at least one case, it was because the mother herself had been a ward of the system until she was 18! In 2016 there were just under 400 newborn babies apprehended at birth, ac- cording to Cora Morgan, Manitoba First Nations family advocate.


It is shocking to learn that one in five indigenous kids


in Manitoba will have been in the hands of the system by the time they are 15, but it is not surprising to dis- cover that 70 per cent of these kids ended up with mental health issues and that 36 per cent had been involved with the justice system by the time they reach 21. These endless and depressing statistics only go to show that we cannot fix other people’s lives. What society can do is to show them the path and provide the help and encouragement they need along the way. It can’t be fixed overnight


That is what is proposed in the Milward Report. It


won’t be an overnight fix. Mediators will have to be found and trained; new systems of collaboration will have to replace the name-and-blame system currently in place. Social workers will find their roles changed and courts will have a lighter case load. Currently, when a “family at risk” is identified, contact is mother-child-social worker-courts. This paragraph from the Milward Report starkly explains part of the reason for the inability for a family to return to stability: “What is troubling in our findings, though perhaps not surprising, is the lack of social worker engagement with fathers. As we noted, almost 50% of fathers were consid- ered irrelevant to both mothers and children. A greater concern is that over half (60%) of fathers who were iden- u 4 'Child and Family Services'


Some of the things wrong with the system currently


Below is just a minor snapshot of some of the serious failings in the system.


Parents feel powerless • Catch 22 system of “not enough money to provide both food and rent” leads to charges of “neglect” and kids are apprehended from caring parents • The court system seems stacked against them • They are often under represented at hearings • They don’t know their rights • They don’t have the resources to hire a lawyer, but they often don’t “qualify” for legal aid • They have limited or no access (visiting rights) to their ap- prehended children • Adults who have been through the system as children are automatically considered a risk with their own children.


Social workers have overwhelming numbers of cases • They don’t communicate • They treat people with condescension • They don’t follow through with planning • They impose their values on families • They often intervene in an arbitrary manner • They make assumptions rather than fully investigating issues.


Fostering system • System seems to have inability to weed out fosters who are abusers, both physical and sexual • A revolving door of good foster parent helps neither the child nor the fosters • There is not enough supervision


Nurse Practitioner House Call Services


Donna Alden-Bugden, RN(NP), MN, DNP, Nurse Practitioner, Doctor of Nursing Practice


$80/visit + $40 for each additional patient Cell/Text 204-770-2977


Available in Winnipeg and suburbs, Medical Care in the comforts of your Home http://NPCanada.ca/drupal8/housecalls


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