Another plea to fix embattled child-welfare system
“Having two caseworkers looking after 56 cases, it’s just not doable. It’s straight crisis management.”
That was the blunt truth delivered to the province’s all-party committee on child intervention by Yvonne Johnson, director of the child welfare system for the Bigstone Cree Nation in northern Alberta.
On Monday, Johnson and dozens of her First Nations child welfare colleagues from across Alberta delivered the most passionate, expert and honest testimony the all-party panel has yet heard. These weren’t career bureaucrats protecting their system. These were First Nations workers, on the front lines, delivering blistering insights into just how dysfunctional Alberta’s child welfare system is.
Back in the early 1990s, the province and the federal government set up a system of “delegated First Nations” child welfare authorities, or DFNAs. The idea was that they’d be funded by Ottawa, but conform to provincial child welfare standards.
But for decades, DFNAs have received less funding per child than kids off reserve in the care of the province. That imbalance endured even after a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision told Ottawa to equalize access to vital services.
Take, as one example, a kid who needs major dental surgery, or braces to correct severe jaw issues. If the child is in foster care off reserve, the province covers those costs. But a child on-reserve? The federal government generally refuses to pay. Even such things as insulin pumps and leukemia drugs don’t get funded.
“We apply and apply again, and are turned down,” says Teresa Steinhauer, director of Tribal Chief Child and Family Services East in the Kehiwin/Frog Lake area, told the panel.
One of the smartest ways to keep families together, protect kids and lower costs is to help struggling families before things get to a crisis point. But Ottawa provides no funding to DFNAs for preventive care or early interventions. Sometimes, the only way First Nations agencies can get help for families is to apprehend kids and put them in foster care, even if they don’t need to be there.
DFNAs struggle to hire and retain staff. Turnover is high — especially since average salaries are about $15,000 to $20,000 less than comparable positions in the provincial system.
“Recruitment is very difficult — there’s no housing money for families, let alone professionals coming to communities,” Johnson told the panel. “People want to make changes, but there’s nowhere for them to live. There’s no job security. What I’m trying to say is if you put an option in front of me — work for the province and have these benefits, these unions, this pay cheque, or the other option is to come and work for the reserve — you may not have any place to live, there’s no good pension plan, no union, no job security, what are you going to choose?”
Debbie LaRiviere, with the delegated child welfare authority that serves five bands near Lesser Slave Lake, says there’s another complication. Although DNFAs are supposed to be run at arm’s length from band councils, LaRiviere says that’s hard when they have to apprehend, for example, a chief ’s nieces or nephews.
“We can’t recruit staff, because people are afraid of the politics,” she told the committee.
The result? One-third of First Nations children in Alberta receive “cut-rate” child welfare services from an underfunded, understaffed band welfare office. And these are some of our most vulnerable, impoverished children. They need more support, not less.
In truth, there’s little this panel — or the Notley government — can do to force Ottawa to provide the funds our bands need, beyond some overdue public shaming.
But Alberta could finally step in to bridge the gap, especially when it comes to early intervention and preventive care, to make kids on reserve equal Albertans.
Beyond money, we need to knit together our fractured system. Alberta’s 17 DFNAs operate in isolation from one another. Wouldn’t it make sense for neighbouring agencies to share resources and expertise, to work together on things like staff recruitment and training and hiring specialized services?
And for DFNAs to work as true and respected partners to the rest of the child welfare system, instead of being treated as Cinderella stepchildren.
These problems aren’t new. They’ve been analyzed and studied for years. Small wonder many of Monday’s presenters were skeptical that this panel will change anything.
“I hope this is a consultation process — not just paying lip service,” said Steinhauer.
“You are change makers,” added Judy McGilvery, from Saddle Lake.
“Hear our voices. Help us help our kids.”
Recruitment is very difficult. There’s no housing money for families, let alone professionals coming to communities.