We must find better ways to help our vulnerable youth
The Star’s recent articles about Ontario’s group homes illustrate the tragedy that results from a broken system.
We were heartened that these articles also gave voice to group home staff, whose work is often thankless and deeply lacking in appropriate supports. And despite their passionate and caring work, the extremely vulnerable youth in these homes continue to consistently have poor outcomes.
Although the contributing factors to the problems found in Ontario residential services are varied and complex, and involve the entire breadth of social services, it is imperative that we find effective and immediate ways to help these youth.
A failure to do so will almost certainly result in another tragedy like what took place at the group home in the Lindsay area.
Children’s Aid Societies’ submission to the expert panel convened last year by the provincial government to look at resi- dential services in Ontario outlined several recommendations.
Some of these recommendations included:
Providing additional resourcing to support more training for group home staff.
A provincial system that would provide key data regarding all group homes to help ensure safe and appropriate placements.
Establishing programs in group homes that offer culturally appropriate programming, especially for Indigenous youth who are often sent far from their communities for placement.
Establishing funding for necessary support services, such as mental health and addiction treatments, in northern regions to allow youth to be served close to their communities.
The child and youth mental health services that are so urgently needed for many of the youth in group homes with complex needs often have long wait lists and funding constraints, which severely impedes their accessibility.
The Residential Services Working Group convened by Children’s Aid Societies is looking at initial data from agencies that suggest in some areas upwards of 40 per cent of their youth in the care of group homes should actually be in the care of a children’s mental health service.
Some of our recommendations are reflected in the Ministry of Children and Youth Services’ Reform blueprint. However, as noted in the Star article, these reforms won’t be fully implemented until 2025. Although we are encouraged by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services’ recent increase in safety inspections at group homes, these inspections do not fundamentally change the system.
The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies continues to press the ministry to implement systemic changes, as the current time frame must be accelerated. These children and youth cannot wait on these changes, they need the ministry to act now.
Faced with the ministry’s long implementation timetable, Children’s Aid Soci- eties are taking some immediate measures.
The child welfare Shared Services Program launched earlier this year aims to include shared standardized assessments for “outside paid resources (OPRs)” (group homes and foster homes run for profit by private companies) and an OPR database to allow the province’s children’s aid societies to better share information regarding group and foster homes that are licensed by the ministry.
This increased sharing of information has already begun among agencies, as it is vital to making informed decisions about safe placements for youth.
Our most vulnerable children and youth deserve access to high-quality residential services, as well as the appropriate supporting services that will allow them to thrive. All parties involved need to treat this issue as the crisis that it is. Failure to act is to invite further tragedy.