Social workers call for advocacy office
The Nova Scotia College of Social Workers has launched a campaign asking Nova Scotians to join them in calling on the provincial Liberal leadership candidates to commit to creating a child and youth advocacy office.
College executive director and registrar Alec Stratford said social workers have been pushing all parties for an advocacy office for four years as a policy position.
He said every other province and territory in the country had one until Ontario premier Doug Ford rolled that province's into the office of the ombudsman, which Stratford said is not the right place.
“We feel that it's a nobrainer, and we're shocked that it still hasn't been created in Nova Scotia given (the province's) current issues,” Stratford said.
The campaign, at childyouthadvocatens.org asks Nova Scotians to tweet and email the leadership candidates demanding that they commit to creating the office.
Stratford said it's “striking” to him that with the highest family and child poverty rates in the country being in Nova Scotia, “I, and no one else I've talked to, have seen one talking point, political note, tweet, or Facebook post coming from the three candidates about the issue of child poverty and the impact it has on an array of services.”
He said there is a lot of policy that needs to be addressed, “but at a minimum, a child and youth advocate office would allow children and youth to have a political voice that pushes for the change that is going to benefit them.”
The office would be an independent branch of the legislature that reports directly to its members.
“It (would talk) very clearly about the policies that are not working, or are working, for children and youth, and makes recommendations around those,” Stratford said. “In every other province these offices have been fundamental in calling out government policy and creating a change for children and youth that is meaningful to them.”
He said the office would be relatively inexpensive in the long run. He said the Manitoba office has a budget of about $4 million, and “a clear mandate, and do a lot of good work... to support children and youth.”
He said the cost of poverty leads to more expensive services and to the criminalization and over-policing of people who live in poverty, and that adverse childhood experiences contributed to by poverty “is as statistically relevant to developing mental health issues as smoking is to cancer. The data has clearly shown that. It is much cheaper to deal with these issues up front.”
He said the province needs to see that politicians have the courage to make policy choices around universal childcare, social infrastructure and income assistance, and vulnerable children and youth need an advocate at the table to make sure those policies address their needs.